schmutzie

We've been looking for a nice dog to join us in our big comfy house.

Traversing Chatuchak 2-3 weekends and not really seeing what we're after.

I know I'll probably get flak for this, but I'm not looking for a high-priced pedigree w/ multiple certificates.

My girlfriend prefers small, whilst I'm more into something you can grab hold of. The goofier the better.

Seriously though, any good alternatives to Chatuchak? Kennels etc. also an option. My preference is a golden

retriever at the moment. They had a few last weekend at Chatuchak but this time I couldn't see any.

Wow, thanks for posting this.

I have been wrestling with the same problem today. It's been quite frustrating. But your solution seems to have worked!

Any idea why?

Sorry, no idea right now, but it was sort of the last option left.

Do you have any idea why it's clamped at 896kbps upstream?

Scrap that. Just switched to WPA2(AES) on the router and all seems good now.

Funky.

BTW, True Customer Services whilst not being able to solve my problem (after all they're clearly just using troubleshooting diagrams)

were pretty good throughout and I've cancelled the technician they booked to come out tomorrow.

We're received a 1-port "nlink" branded WiFi router to go with our True Premium Pack 4mbit/1mbit.

I can not get this to work with multiple devices concurrently - only one device is able to connect at a time.

NOTE: We've had this working without any changes to the clients (all Mac/Apple brand BTW) before on a

True setup using a Zyxel router.

After the delivery guys failure to setup the device I had a long chat with True Customer Services.

They advised me to change the security settings to WPA using Pre-Shared Key and IIRC one or two

other things. That got the WIFi working alright, but only for one device at a time.

I then called today, and was advised to try WPA(TKIP) and to change the authentication mode

to "Open Systems". Still no joy. Whenever a second device tries to join the network, both that

and the originally connected device bomb out. Eventually the first device reconnects once any other

device stops its attempts at creating a connection.

Here are the current settings:

Wireless Enabled

Band 802.11 b+g

Mode AP

Broadcast SSID Enabled

root

Status Enabled

SSID XXXXXXXX

Authentication Mode Open System

Encrypt Mode WPA (TKIP)

WPA Authentication Mode Personal(Pre-Shared Key)

Pre-Shared Key Format Passphrase

Pre-Shared Key XXXXXXXX

Also, this router seems to be limited to 896kbps upstream.

Call me pedantic, but I paid for speeds of upto 1024kbps or 1mbit.

Why did they provide me with a router that's not spec'ed for that...

This should not be painful and feeling slightly embarrassed as I'm supposed to know

a little about things like this.

I was lucky enough to get a call from True that they were now able to provide me with Internet after a few days of quite depressing turn-downs by both and 3bb. They had both maxed out capacity apparently.

Anyway, I went with the 4mbit/1mbit Premier pack as it included the WiFi box for free an truewifi access for a couple hundred baht more. I've sometimes struggled with sending out attachments an I just thought the extra bit of bandwitdh would help.

Has anyone who has upgraded noticed any decisive difference between the Standard and Premier service?

I'm prepared to realise that I may just have bought some numbers on a colorful brochure.

I'm also aware that the advertised speeds are only for Thailand.

Allow me to get something off my chest:

I have long been muttering to myself to get a lump sum transferred to my Kasikorn account.

Having watched the GBP get decimated recently I noticed a small rise last week and decided

to finally call (since my Natwest Online Banking account does not allow me to do international

transfers) the customer service line.

They informed me that they are not authorised to do SWIFT transfers, but that I would have to

physically go and visit a Natwest branch OR send my local branch a signed letter.

Asking them if they had a fax I could send this to, they answered "unfortunately, we do not have

this facility".

So next day I was off to DHL and paid 1122 THB to send an express letter to my Natwest branch

asking them to please perform a service for which they charge 10 GBP. I'm gobsmacked.

And I have little confidence they won't cock it up along the way - I can imagine the frowning going

on in the back office as they receive this strange "scam letter" from Thailand.

Apparently had I been a Private Banking customer they could have transferred me in a few seconds.

To be a Private Banking customer requires 75000GBP income or 100000GBP liquid assets.

