On Wednesday I attended the NTC Scholarship ceremony in Phayathai, where Jirawat Thaenthong received funding for the remainder of his studies. I am Jirawat's advisor for his PhD studies on mobile networking. The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is the telecommunications regulator in Thailand, and in the past year set up the Telecommunications Research and Industrial Developmenent Institute (TRIDI) to fund research in the field. One of the first areas of funding was scholarships. Jirawat was one of the 22 recipients (7 PhD, 15 Masters) from across Thailand. Well done, Jirawat!

I've had two run ins with the law since buying my car in April. My first traffic infringement was on a Sunday trip to Lop Buri with Brenton and friends.

On the previous Wednesday night I had noticed my front license plate was missing - stolen! Some background: when you buy a new car in Thailand you get issued with temporary red license plates. These are until the dealership completes your registration documents, which could take between 2 and 4 weeks (so they say). Then you are supposed to get the official white license plates. There are all sorts of rumoured restrictions on the red plates (cannot drive at night with red plates; cannot drive to other provinces; must record a log book of all trips) but I didn't listen to any of them.

I'd had the red plates for 4 or 5 weeks when I noticed the front plate missing. About a day or two earlier I had noticed the front plate was not attached too well. I wasn't sure if it had always been like that or had become loose. I didn't do anything about it, thinking I'll be getting my new white plates soon. On the Wednesday night the plate was gone. Closer inspection revealed it had been pulled or jimmied off. Some of the plastic on the front panel had been broken so the plate would come off easier. What do I do - report it stolen to the police? Or just forget about it and get new red plates? Or wait for the white plates? Well I thought I'd see the car dealer the next day to get advice.

Unfortunately, it wasn't easy explaining the situation to the Toyota dealer. When I arrived and said something about red plates, they immediately assumed I was asking about where are my white plates? So they start telling me a few excuses for the delays, and said the white plates will arrive next week. It took me a bit of effort to explain that wasn't my immediate concern - what do I do about the stolen red plate? The conclusion was: don't worry about it. Drive around with just one plate until I get the white plates next week. They will fix the hole where the plate attaches for free. Oh, and I will lose half of my 2000 Baht deposit (for not returning one of the red plates).

So a couple of days later, Saturday, and only two days before receiving the white plates, I'm driving on the Expressway from Mo Chit to Rangsit heading to Lop Buri. I come to one of the toll gates, a common place for police to pull people over for all sorts of things (speeding, invalid registrations, no license plates). And of course the pulled me over. After the first cop realised I didn't speak Thai he got his mate, who then explained that its illegal to drive without a license plate and he'd write me a ticket and I'd need to pay at a 500 Baht fine at the local Police Station. Having heard from my friends what to do in such a situation, I said could I pay now? After some spluttering he said ok. I got out 300 Baht and he politely reached in through the window and slipped it into his pocket. I got the hell out of there. The biggest concern was getting stopped again during the day - that was 30km's into a 300km trip.

The next occasion was much simpler. I did a left turn onto a two lane side road and wanted to enter the 3 lane main highway. So I did. However just as I entered, behind a wall (of a U-turn bridge) were a couple of boys in brown pulling people over for changing lanes across a solid white line. Fair enough. This time I offered up 100 Baht, but he said 200. I'm slowly learning.

So they are my two infringements so far, costing a total of 500 Baht and avoiding any tickets and trips to Police Stations. Both cases (against me) were valid, so I've got nothing to complain about. Of course I'm very nervous when seeing police on the road now, especially as they wait at toll gates waving cars down. Lets see how I go over the next 6 months.

Very few updates recently since I've been busy at work, as well as outside of work. This semester I've been teaching Introduction to Data Communications to 3rd year Computer Science and IT students. I just finished marking their Final Exams on the weekend, so I have a month break from teaching now until Semester 2. I plan to do a few more updates during this time.

