Your connection isn't private

History repeats itself. Once again multiple websites are blocked here in Thailand. Even HTTPS sites get redirected to a local unsecure site with this image. No leaves this time, just a simple menacing message. Hope the violence doesn't get too bad this time.

Server evacuation

I'm stuck in the middle of the Great Thailand Flood of 2011. My entire factory was flooded, and I had to evacuate my server backups to a safe and dry place.

A few years ago, when I was writing policies for SOX compliance, there was a section about risk assessment and business continuity planning, and one of the issues was how to resume operations in case of fire or flood or other acts of God. Who would've thunk that after less than four years, everything I wrote has to be put into actual usage?

So, we were evacuated out to a nearby hotel with free Wi-Fi, and all the managers are connected to the free Wi-Fi, and then they need printing. So I went back to the flooded factory and took out (by boat) a trusty Linksys WRT160NL and a Canon inkjet printer. Previously I talked about using the WRT160NL to share USB printers, but this is slightly different since I don't actually have a LAN any more.

It turned out to be quite easy, I just joined the WRT160NL to the hotel's free Wi-Fi by using client bridge, then used Angry IP Scanner to find a free IP address outside of what I think is the normal DHCP range, and then I just pointed everyone's printer to the new IP address of the WRT160NL, and then we got printing.

While setting things up, I suddenly lost Wi-Fi connectivity, and I called the hotel's front desk to ask them to reset the Wi-Fi, and they told me the only Wi-Fi they have is down at the lobby, and it was working perfectly. I ended up having to find a maid on my floor to ask her if she has ever seen a little box with blinking lights, and she pointed me to a Linksys WAP54G. I simply power cycled the access point and all was fine again.

Cancel all technology

In mid-2005, I bought a Nokia 6630. At that time, the Nokia 6680 was just released, so the 6630 had dropped in price, which was why I decided on the 6630 and not the 6680. There's really no difference between the two models aside from the looks and the front-facing camera. The salesperson kept trying to talk me into getting the 6680, the main reason of course being that the 6680 has a front-facing camera.

"You can use the front camera for video chat!"

"But there's no 3G in Thailand."

"It's coming soon!"

"But it was coming soon since last year."

"It's definitely coming this year! Before end of 2005!"

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"You'll regret it, you'll be buying a new phone next month to get video chat!"

Fast forward to 2010. After months of 3G auction schedule confirmations for September 17, CAT wins fight to kill 3G auction. Like I said, I'll believe it when I see it.

Image source: Thailand Business News

Geniuses at work

More Internet censorship going on in Thailand as the government blocks more and more websites for absolutely no good reasons whatsoever. Most recently, for some unknown reason, they decided to block the entire Vimeo site. However, this time, instead of blocking the IP address like what they did in the Google blocking fiasco, they decided to simply block it by the URL, "www.vimeo.com". Fortunately, like all good websites, "vimeo.com" also works for accessing the site, and the geniuses at the government failed to block that URL. So to access your favorite Vimeo videos in Thailand, simply use http://vimeo.com/.

Beating government censorship

Official word on the streets is that the social network censorship that happened a few days ago was due to ISP routers unable to handle the load since everyone is at home reading news. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I believe you. And pigs can fly too.

Earlier when I thought this blog was also being blocked turned out to be that the government was blocking access to ghs.l.google.com, which is the address that Google Apps based services (including blogger.com) resolves to. However, since ghs.l.google.com is on a round robin DNS system, and they were only blocking some sets of IP's, so it appeared that the blocking is random and goes on and off. (And the government is using this as an excuse that the ISP's can't handle the load.) But this actually due to the fact that some IP's being blocked and some aren't. Facebook.com and other social networking sites were affected in the same way.

One of the mysteries I encountered at work is that some of my users when traveling to China to our subsidiary would have trouble accessing our Google Apps based mail, while others have no trouble whatsoever. This is quite difficult to debug when China is about 2,000 miles away.

Last month when I finally had a chance to go to China myself, the first thing I did after arriving and getting Internet access, was to open the company's email. ... and, nothing. A quick look proved that I was being blocked by the Great Firewall.

What does the Great Firewall have to do with the Thai government censorship? Turns out they both block ghs.l.google.com. However, there is a way to access Google's services, and that is through the google.com domain name itself. So, instead of going to, say, www.ivoidwarranties.com, which resolves to ghs.l.google.com, simply go to ivoidwarranties.blogspot.com, which resolves to blogspot.l.google.com.

Or in case of Google Apps, instead of going to, say, www.capothai.org, which was a case of the right hand blocking the left hand, simply go to sites.google.com/a/capothai.org/www

As of this writing, 74.125.77.121 is still blocked by the ICT, so hopefully this post will help.