Combine this with a long string of mistakes, cock-ups and being lied to by managers (6 years ago

the manager of my local branch guaranteed me that ALL banks in the UK had a turnaround time of

3 weeks for a new credit card. I went up the road to HSBC who gave me a new account, a credit card

and debit card incl., in about 5 working days).

On a trip to Brazil I spent 25GBP on calls to have them unblock my debit card because the security pre-checks

on their customer service line took 5 minutes to get through.

Natwest is probably the biggest joke in banking I have come across. Their staff at branch level are well-meaning

and on occasion even intelligent. However, they seem to have no power and are left with a back office and IT system that is inept

and run by someone who does not understand how to service people.

You may ask, why don't I just change bank? they gave a generous overdraft a while back and I'm counting on that

when things go tits up. I think I'll want to switch to HSBC soon though.

Sorry, lots of misplaced, pent up rage. But what a joke...

A suspended gypsum board ceiling with exposed aluminum T-Bar? If so, remove the panels and spray paint them. Reinstate the panels after a day of drying.

Not sure if that's the right pro description, but basically an alu grid with white gypsum tiles (approx 40x40cm or something).

I've seen people simply splash a layer of white paint over both tiles and alu, which obviously looks a bit sloppy.

I think the tiles themselves could be cleaned. But for consistency I was looking to paint both them and the alu.

The suggestion about attaching larger tiles/boards seems attractive. The long term idea was to replace the ceiling in a similar way. Not sure if the alu will hold larger tiles though. Even the current small ones seem quite heavy.

I have had good luck with Bank of Autthya (sp?).

They bring up the usual screen, saying this transaction will have a fee, but in their case the fee is stated as "0 THB"

See for yourself. This was not the case however with one of their ATMs on Koh Chang and I'm not sure if they roll in a surcharge in some other way.

Does anyone know how to do a nice job of painting one of these office type modular ceilings that are favored in a lot of Thai house as a second false ceiling? Probably best I don't start sanding the aluminium, so not sure of spray painting is the way to go...

Apart from accusations of general uselessness:

Does anyone know somewhere they either stock or someone who could knock up a couple of fairly sturdy trestle tables, say with a 200x100 top? Legs could be metal or wood. Top should be wood. Oh, and deliver them too...?

These are just for use as office tables. Not looking for overpriced Muji-style stuff or similar.

In the past I've used simple metal trestles from a building site. But I don't now where such can be had here.

I'm going to have a look round meself, just wondering if anyone spotted such things at a good price.

They bother with that or you would not get an entry stamp for Thailand - it is checked.

You are correct - I assumed something where they had cut a deal with both sides to eliminate red tape.

FWIW, here's what happens as per my experience:

Arrive at bus pick up in Bangkok and hand over passport plus one passport photo.

Fill in current address and sign visa app in multiple places. The company fills in the rest of the form for you.

Board bus...pay 2000THB.

3 hours later arrive at Thai-Cambo border (Boipet).

Your passport is returned and you are instructed to make a note of your passport number.

Walk through Thai immigration and hand back passport to tour company.

Walk to Cambo immigration and fill in small immigration form (this is why you need to have a note of your passport number)

Hand back form and exit.

Taxi pick up to nearby hotel (500m)

Eat and relax for 1-2 hours

Taxi pickup and return to border.

Before crossing back over the border your passport is returned with your new Thai stamp or visa (in my case, 90 days permission to stay)

Cross border and board bus.

Return to Bangkok.

The short answer: Do your maths...

If you're a frequent visitor or a big spender it might make sense to do a lump sum transfer either via FX service or SWIFT.

I roughly calculate 600THB overhead on every ATM transaction of 12000THB whic is equiv to my daily withdrawel limit.

On a side note, I have noticed that the Bank of Ayutthaya (yellow) ATMs do not seem to add a 150THB surcharge...

So how much money will you need and what are your expectations vis a vis the FX rate?

As someone who's here for the longterm I'm looking to ge out of the ATM withdrawel nightmare and transfer a larger sum in order to also hedge against a very volatile GBP. That may not be a concern to you.

