petedk

yes I've been getting these messages from several of my contacts. It's mainly from my students who use Hotmail. It seems most people just click on these links without thinking.

I always delete them without even opening.

A little question related to this. One of my close friends has obviously clicked on the link so now I get lots of emails from her with offers of Viagra and other weird products. How can she stop that? Would changing the password help or is it some kind of virus?

Your TV will certainly have HDMI sockets. Your laptop and/or PC may also have such a socket, depending on how old they are. If they do, it's easy: just use a long HDMI cable.

If they dont then you could fit a new video card with HDMI output to your desktop machine, and then use a long HDMI cable.

Or you may find that your TV has a VGA socket, in which case you can connect either of your computers to the TV using a long VGA cable (aka monitor cable), though in that case you would also need a second cable for the sound.

HDMI needs only one cable and is far and away the simplest way to do it, assuming your PCs are so equipped.

I connect my laptop to the TV with a 2 meter long HDMI cable whenever I want to watch films.

Is it possible to buy longer HDMI cables , say about 5 metres? Then I could have my PC permanently connected.

Have you ever noticed that some people don't bother to answer the phone? They just sit there looking at it until the caller stops ringing. Drives me crazy sometimes.

Can you imagine this tune blaring away on the MRT, BTS or in a restaurant because the owner can't be bothered to answer?

Well, at my uncle's house in Nontaburi, I didn't get any Internet signals at all for two days. Must be the weather and the floods causing all that...

At my parent's house at Samut Prakan it's okay though...

Yeah it must be the floods. Makes me realise i need an extra satelite internetconnection for my business in case the mainline will be disrupted.

Yes I have noticed this over the past two weeks or so.

Not only that but I keep getting disconnected every 10 minutes or so.

Me too, the router loses the adsl signal twice each hour or so.

Where are you located?

I am located on Thong Lor. I am away for a few days and will contact True when I return.

Yes I have noticed this over the past two weeks or so.

Not only that but I keep getting disconnected every 10 minutes or so.

"< We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.>"

Yesterday, I was introduced to 2 university English teachers both of which were Thai. We had a short conversation because I could not understand what they were saying. They could not put a simple sentence together to answer a general question or make an intelligent understandable comment. Makes one wonder, if the professors cannot speak english then why would we expect the students to speak english? :jap:

Does anyone expect the students to speak English? I teach English majors and most of them speak reasonably well but some cannot put a simple sentence together. Here is an example of a conversation I had with a fourth year English major student who will graduate next semester. She missed a small test because she overslept.

"Teacher I....I .... I....... Teacher I want test. I......."

"Ok see me at half past two"

"ok teacher thank you"

At 8.30 she calls me on the phone

"teacher where?"

"I am in a meeting"

"Teacher I office you. You meet me two thirty."

"Yes but it's now 8.30" (I suddenly realise she's translating the Thai "song mong khreung".) So I replied in Thai "Bai song mong khreung"

"oh teacher cannot. Have class"

"Ok. What time do you finish"

" Four ... four.... er four and a half."

I'm not allowed to fail them. She'll go out with a degree in a few months stating that she can speak English.

What do you mean by recycling centers?

Take a walk down Suhumvit 36 (I think) and there are huge depots buying paper and metal. There are always people selling stuff there.

As I said I think it's Soi 36 but it's the one that goes all the way from Rama 4 to Sukhumvit.

I love this phone but there is one little thing bugging me.

I've tried making video calls with four or five different people on different networks but have never been successful. I myself, use AIS and I've tried with other AIS users and with True users. Each time I get a "not supported on network" error.

I used to use Nokia E72 and tried with an iMobile sim card when they introduced 3G and it worked perfectly. Any ideas why it doesn't work?

I'm not wild about making video calls but I simply hate when things don't work as they should.

I'm so confused about all the new rules regarding a health certificate.

I read in an earlier posting that they now require blood type on the certificate. On Friday I was told that ""Applicant must present Medical certificate showing that the

applicant is not insane or mentally sick, suffer from Leprosy,

Tuberculosis, Drug Addiction, Alcoholism, Elephantitus and Tertiary

Syphilis (issued within the last six months)."

How do they test for Elephantitis? Sounds scary to me?

A foreign company can set up a Representative Office within Thailand. Work permits can then be obtained for foreign staff working within it.

There is no need for the 51/49% ownership rules and no paid up capital is required.

There are, of course, a number of restrictions, the main one being that the Rep Office cannot generate income within Thailand.

Yes...and your point is ?