BTW last week was in fact the start of my second contract here at SIIT. So looks like I'll be hanging around for another couple of years...

Brenton's off on his 4 month bike ride from India to Australia. Lucky bugger to get such a holiday - I'm sure I'll catch him as he rides through Thailand. Check out his blog for details.

Back in July Brenton was visiting Thailand, to catch up with his family. Before they arrived Brenton and I caught up a couple of times, including a day trip to Lopburi to check out some monkeys and drug addicts. A few photos are available in the gallery.

I've lost a couple of close family members over the past few weeks. In May, after having his leg amputated earlier in the year, Bill Hanel (my uncle) succumbed to health problems due to diabetes. And last week, after having a hip operation during the day, my grandfather, Jack Barnes, passed away. He was 94 years old.

Rest in peace - Grandad and Uncle Bill.

The second problem I had with my Samsung G600 was with configuring GPRS/EDGE. I use the AIS network in Thailand (brand name 1-2-Call) and tried to follow the instructions through the AIS Call Centre. The first attempt last night I told them my phone and they send me the SMS for Over-the-Air (OTA) configuration of GPRS. However when I tried to view the SMS my phone returned an error Wrong PIN ID!. I couldn't find any PIN settings relating the messages, and so I contacted the Call Centre again and they said they thought I said D600 (and sent me the configuration for the wrong phone). The said someone would call me the next day. They didn't (in all fairness, my phone ran out of credit just before our conversation ended - but they did have both my mobile number and work number to call!).

So I tried again tonight. After making it clear it was the G600, they resent the SMS but the same Wrong PIN ID! error occurred. I quick search on the Internet found all the details I needed to configure GPRS myself.

In the menu I selected: Applications -> Internet (called t-zones on my phone) -> Browser settings -> Browser Profiles and then edited a new profile with the following settings:

Profile name: AIS
Home URL: http://google.com
Bearer: GPRS Only
Proxy: Disable
GPRS Settings: 
   DNS1: 202.183.255.20
   DNS2: 202.183.255.21
   APN: internet
   Login: blank
   Password: blank
GSM Settings: I didn't change

Then Internet access worked fine. You may want to do the same GPRS settings for Messages -> Settings -> Multimedia messages -> Multimedia message profile.

I recently got a Samsung SGH-G600 mobile phone. It replaces my 5+ year old Nokia 2100. The Nokia was a great phone - it still works fine, apart from the battery that lasted about 1 day and the numbers are almost wiped off the keypad. It is nice to now have a colour screen ... and EDGE Internet access ... and a 2GB MP3 player ... and a 5 megapixel camera.

The phone works great, but I had a problem with connecting with the provided Samsung PC Studio software (which lets you organise contact, files, music etc). After plugging in the mobile to the USB cable, selecting PC Studio on the phone menu the PC Studio application on my PC shows the phone connected. However when I open the contacts or files on PC Studio it reports a problem like Another PC Studio program is performing a time-consuming operation. Please wait until its finished.. After this error occurring with every attempt I search and found a solution (posted by MillyGirl at AVForums.com):

1. Unplug the usb cable from the phone
2. Type *#52828378# into phone
3. The following menu comes up:
   • 1 Trace setting
   • 2 OTA type setting
   • 3 Serial test
   • 4 TFS reset
4. Select 3 Serial test
5. And then this menu comes up:
   • 1 PPP UP
   • 2 Serial download
   • 3 Run TCK
6. Select 2 Serial download
7. The phone will reboot and once its rebooted connect the usb cable and PC Studio will work.

It works with no problems - no data is deleted from your phone. Thanks AVForums!

Wow, that was close! I decided to delete an old fat32 partition that I used to share data between linux (first Fedora, now Ubuntu) and Windows on my dual boot PC. Since Ubuntu supports NTFS partitions, I hardly ever used it. I used Partition Manager Professional in Windows to delete the partition. No worries.