For a SWIFT transfe you should open a Thai bank account. I only have experience with Kasikorn who in 15 minutes arranged an account costing me 600THB for the debit/VISA card whIch was isssued on the spot. They also required a 500THB deposit. Of course I brought my passport along.

I think your main issue will be if you have a permanent address Herr, but to be honest they did not seem too fussed with the details of this and certainly did not request proof.

Give them a valid mobile number and email so they can setup telebanking and internet banking.

I would highly recommend them.

Thanks for your replies.

FWIW, I'm booked to go on a border run tomorrow at 2000THB all incl. (incl. Cambo visa, although I'm not sure they even bother with that).

I should be back in BKK with a new 90 day stamp at 2pm!!!

You will get 90 days when you return.

You will need to pay for a Visa to enter Cambodia.

If you do a border run just before your Visa expires you will get another 90 days making a total of almost 15 months.

So the plan I have works, ie. go tomorrow (on date of expiry of my permission to stay) and come back same day with a new 90 day period?

Sorry, I forgot about having to pay for Cambo visa. Is this paid in USD or can I pay in THB or VISA?

go to immigration and get a 30 day extension cost 1900 baht, then you go do visa run after, best to do 2 or 3 days before visa runs out.

I don't think you can extend beyond 90 days, but could be wrong.

The idea behind the 1 year multiple entry was that it worked out slightly cheaper than doing the 60 day visa plus extension fees.

Sorry about this, but I have searched the forum and just need confirmation of a concern with regards to my current visa:

I have a multiple entry "O" type visa. First entry was Dec 26th and permission to stay date is Mar 25th.

I was planning on doing a visa run to Cambodia using a bus service from Bangkok tomorrow.

Q:

Will I be able to get a new 90 day period using a border run service as described above (some visa extensions/renewals seem to require that you exit/enter via air)?

I had a nagging fear that maybe if my current permit to stay was still valid, the border immigration would not issue a new 90 day period but simply allow me to re-enter with the still valid permit to stay. I now assume this is incorrect - they will always issue a new 90 day period?

I will not have to pay any fee for the new 90 day period stamp (worried that border run agent may try and convince me otherwise)?

Mar 25th is definitely the date that I MUST leave the country - meaning I do not have to leave on Mar 24th and Mar 26th would mean I have overstayed?

Stupid basic questions, but first time I'm doing this and just had a shock as I thought I was permitted here until Mar 26th (good thing I bothered to check!)

I've recently rented a studio in a block that uses Wireless BKK for their internet service. You buy a 2Mbit login for 30 days.

The service works fine under Windows7 (Bootcamp on Macbook)

However, the service bombs out after 5-15 minutes, sometimes more or less, when accessed from Snow Leopard on the same Macbook. After a restart the service works again, but will inevitably bomb out again. Seems to get more aggravated when running Mail app which accesses my gmail account, but that might just be me seeing voodoo.

I'm checking the logs, but my guess is that they've simply not bothered testing their access system against Mac OSX.

We're waiting for an answer form their Tech Support, which I suspect will be along the lines of "we'll try and fix it - in the meantime just keep restarting".

Any ideas?

1. AFAIK, you probably need to add the location of the eviacam installer location to the list of sources for apt-get in /etc/apt/sources.list
   Then, without any promises:
   

Yes I need to do this it seems but how do I go about it?

1. 
   

I'm assuming this is a flat text file that you can edit, try:

> cat /etc/apt/sources.list

if the output is simply a list of paths/web locations (as in web repositories) you'll just need to add the location of the eviacam installer (I'm guessing here).

To do this, simply open the file in a text editor, eg. nedit:

> cp -p /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak

> nedit /etc/apt/sources.list

add the path to the eviacam installer (eg. /var/tmp), save the file and close nedit

Sunday is fast approaching and assuming the other poster is booked to help you out, maybe you are better off waiting for that.

Don't worry, whilst all this seems troublesome, it's really not as hard as it sounds. There are many howto's on the web which I'm sure you can locate.

You could also try and mail the guy that actually makes/wrote eviacam, but he will most likely assume you are confident doing the above stuff.

It's frustrating, but you're learning...

OK, well done for trying. I kinda worried that dkpg was too vague to be used here. I should have suggested apt-get instead, but thought dkpg was worth a go.

