bubba

I'm not using TOT or True, but I am using a D-Link 624+ and have had no problems. Set-up is browser based and simple even for first-timers (as I was). It supports 802.11g and has WEP encryptation and the range is quite good. A couple of weeks ago, I saw stacks of them at the top floor computer supermarket in Panthip for 2500 baht (paid 4200 for mine a few months earlier at the networking gear place across from the corner Apple Centre store). By the way the networking gear shop just mentioned has a very good selection of routers and wireless hubs, and some knowledgable staff.

By the way, any wireless router/hub should work with any ISP. It's only the modem that comes before it that might be questionable.

So what's a new T630 going for over at MBK these days? I saw one at the local mobile shop across the soi from my condo and they wanted 9.2k baht.

PadThai:

I am using the Sipphone thing for calls from Thailand to the UK and USA fairly regularly. Yes, there is a slightly perceptible lag, but it is not really bad enough to be annoying. After using it for about 5 hours or so, I have not yet had a dropped call. One caveat: I use it with a 128k "broadband" (not very broad!) connection, and it looks like it is consuming about 100k of up and down. I guess it might adjust audio sampling rate depending on connection speed, as some applications such as this does.

You have to buy a minimum of US$10 of time to get started. If you buy $20, they actually give you one free five minute call each day. Might be worth a try at that rate anyway.

hi'

Skype is far the best

and now house call from PC possible, and better than this, available for Linux

francois

Francois:

I have never used Skype, since they do not offer a Mac OSX version. But I am curious, why is Skype "far the best"?

Thanks Ill try it!.. I forgot to mention I'm on a Mac (OS 10.3) . I downloaded a copy of Xten SIP phone. Which is compataible with Mac's but a wee bit confusing setting it up. But I wont give up yet! Anyone out there into Macs?

I am on Mac OSX 10.3.4 and have been using Sipphone with now problems. The Xten client really should not require configuration, but you may have to fiddle with some router and firewall settings. If I can help anyone, just send me a PM.

Sipphone provides free computer to computer and 800 calls to the USA. The latter can be a major baht saver if you have to call back to your bank or a company with an 800 number, since otherwise you would be paying the usual rate from Thailand. Calls to the USA are now 2.3 cents/minute, and Sipphone have a promotion where if you purchase at least $20 of calling, you get one free five minute call to the following countries:

USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, UK, Ireland, Italy, San Marino, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Chile, and Argentina.

Audio quality has been fine for me, with only a bit of lag, which is definitely tolerable at these prices!

And here is what it looks like:

New iPod

I have considering buying an I-Pod for a long time before I decided againt it. Too expensive, and its widely known that the I-Pod battery is useless after a year and in older models irreplacable. I'm not sure about the newer models, but before purchasing them (from a recognized Apple dealer of course), make sure to inquire about the battery problem and on the duration of the warranty. And do not use the low quality ear buds that come with the eye pod, spend a few baht on a decent pair. You will notice the difference.

I eventually picked up a Sony MP3 Walkmen for B5000. It claims to have up to 100 hours of listening time on one charge of the battery. I have surpassed 50 hours and the battery is still going. You can fit 100 to 200 songs on one data cd depending on the format. So, you can likely fit your entire mp3 collection on 10 to 20 discs.

B5000 compared to B20,000 was quite an easy decision for me.

Widely known? Sheesh, the iPod battery thing has become practically an urban myth. Suggest you read this.

And comparing a Sony Walkman mp3 player to an iPod is not exactly apples and oranges. But if you don't mind carrying 20 discs along with a large, clunky device, with no PC interfceability, then you have made the correct buying decision.

"And do not use the low quality ear buds that come with the eye pod, spend a few baht on a decent pair. You will notice the difference."

But you don't have an iPod, right?

As for criticising WMP9 (or 10) its the only group in MS that seems to have direction and knows how to court a user community.. I work (unpaid) closely with the media division and I have not seen as much of a 'borgless' group of out of the box thinkers ever in the MS culture.. Next generation DVD (WMVHD).. High def.. serious audiophile codecs... etc.. Plus they are trying to find the way to allow us to back our media up and fighting hollywierd all the way on thier vision of a pay per view futire..

MS courting a user community?? Fighting Hollywood?