However, I also decided to resize my /boot partition under Ubuntu. When I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04, the process was stalled several times because I didn't have enough space on the /boot partition (initially 100Mb). This was very annoying because I had to move some files from /boot and restart the entire Ubuntu upgrade (several minutes wasted each time). So I used Partition Manager to also increase the /boot partition to 200MB. No worries.

Anyone can now add a comment to the articles on this page or to the photos in the gallery. You no longer need to register. So don't hold back!

After 18 months of living in Thailand, I've finally purchased my own set of wheels. A new Toyota Vios for 659,000 Baht. Here are notes on the car itself and the process I went through in buying it.

The Car

The car is a Toyota Vios G, which is the top of the 3 standard models (J, E and G. There are also two limited models: G Limited and S, or Sports, Limited). It is a four-door sedan, equivalent to the Yaris Sedan in Australia. It has a 1.5 litre engine, and includes dual airbags, ABS and other standard features. The Toyota Thailand website has a good comparison of the features of the different models.

It is a silver exterior, with dark grey interior. The G model includes leather seats, as well as 60/40 fold down rear seats (so you can get into the boot/trunk). Also standard on the G model (compared to E/J) are: front fog lights, an improved speedo and information display, antenna printed on rear windscreen (as opposed to sticking up in the air), and the airbags. The optional accessories that came with the car are listed later when discussing the price. The Vios comes with

Last weekend was extra long, with May 1 (Thursday) Labour Day and May 5 (Monday) Coronation Day and for me, May 2 annual leave. Hence I had five days driving around in my new car in Khon Kaen and Loei. I stayed at Wan's house near Chum Phae, and visited a few local attractions like caves, mountains and bats. I also made the hike up Phu Kradung, a popular mountain in Loei. We spent 1 night on the top of the mountain and saw waterfalls, cliffs and lots of leaches.

Photo Gallery

Using some cash from Mum, Dad and Grandad for my birthday, I bought the Nikkor AF55-200mm lens with Vibration Reduction (VR) for my Nikon D40 camera. The lens cost 7700 Baht from EC-Mall at Future Park Rangsit.

I have been busy with other things (like buying a car) so haven't had much of a chance to try it out. However it is easy to notice the VR working: as you zoom into an object you can hear and feel the VR going to work, and the resulting photos are excellent. This is a great feature, given I am not very steady with the camera yet. I've also found it much easier to get the low depth of field shots with this lens, e.g. a clear picture of someones face, with the blurred background.

You can see some of the initial shots with this lens from my trip to Khon Kaen.

The main reason for going home to Australia was to attend my brother's, Peter, wedding to Allison. I was best man, so couldn't really miss it. The wedding ceremony was held in a local vineyard. It rained most days up to the wedding, and rain was also forecast for the wedding day. But it turned out to be almost perfect weather, with no rain and comfortable temperature.

While the groom (Pete), groomsmen (me and Brett) and guests waited at the vineyard, the bride (Allison) arrived with her father and bridesmaids on horse and cart. After the official ceremony and many photos, we cracked our first beer, and the wedding party travelled in the carts to Pete and Allison's new house (currently under construction) for more photos, drinks and snacks. Then after a few more photo stops, we made our way to the Barn Palais for the reception dinner.

It was a great night, with perhaps the best food I've eaten at an Australian wedding and plenty of beer and wine. Pete and Ally went on their honeymoon to Tasmania the day after the wedding. However, to ensure they started their married life with a smile on their faces, someone went into their hotel room during the reception and made their room a little more 'comfortable'. All of the toilet paper and tissues were removed from the room (well, not removed, just soaked in water then placed in the freezer), and breakfast was prepared (that is, a large container of cornflakes and weetbix were crushed in their bed). Many people assumed that it was me that did such nasty things, but people may be surprised as to who the real culprit(s) were ...

Some of the photos from the wedding and reception are in the gallery. More may come when the official photographer releases her photos.