That it is currently possible to obtain a work permit without working for a Thai company, which fits in with the opening paragraph of the article. It may be something that not everyone is aware of.

So how does that work then? You set up a Rep office (which cannot generate any income), a WP is then obtained thru this Rep company . . . that member of staff then needs to be paid, does that income have to come solely from an overseas account? What about the requirements to show you having paid Income Tax in Thailand on any salary to maintain that WP? Is that not then "income" thru the Rep office?

Don't forget to get a health certificate stating that you don't have leprosy, elephantitis, or are mentally insane. I'm applying for a work permit next week and was told I need a certificate to verify this.

Incidentally, I use Gmail and have done so since it's early days and never had any problems until about two weeks ago when I opened my account a saw a red message bar " Your account has been accessed from an address in Argentina".

I checked and yes someone had accessed my account from an IP address in Argentina but the time was the same time that I had Gmail open. Anyway I immediately changed the password and as far as I can see no damage has been done.

If you are using a mobile to login then a change of simcard may produce the same error messages. It happened to many times before I realised what was wrong.

As for the "Unknown error" message. I have had similar messages from Hotmail when I try to log off. Sometimes I can't log off. I have no idea why but I don't really care as I don't use Hotmail for serious emailing.

Try Googling the error and see what comes up.

AIS and TOT entered into a mutual roaming agreement the day after the election. It's supposed to take effect "from the beginning of October", but maybe it kicked in early.

TOT will allow 60,000 AIS 3G customers to roam onto their 2100 Mhz 3G network in greater Bangkok, in turn AIS will allow 200,000 TOT 3G customers to roam onto AIS's national voice network, and 10,000 TOT 3G customers to roam onto AIS's national data network.

I believe end-user pricing is transparent, that is to say, customers will not pay extra for roaming. At least that's how I understand this arrangement. Also, not sure how they meter the number of customers?

Hence the OP can get 3G at SBIA, where AIS may not have coverage currently, using an AIS/One-2-Call SIM on 2100 Mhz.

Interesting. I remember reading sometime ago about this roaming agreement between AIS and TOT but had forgotten completely about it.

I am presently in an area with poor 3G reception from AIS so I turned the "Allow data roaming " on and Hey Presto I picked up a 3G signal. I did a speed test and received a download speed of 3216 kbps against the 751 kbps before data roaming.

I am also on an unlimited data package but I have a question regarding data roaming. How does data roaming actually work? I know that if I can't get a strong AIS 3G signal I will pick up TOT's signal but how do I know it's TOT's and not True. I wouldn't want to pick up True without knowing and then get a huge bill at the end of the month?

I'm sure I read a few months ago that Thaksin is now concentrating his investments on oil and gas.

Whilst searching for this information I read on several websites that Thaksin and Hun Sen were close to signing an agreement on the sharing of the oil fields. On one of the sites they claim that "In early 2006 Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen and Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra concluded a secret oil deal to personally share "under the table" a portion of royalties to be paid by oil exploitation companies. Those companies had been exploring very promising offshore oil and gas deposits in the Gulf of Thailand, including in the overlapping zones claimed by both Cambodia and Thailand."

I don't know if I am allowed to post the link here or not and i must admit I don't know that particular website, whether it is genuine or not.

If it is true then we know why Thaksin is in such a hurry to complete the deal.

i'm under True and the link http://en.justin.tv works just fine...

Ok I can open their homepage but when I try to login with username and password I get the MICT message.

Have you tried logging in?

Using True and just got the following message.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

The page you are trying to visit has been blocked by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology.

For more information, please contact Ministry of Information and Communication Technology

120 Moo 3, floor 6, Government Complex Commemorating His Majesty the Kings 80th Birthday

Changwattana Road, Laksi, Bangkok 10210 Tel. 02-141-6950

I remember visiting Madame Tussauds in London as a kid and while queuing to get in there were vendors walking up and down hawking cans of Coke for a quid.

This was in 1977.

Yes, but that price was for everyone.

I find more and more people are trying the two tier price system. I usually refuse to pay farang price but what with motorbikes, taxis, mom and pop stores joining the bandwagon it's becoming more and more annoying.

AIS 3G just seems to keep degrading for me, to the point where it is nearly useless. Was stuck in traffic yesterday evening around 6PM at Asoke-Sukhumvit, with full signal strength and 3G indicated, but \ could not get any bandwidth at all to simply do a reply to a very urgent email. I couldn't load a single web page....nothing...nada. Completely frustrating! About fifteen minutes on, I noticed that my iPhone showed an EDGE connection rather than 3G and I was able to eek out enough bandwidth to send an email, but no more than that.