Bangkok burning

View from my office not long after the soldiers stormed the protesters and the protesters set fire to a number of buildings including Central World.

Of course, most people probably only care since they can't shop there anymore. Amazing Thailand, Amazing Value!

Update (later in the day): Oh yah, notice how blue the sky is, with clouds visible? Normally the sky in Bangkok is never blue like that except in long weekends. Closing down the central business section and everybody staying home from the protests actually was actually good for the environment!

Update (still later in the day): It appears that my blog is blocked by the government, w00t! This is what happens when I go to www.ivoidwarranties.com now:

Update (5/20/2010): Boooo, I don't feel so special anymore, looks like the web blocking is directed at the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) itself, which happens to be hosted on Google Sites, and poor me being blocked is just a side effect. Different factions of the government attacking itself? Rogue hackers at work?

Bangkok war zone

Thailand's political situation is really hard to grasp, unless you've been living in Thailand long enough. Let me see, back in 2006 Thaksin got ousted in a coup lead by the military, then the Yellow Shirts through mass protests and questionable means brought down the replacement prime ministers that they didn't like.

Of course, this brought the UDD, aka The Red Shirts, or Thaksin-supports to start their own protests in the streets. After all, if they could do it, why can't we? As usual, the media coverage is all about how the Red Shirts are destroying the country and nothing about the reason they're holding the protest. Personally, I think the Red Shirts picked a bad name.

Since most of the Thai media are utterly biased against either the red or the yellow, I choose to follow BBC News. Imagine having to read news from a website across the world on what's happening on my doorsteps.

Anyway, since it's like a war zone out there almost right outside of my office so I better head home. I'll fix my servers another time since if any of the fighting happens to blow up my office by mistake, I would've saved time by not fixing my servers!

BNE is everywhere!

iBooHoo

I never paid much attention to the iPhone 3GS since I already have an iPod Touch. But my boss was looking to buy a new phone, so I immediately recommended the iPhone 3GS to him. Unfortunately, only after buying it for him I realized that there's a new "iBoot-359.3.2" that can't be jailbroken without tethering. I can imagine explaining to my boss to use this phone with care, never let it run out of battery, never let it crash, and never turn it off, otherwise you'll need to hook it up to your computer...

But wait, surely my boss doesn't need a jailbroken phone? Actually, the iPhone for some stupidly reason has pathetic keyboard layouts obviously not designed by actual users of those languages.

This is the default Bopomofo keyboard on the iPhone. Bopomofo is a system for phonetically writing the Traditional Chinese characters.


And this is the modified Bopomofo keyboard in the more traditional layout that every Bopomofo user on the planet is used to, and it's only available to jailbroken phones.


At first glance, it might seem that the better layout is simply a vertical layout compared to the horizontal layout, but the horizontal layout is actually all the phonemes lined up in order. Imagine if the iPhone's English keyboard is laid out as A B C D E F G H... instead of the standard QWERTY layout.

The exact same problem also occurs for the Thai language keyboard. This is the Thai language keyboard that was much advertised as a new feature included in iPhone OS 3.0.


Unfortunately, that layout is completely unusable in real life since it's not based on any standard. This one, again, is only available for jailbroken phones.


Once again, at first glance, it seems that the second keyboard contains seemingly random characters. However, that is the standard Thai keyboard layout used on every computer and typewriter.

Oh, and when I was paying for the iPhone, the salesguy turned his back on me and typed something really quickly into the iPhone. I couldn't figure out what he did until I came home. He modified the email signature to read: "Sent from my TrueMove iPhone3GS".

Kindle officially in Thailand

Both the Kindle and the Kindle DX are now officially available to Thailand. What a great way to start 2010!

Kindle for PC

Interestingly enough, when I looked at the Amazon Kindle page, I noticed some of the description text changed from when I last posted. Just to see if Thailand is now supported, I tried clicking again, and sure enough, the availability description different now.

Before: "Unfortunately, we are currently unable to ship Kindles or offer Kindle contents in Thailand."


After: "Unfortunately, we are currently unable to ship Kindles to Thailand. Customers in Thailand can read over 310,000 Kindle books on your PC with our free application for your Windows PC - no Kindle required. Click here to learn more."


While I was typing this post, I noticed that there's a new version of Kindle for the iPhone, and Amazon even announced that it's now available in more than 60 countries. Sure enough, it's now available in the Thai iTunes store. Previously, I had to use my US iTunes account to download it.

Unfortunately, still no option to select which side of the screen to tap to turn the page. I like to hold my iPod with my left hand and tap the left side of the screen with my thumb to turn the page. Stanza has it, why not Kindle for iPhone?