MS wants to kill iPods with their own brand of personal player, based on a technology called Janus. Janus will allow for "time expiration" of downloaded music, so by Microsoft's scheme, you could be paying subscriptions to Redmond for music you have paid to download. (Think: "pay per listen") Since Janus is proprietary, no other portable music player not sold by MS would be able to play those files, unless of course the device maker pays MS for rights.

And then before this, Microsoft tried to "kill" the mp3 format with their own proprietary WMA format. Of course, you cannot play WMA files on an iPod, and you can only stream WMA from Micorosoft servers (with a few trivial exceptions).

And if you want to use a fully functional version of Windows Media Player? That's right, you have to buy Windows.

None of this is exactly courting this user's community.

I have not tried these specifically but Sennhieser generally put out great equipment.. I have seen a few headphone amps for the ipod (I hear it puts out a slightly low voltage) that can improve its sound...

Not sure what you mean by headphone amps "that can improve its sound", but presumably you mean to boost its output and make it louder.

The iPod sold in EU countries [only] has a software based output limiter, since the EU have a rule limiting the amount of output on portable audio devices. (Don't you love how much the EU caes about you?) There is an easy hack to remove that, and then I think an iPod is plenty loud.

and more...

Description:

Paul has reported some vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, allowing malicious people to bypass security restrictions and potentially compromise a vulnerable system.

http://secunia.com/advisories/12048/

and also think about using an alternative to windows media player .

aww...screw it. Why not just take it a step farther and go for an alternative to Windoze!

Well, there are good places, but no cheap places to purchase an iPod in BKK. I like the Apple store in Discovery Centre. I think iPods are pretty much sold at list price everywhere, and you won't find a 20 gig one for much less than 20k.

Regarding headphones, I fly a lot on business and the iPod is a constant companion. I am not especially keen on any of the in-ear buds, so I purchased the Sennheiser PXC250 noise cancelling headphones. These cans are very light, fold for travel and they sound reasonable after a short break-in period. The most amazing part is the noise cancelling feature. Switch that on, and instantly nearly all the background airplane rumble is gone. These sell for about US$100 in the USA and Hong Kong. Sim Leng Plaza in Singapore had then for about US$140. Who knows what kind of exorbitant price they sell for in Bangkok, if you could find them.

Count me in as an iPod lover as well, particularly here in Thailand where it can be hard to come by the music that you want. Only problem is the price of iPods here, I suppose due to all the taxes and funny money that transacts during import.

In Thailand, the 20 gig iPod costs 20k baht. In the USA or Hong Kong, it costs about 14.5k baht. That difference would almost pay for a day trip to HKG on one of those cheap 6000 baht Orient Thai flights.

I have been using Sipphone. The Sipphone application is free and allows for free calls between computers (both Mac and PC) and 800 numbers in the USA. Calls to normal phones in the USA (from anywhere) cost 2.8 cents/minute right now, and the quality is great.

I noticed that True specifically states that you are only allowed a connection to one computer, and they go on to discuss a fine if they discover you to have more than one computer connected.

The question is this: does anyone have a router connected to True broadband service? Does True use MAC filtering for a specific machine so that you cannot add a router or connect a different computer?

Not to rub salt in the wound, but I just received a quote from Loxinfo for 128/64. Monthly unlimited is 1000 baht/month with free installation. Maybe it would be a good idea to phone up Loxinfo and and try renegotiate your contract?

Many thanks for the helpful replies here. I really appreciate your taking the time to help out with some advice.

The difficult twist here is the immgration officer's requirement that we show eight Thai employees for the last three months. In fact, we do now have eight legitimate Thai employees now, and they show on last month's tax and social security records, so we are wondering whether this alone will satisfy them.

And yes, with regard to the previous poster, it does not seem to make a lot of sense to have the two expat managers leave every 90 days for a visa runs, thus spending company money outside of Thailand, and money that could be better used for pay rises, investment, hiring additional Thai employees, or paying taxable profit dividends to the Thai partners. I won't even begin to attempt sorting out that logic.

If you are applying for a 1 year extension on an 'O' or a 'B'

the 90 day counter automatically restarts when you put in your application.

"It's a new visa," I was told.