I seriously need to get switched out of AIS 3G, and be warned if you are thinking of subscribing to them.

I still can't figure out if AIS 3G works for you, with multi-Mega bits per second speeds, in any other locations or at any other times? You've related two instances, and in this latest one; "stuck in traffic at Asoke", it's easy to imagine the base-stations there getting overloaded as there are thousands of people (MRT, BTS, Bus, auto) all saturating one location. I'm not certain DTAC or Truemove would be any better in that situation? But you should try DTAC and Truemove SIMs as it is so easy to do, and if happy you can port your number.

Also, you do get free WiFi, so maybe sort out the username (typically your AIS number) and password, and check for WiFi APs when desperate for connectivity. I am sure AIS and/or 3BB have APs all along Sukhumvit.

I too have an unlimited data plan with AIS and often get good speeds at Asoke. Yesterday however, I seemed to have problems loading webpages in the afternoon. Maybe just some technical problems.

As for WiFi, I seem to have difficulty in locating either AIS or 3BB access points. I can locate True almost everywhere and at the moment True WiFi is super fast.

Secondly there is no surcharge for night or for rain.

Maybe there is no surcharge for night or rain but even in Bangkok many taxi drivers try it on when it rains, quoting 300 baht for a normal 60 baht ride.

Some motorcycles on Asoke insist on doubling fees after 4 pm (previously 6 pm).

read the last line. very unusual.

Police said they were attempting to determine the man's identity and searching for the murderer.

Another point coming up is that the university has previously given 8000 baht a year to each member of the foreign staff towards paying for a private health insurance. Now that they have (or should have) introduced us to the social security system they will stop the 8000 baht and deduct the mentioned 750 baht a month.

Our private insurance expires at the beginning of October so at that time we will be uninsured. If we have to pay about 15,000 to 20,000 out of our own pockets (after the 750 baht is also deducted) then that is a considerable expense for us. Remember we are government employees on a (low) government salary.

It could be considered a criminal violation of the law simply for the university not to have you registered, one that you may be unwittingly party to (in terms of your own responsibility to be signed up to the system considering your employment). It is not optional. Remind your office people about this while you are asking them to focus their minds about where the supposed fees went off to.

That's an interesting point. I'll take it up with my colleagues (if they haven't already read this thread )

Or is it:

- Employer is deducting (as they probably should be doing to follow the appropriate regulations etc.)

- Money is going to the social security office but doesn't get matched to their member list, but there is no follow up.

Let's be realistic, Thai government offices (and in many other counties too) are not that good at follow up, unless there is a very specific procedure to follow. Nobody, in a Thai gov't office would decide out of their own initiative to follow up. In fact they risk a severe smack if they did follow up without specifically being instructed to do so.

Yes I think this is what is happening. The money is being deducted but not going into any particular account at the Social Security. We have asked them to stop deducting the money until the problems are sorted out but they claim it's too difficult.

Can't you just opt out of the SS program?

I would think since you are not a Thai citizen you can claim you have

a SS program in place via your home country. Also you probably already carry your own health insurance no?

No. A few of us didn't want to join in the first place but we were told it was compulsory.

labour department? can they assist in a matter like this?

Yes, that is also one of the possibilities we are considering but we have a doubts that they can help.

We have spoken to Social Security and they were very helpful but as no application has been received they can't do more. They suggested we talk to our accounting department and try to find out where the money is going.

We tried to meet the Accounting Manager (or Finance President as he is called here) but were blocked by his staff. Our Department Head has also said that all communication must go through her. The problem is nothing happens. The money is STILL being deducted.

At the moment we are waiting to sign our yearly contract and then we will probably just march over to the Finance Department and demand to get some kind of response. I know Thai people always say that you should keep calm and be polite to get things done but we have tried that for so long now and nothing is happening.

Since it appears to be theft, consider filing a police report or at least threaten to do so.

The trouble is "who is stealing?".. We can't find out where the money is going.

We have been advised by a member of the Thai staff to sue the Finance department for deducting the money.

Suing the Finance Dept works for me. At the highest level it's the University that's stealing and that's the rectors problem, filing a police report against the University or the rector might be one approach.

Yes, that seems to be the only option.

I forgot to mention one thing. Our employment contracts are up for renewal in September so we are keeping a low profile until we have signed the new contracts.

Since it appears to be theft, consider filing a police report or at least threaten to do so.

The trouble is "who is stealing?".. We can't find out where the money is going.

We have been advised by a member of the Thai staff to sue the Finance department for deducting the money.