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Lannig

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Posts posted by Lannig

    Someone in FR/EU to carry tablet to Thailand?

    in General Topics

    Posted

    Hello folks,

    I'm stuck here in FR until April and I need to ship an Android tablet I've bought here to Thailand. It's a gift I want to make.

    Normally I would be planning for my trip in early January, but it won't happen this year ????

    I've read enough horror stories about shipping over int'l postal services to make me reluctant to do so. Lost/stolen, broken on arrival, held for taxes etc.

    It will really be my last resort.

    In the meantime I wonder if a TV member who will be travelling to the LOS over the next month would accept to carry it for me?

    Of course the item will be unpacked, available for careful inspection, unlocked for contents checking (none whatsoever, it will be reset to factory settings). Packaging will be provided to ship it on arrival (EMS to a friend's work address in Pathum Thani). And of course fully paid in advance.

    Giving the item hand to hand in Paris / CDG is preferred, but as an alternative I might ship it to any western EU country.

    If someone can pick it up in Paris or around, I will offer complimentary driving to CDG to show my appreciation.

    Obviously it's a light item (check model: Huawei Mediapad M5 Lite for details)

    Please PM me.

    DTAC WiFi calling

    in Mobile Devices and Apps

    Posted

    Well, I agree that true, native VoWifi is nice and dandy but it's usually restricted to a (very small) set of supported handsets. In Europe, some operators even restrict this further to smartphones bought through their own sales channels.

    So I prefer the DTAC approach of using a separate app which works on just every Android smartphone, by far.

    Especially since this app is surprisingly well done: you can call any contact in your contact list transparently and calls appear in your general call log. Only SMSes are kept apart, which I don't mind.

    It would seem that MMSes are not supported, too, but that's a very minor issue for me.

     

    And I do receive OTP SMSes from my bank this way, too.

    DTAC WiFi calling

    in Mobile Devices and Apps

    Posted

    I'm using DTAC Call all the time, (unfortunately) not being a resident in Thailand anymore and therefore spending most of my time in my home country, and I've never noticed it draining battery on my Samsung J7. And it's active all the time. Weird.

     

    No issue at all with calls and sending/receiving SMSes either. SMS reception is way more reliable and fast than using my DTAC SIM card in roaming. I use this all the time for OTP passwords from my Thai bank.

     

    I did absolutely nothing for being able to use this app and it even worked flawlessly on a Chinese, no-name 50 euros Android smartphone, so I'm pretty sure that there are no special requirements.

     

    I love this app. Changed my life ? ... will look into the AIS equivalent which I didn't know existed, thanks. I also have an AIS SIM.

    DTAC WiFi calling

    in Mobile Devices and Apps

    Posted · Edited by Lannig

    I'm resuscitating this old thread to share a gem I've discovered a few months ago: DTAC now has an application that allows you to make/receive calls and SMSes over data wherever you are in the world, provided you have a working data connection (wifi of course, but also 3G/4G if you have a local SIM with data). Its name  is "DTAC Call"

    Here's a link to the Android version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=th.co.dtac.wificalling

    It might exist for iOS as well but no fruity thing here (God forbid!) so I can't tell.

    It's different from what was discussed above because it doesn't use the phone's built-in functions for calls and messages. It's a separate, standalone application that has its own dialer and messenging tool.

    As far as I can tell it works with any reasonably recent Android phone.

    But it's great! You may now use your DTAC number when you're abroad for exactly the same call and SMS rates as when you're in Thailand. It can be useful as well when you're in an area without DTAC coverage but there's an usable wifi. There's a simple switch to choose reception of calls and messages to your SIM or to the app. Best of all: it's reliable. Been using it for months and not a single issue as of now.

    You have to create an account and then activate your account with a code received by SMS on your regular SIM. So it has to be done while you're able to use your SIM but hey... receiving SMSes while roaming abroad works so you don't even need to be in Thailand.

    This little gem really changed my life so I thought that it would be nice to share the tip.

    Road deaths rocket by 3,000 as Thailand set to be named world number one in carnage, say academics

    in Thailand News

    Posted

    Failure to quite understand "thainess" (who really does, honestly? even after decades in the country) probably accounts for my being puzzled by the enforcement of mandatory helmets on motorcycles in my remote upcountry place. Basically, it's only:

    - during massive crackdown periods (a couple of weeks, few times a year usually)

    - during daytime

    The rest of time time, absolutely no one wears them.