If you're feeling more adventurous, I'd google a bit on apt-get and how to use it (you always just type 'man apt-get' to get the sometimes not so helpful unix manual pages). I think you can work it out.

How did you 'update everything'?

AFAIK, you probably need to add the location of the eviacam installer location to the list of sources for apt-get in /etc/apt/sources.list

Then, without any promises:

> apt-get install eviacam

should make apt-get try and install eviacam and to try and solve the dependencies,

alternatively, you could try and run apt-get on those individual packages descibed above, eg.:

> apt-get install libhighgui1

etc. etc. - and then retry:

> apt-get install eviacam

again, I doubt this will work unless you've previously added the eviacam location to the list of sources that apt-get checks.

One thing I did spot was dkpg can screw up a bit when it runs into dependencies and try and install the package regardless, and create a little mess.

But let's assume all is well and try apt-get first.

Surprised no-one else is chiming in here. I'm sure there are better Ubuntu/Linux advisers than me, but thanks for playing along so far!

OK, sounds good.

Did you try running it, as I suggested in my first reply, ie. try just typing

> viacam

or

> eviacam

in the terminal? If it doesn't produce anything, then try

> which viacam

or

> which eviacam

and then see if you can deduce from the output from those commands where the executable lives in your Ubuntu install.

Thanks for your super sharp response, but if you had taken the time to read my OP you would have seen the comment in the foot of your last paragraph applies in this case.

Failure i don't think so, I pick up my MBP Friday FOC

Was this meant for me? I don't get it. I read your OP. I stand by my comment: Expect failure, so protect against it.

You state that your laptop is now in BKK for repair. Since it requires repair that to me would imply that it has a fault.

You did not state whether this service was provided under AppleCare or whether you had purchased this or not. Only the purchase date.

Good luck and I hope you will have a perfectly working MBP by Friday.

Well if you are into the beauty of designing 90 degree structures this is the place. I think the soviets had better architecture.

Where individual buildings might seem to have little to offer, BKK as a city is one of the most mind-bending and interesting places I've come across. Urbanism is also architecture.

What is it you're looking for specifically? I would contact the major universities in BKK. Buy the latest Wallpaper mag which has features on various design related faculties.

I also just spotted that Art4D has a graduate show booklet included in its current issue. Watching these shows might not only give you an idea what goes on at the various faculties

but give you an idea of what an Arch degree tries to teach (from a BKK/Thai perspective).

Most Summer Schools are really recruitment drives - to market the school brand abroad and tempt well-off families to send their kids to these institutions. But they can still be a lot of fun I guess.

Maybe you could PM me - and anyone else who has an interest. I have been toying with the idea of setting up some sort of Guerilla Arch course, but I'm not sure I can promise you that it'll be what you expect. But if there's an interest, maybe that's the motivation I'll need.

Don't confuse engineering/construction with architecture though. The disciplines overlap, but architecture courses tend to focus on the design process, rather than how the thing will actually "stand up".

That's very lucky. I don't see how anyone could expect Apple or an Apple affiliate to support a PC component when you haven't purchased a warranty.

That's why they sell AppleCare and this should be in anyone's budget when shopping for Macs.

The only exception is when a systemic failure, eg. a batch of faulty motherboards or batteries are detected, in which case Apple will usually offer a replacement program. But this rarely happens until major customer dissatisfaction has been registered or petitioned.

Having said that, the general build quality seems much better these days.

But expect failure - it's really something that applies to all PC hardware which is essentially what a Mac is.

Sorry if this comes across as a wise-ass comment.

/var/tmp was just an example I used. Replace that path with wherever you downloaded the .deb file to.

So for a start, you need to specifically tell me/us where and how you are downloading the eviacam .deb?

Like I already stated, if you are not downloading within Ubuntu, then the downloaded file will reside on your Windows7 partition and you won't be able to "see it" from the Ubuntu side AFAIK.

Assuming you could clarify the above, and you know which path you saved the .deb file to, try something like:

> cd <path_where_you_saved_eviacam_installer>

> dpkg -i <name_of_eviacam_deb_file>

If that fails, post the output of the dpkg command here, if possible.