If you mean the 90 counter for address reporting, a visa extension does not restart the counter, at least at BOI One Stop and Suan Phlu. I found out the hard way...I thought that turning in all that paperwork for a one year extension (that obviously included my address) would restart the counter. I found out the hard way by turning up 89 days after the visa renewal date, and I was fined. As lopburi points out:

The only acceptable report is a TM.47 (address report) or a TM.6 (arrival card)

Thanks Paul. I am not sure whether the 1 to 4 rule is actually a promulgated rule, but I guess that doesn't really matter. I have also heard 1 to 7. Anyway, I had always thought the Thai/expat ratio was a consideration of the Labour Department when deciding on work permits, not with immigration.

We found that the minimum qualifying wage is 5100 baht. No problem with that, but there is no way to change history and show the extra employee from three months back.

And no way we are going to pay under the table for an unpermitted expat. Complying with the letter of the law has always been our policy, and we have never had a problem. Particularly these days, once you wander from the straight and narrow, your problems really begin. The last thing I want to see is someone in immigration jail. Believe me, I know of cases in other companies where that has happened when a jealous competitor or disgruntled employee blew the whistle.

I got caught on this one last year and fined 2000 baht. Here is what happened:

I reasoned that reporting to immigration to renew one's visa would count as an address report, and the 90 day clock began then. That was on 30 June, and my last entry into Thailand was on 15 June. I carefully counted the days and reported at exactly 90 days since my visa renewal appearance date, expecting there would be no problem. Wrong I was! The appearance for a visa renewal "did not count" and they judged the 90 days from my last entry into Thailand. That's right, although I reported to immigration and filed stacks of paperwork with my current address, that appearance did not count and I was 15 days past the 90 days since my last entry.

Keep this technicality in mind, as I suspect others might be caught on this one, and it is surely an honest mistake. I always keep as legal as possible with all matters immigration, and was honestly trying to comply with the requirements. And BTW, I was told I was "lucky" to only be fined 2000 baht, as the immigration officer told me that they were now checking for this at departure immigration, and the fine if you get caught there is 5000 baht.

Oh, and if you do get "caught" like I did, you get a nice little stamp in your passport that says (in Thai) that you have "overstayed" and been fined. I have no idea why they consider not filing the 90 day address notice as "overstaying".

We are having a bit of a problem with some visa extensions for a renewed work permit. Here is the situation:

We recently filed for renewal of work permits for two expats. As is stated elsewhere here, expats must qualify for a work permit based on several options. In our case, we qualify under the 2M baht registered capital per work permit, and also under the provision for having paid at least 18k in tax during the last tax year. No problem there.

But the problem came at immigration. We are a small, high-tech company with only seven Thai and two expat employees. The immigration office examining our visa extension application said that all was in order, except we did not have an adequate number of Thai employees to justify two expats. We pointed out that we qualified under the work permit rules, and the officer understood that but explained that at immigration they have "basic guidance" that requires four Thai employees for every expat, and that we must demonstrate that for the last three months with the employee tax and social security records.

Personally, I have never heard of anyone having a problem like this with immigration, although I understand that Labour can be sticky about work permits. At this point, we are looking at the possibility of Immigration only issuing us one visa extension, thus meaning one expat would have to be sacked and sent home.

Anyone else here had a similar situation. and is there some sort of alternative?

The news article notes that Immigration will begin enforcing the reporting requirement commencing the end of November in Phuket, but they have been enforcing the requirment for more than a year in Bangkok.

Just a clarification to the rule, and a misunderstaning that got me:

Reporting to immigration to extend or renew your visa does NOT satisfy the 90 day address reporting requirment. I thought it did, and waited until about 85 days following the renewal or my visa and work permit (that had been about 100 days since my last trip out of the country). I argued that since I had renewed my visa, I had reported my to immigration with my address within the past 90 days, but I was told "that doesn't count". They were unyielding, not willing to let me go with a warning due to the vagueness of the requirement, and I was led over to the penalty section to pay my 2000 baht. I was also told I was "lucky", since they are now checking at airport immigration for the 90 day reporting form (it has to be in your passport when you leave), and if you are caught, it's a "big problem" and you will be delayed and have to pay a 5000 baht fine.

By the way, if you do get fined for this, you get a lovely stamp in your passport, in Thai, that says you have "overstayed" and been fined. Kind of an "overstatement", isn't it?

Here is a link to a local company that sells digital satellite systems that would allow you to receive free to air programming from a number of countries, although you will would not be able to receive the diversity of English language programming that UBC provides. The site is mostly in Thai, but you can view the available programmes by clicking on the frequency list tab:

http://www.psisat.com/home/index.php