     

    Best Truck Ford or Toyota!

    in Thailand Motor Discussion

    Posted

    From having questioned a lot of people around me when I was considering the purchase of a pick-up truck, my understanding is that the main reason for people to chose Isuzu over Toyota or Mitsubishi is the lower fuel consumption. Not reliability. As far as I know Toyotas are just as reliable if not more.

    Speedtrap cams flourishing along Asia h/w - any info to share?

    in Thailand Motor Discussion

    Posted

    Still don't understand why the fine was 800 THB for me then.

    That's what was written on the actual police document sent to me by budget (I can read thai). Doctored document by Budget? I kind of doubt they'd be doing that kind of thing.

    Anyway... I drove more than 3,000km altogether on Thai highways during my last stay in Thailand, now hoping they're wont be another mail to coming in from Budget...

    Moblie phones on planes.

    in ASEAN NOW Community Pub

    Posted

    This never, ever has been demonstrated conclusively. Mobile phones have way too low transmitting power to actually interfere with the plane's avionics.

    Ask any knowledgeable person and you'll be told that's not the real reason why people aren't supposed to use their mobile phones during take-off and landing phases. That's because they want people to be attentive and able to listen to the security announcements, be they routine or needed because of some incident.

    Anyway, that's the rule, whatever the actual reason behind this is. It must be observed and I feel better when I see cabin crew carefully enforcing this and asking people to put down their phones. Not all of them do, unfortunately.

    Speedtrap cams flourishing along Asia h/w - any info to share?

    in Thailand Motor Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lannig

    I was on my way back from Sattahip to Kamphaeng Phet last night and just to give it a try I had the Tomtom Safety Cameras app open on my Android. It did seem to know the existence of a couple of cameras along the outer ring road (route 9) but that's pretty much what it knew along the whole 600 km trip.

    Oddly enough, just as I was on the ring road approaching one of these cameras somewhere around the Rangsit/Nakorn Nayok interchange, a car zoomed by me, it must have been doing well over 130 km/h. I expected the flash to go off (it was quite visible) but nothing has happened. Broken?

    Speedtrap cams flourishing along Asia h/w - any info to share?

    in Thailand Motor Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, MatteoBassini said:

    I can share one piece of info.

     

    If you're going to speed, do it at night....

    That's what I was assuming too until that guy I've already mentioned told me that he distinctively saw a flash going off twice at the location of one of the known speedtrap cams along HW#32. So they may not have deployed this flash-equipped model along HW#7 (that's the BKK-Chonburi motorway number isn't it ?) but I hope that you're not up for a suprise soon.

    Speedtrap cams flourishing along Asia h/w - any info to share?

    in Thailand Motor Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Lannig

    On 10/7/2017 at 5:34 PM, shady86 said:

    How fast you went and how much was the fine? There are a few apps out there pointing out speed camera locations and indeed there are a lot along HW1

    The police report said 121 km/h which I find a bit difficult to believe but then again I was in a real hurry to catch my plane so yes, I might have been that stupid after all. Again, no need to lecture me, I'm not especially proud of this. The fine was 800THB (shown on the police document) plus a 100 THB processing fee by Budget. Something like one fifth of what I would have to pay in my home country for such overspeeding (notwithstanding the points cut from my license) so I thought that it was a real bargain. 

    On 10/7/2017 at 9:47 PM, cooked said:

    Sygic navigation which you can get on your phone, shows up speed cameras, updated every 3 months I think. I've been driving a lot here for five years and haven't had a ticket yet, I'm jealous.

    I'm a long-time Sygic user and its speedcam database for Thailand is a complete joke. I've never seen anything but false alerts. For like 5 years, it's been advertising a speedcam 20 km or so south of my place in the KP province along HW1 that never, ever existed. I was precisely driving with Sygic open during my last trip from BKK to here and the very obvious speedcam along Ayuttaya wasn't shown in Sygic either.

     

    So any other app suggestion with a better database would be appreciated.  

    On 10/8/2017 at 9:59 AM, NUUM said:

    “friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying”

     

    Urban myth...they may not pay straight away, but eventually they will have to pay...

    It definitely isn't an urban myth at this time. I was discussing this with some people here and a distant member of my Thai family who drives a lot because he directs construction sites across the country has quite proudly shown to me a pile of 15 or so unpaid overspeeding fines received in the mail, stuffed in his car's glove box. However this situation is due to be short lived since the government has claimed that they will soon enforce having to pay any outstanding fine to be able to renew a car's road tax.

     

    The tolerance up to 100 km/h has been confirmed to me by the husband of my favourite Koutieow cook who drives people back and forth to BKK with a van. However he's kind of a technophobe so the only information he relies on is on a piece of paper he updates when his friend tell him about a new speecam :smile:

    Speedtrap cams flourishing along Asia h/w - any info to share?

    in Thailand Motor Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks for the friendly advice and tip. Believe it or not, I usually do. But it's so easy to get over 90 km/h especially when just about everyone is driving faster on these highways. My understanding is that Thais don't care that much because until now, most of them just ignore the fines they receive at home. When you drive a rental car, that's a different story as I pointed out.

     

    Speedtrap cams flourishing along Asia h/w - any info to share?

    in Thailand Motor Discussion

    Posted · Edited by KhunBENQ
    removed large amount of appended empty space

    I've just made a trip driving from downtown BKK to my place in Kamphaeng Phet province and I am amazed by the number of speedcam traps I think I may have noticed along the highway as well as the number of (obviously new) signs announcing the presence of such cams. I'm not a permanent resident here so I rent cars every time I come and I've already received a fine notification once along with police document and camera image (good quality I must say). I had been caught in April along the Asia highway (HW1/HW32) close to the Chainat intersection. The friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying (yet - this is supposed to change soon) but rental companies must force their customers to pay them. So I did because I wouldn't get my new rental otherwise. They also told me that they are receiving a sharply increasing number of these fines.

    Anyway, this seems like a new trend... I had hardly seen any speedcam in many years along this road, usually manually operated.

    So ... anyone knows how many of these are real speedcams? I'm pretty sure that the one I've seen while passing Ayuttaya was a real one: binocular lenses, put on kind of a tripod over the concrete lane walls. Not sure about the other ones, might just be traffic monitoring cams, most of them attached to gantries or roadside poles.

    Besides, does anyone have information on the speed tolerance they enforce? Obviously there must be some else just every other car I was driving along with when passing that speedcam in Ayuttaya would have been caught. Hardly anyone was under the 90 km/h limit, inclunding myself. Hard to tell based on  when I've been caught since I was way above the limit then, I must confess. Not especially proud of it, I was quite in a hurry to catch my plane in BKK which isn't a excuse for overspeeding, I know, I know. Sin confessed, I repent. 

    Furthermore, are Thai drivers sharing the information about the presence of these speedcams? if so, how? Where I live the Waze app is very popular for this, but it doesn't seem to be much used here. There could be Facebook pages I guess, but it's not very handy when driving.

    ............................................................................................................................................

    Are driver's here using Waze or anything similar?

    in Chiang Mai

    Posted

    I drive a lot in Thailand and I, too, have been disappointed to see that Waze doesn't have enough users here to make it a reliable source for traffic disruptions.

    I don't know how Thai drivers share this kind of information. Facebook pages probably? (I'm serious here)

     

    Generally speaking, I have found Here Maps to be the most usable application in Thailand if you drive upcountry. The quality of their maps surpasses Waze, Sygic and even Tomtom IMO. At least it does in the parts of Thailand I drive to.

     

    Here We Go by its new name has an offline mode and you can download whole country maps.

    Blocking of book launch was to prevent people getting confused: NCPO

    in Thailand News

    Posted

    I think that the famous quote "I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It" applies here (apparently misattributed to Voltaire, actually from English author Evelyn Beatrice Hall).

    The book probably is a bunch of self-supporting bull. I don't care, it shouldn't have been censored.

    Yes, I know. Junta. No free speech.

    What's next? burning copies in the middle of Sanam Luang? Thailand would then complete its trip backwards to the Inquisition times with a great autodafé.

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