Just to double check if the Kindle device is now available to Thailand, I went back to the Amazon Kindle page. Still no Kindle, but it now lists 320,000 books available.

Amazon Kindle in Thailand

I was so incredibly disappointed in Amazon not shipping the Kindle to Thailand when the Kindle 2 International was announced.


Recently though, I found about a local importer of Kindles appropriately named KindleThai.com. At first, I thought that the price they charge is slightly too high, but they do have a 30-day warranty, so I felt the price was worth it, considering that if I bought a unit through friends in the States or another country, warranty claims could be a huge issue if I ran into a DOA unit. Plus, they pre-register the Kindles they sell to a U.S. account and pre-configure the Kindles to buy books correctly, which is a great help for non-technical people.

Surprisingly, the Amazon Whispernet works in Thailand, even if they don't sell Kindles directly to Thailand.


While playing with the available wireless providers setting, I discovered that the Kindle's time zone setting appears to be retrieved from the provider. At first, the Kindle always displayed the time in universal time (GMT), but after switching providers, suddenly the Kindle was displaying the correct local time.

Even more surprisingly, I could "purchase" free Kindle books from my computer, and then load them directly on the Kindle by using the Archived Items folder, for free, eventhough it says that a $1.99 surcharge will be placed for international delivery. Maybe the surcharge only happens when a direct purchase is made from the Kindle.

The Kindle I got already came preloaded with the new 2.3 firmware with native PDF support. However, since PDF is normally formatted with the printed page in mind, so there's always a lot of margins. Hopefully, Amazon will fix this in a future update by implementing zoom or some kind of fit to display option.

I happen to have Pragmatic Bookshelf's iPhone SDK Development ebook. Here are some comparison shots between the PDF version and the Mobipocket (mobi) versions, in both portrait and landscape modes:

This is Kindle 2 displaying native PDF, compared to Adobe Reader 9 running on my MacBook. The text is way too small to be read, unless you're an ant.


Again, in landscape orientation. This is legible, but it can't scroll the page up and down, only "flip" up and down, so it's very uncomfortable for technical manuals that you need to go back and forth on, but it's okay for reading novels.


And here's the ebook-specific Mobipocket format. Stupidly enough, the Forward is marked as Chapter 1 in the mobi file, so the chapter numbers are off by 1.


The Mobipocket version is perfectly readable even in the smallest font size.


Sorry for the poor photos. The huge difference in brightness between the MacBook's screen and the Kindle's E Ink screen made it really difficult to get a consistent exposure, and I was too lazy to get my tripod out. The E Ink screen looks really dim in these photos, but this is not a review of the Kindle's screen quality.

Unfortunately, this Kindle is going to be given away as a gift so I only got a few days to play with it. Now taking donations to get my own unit.

Update: Kindle is now officially available in Thailand.

My Internet is slower than yours

I now have 16 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload from True Internet. This is just the speed to the ISP and local sites that are directly connected to the ISP though. Actual usage doesn't feel any faster, since the pipes are still well clogged. I can't even get YouTube to play smoothly half of the time.

Anti-piracy cycle

Around the same time last year, the Thai Cyber Police announced that they're putting an end to piracy once and for all and that they have names of all corporations using pirated software. Of course, Thailand being Thailand, absolutely nothing happened, and one year later, they're announcing the same thing all over again.

The funny thing is, Firefox is now flagging the anti-piracy site as an attack site. Which is true mostly, since I've been getting spam from them both in email and regular snail mail. How annoying.

09/09/09 09:09

While the Chinese consider 8 to be the most auspicious number. Thais considers 9 to be the most auspicious number. Happy 999999!

Eventhough the number 9 isn't especially special in other parts of the world, 09/09/09 doesn't come very often, so a number of companies are taking advantage of this date to launch their new products.

Good thing I'm getting paid for a number of my projects this month. Will post some pics when I have more free time.

True Internet = crap

When I got to work this morning, I found my Internet got disconnected due to suspected virus activity. The stupid ISP helped me fight virus by turning off my Internet access. Of course, I don't have any virus activity or even any P2P activity. Everything is normal and we've used only 3 GB of data yesterday. Piece of crap.

Singapore trip

Took a much needed break in Singapore for four days last weekend. The weather was beautiful during the day and the evening, and it rained every single night to cool things down.


I haven't been to Singapore in many years. The last time I was there, I felt Singapore was ahead of Thailand technologically and culturally roughly 5-10 years. This time I felt Singapore was ahead of Thailand about 2 bajillion years.

To keep this post somewhat on topic for this blog, I visited both Kinokuniya (huge!) and Borders, but I didn't buy any books since I already have enough backlogged reading to do, and I didn't want to have an overweight luggage on the way home.


This is also the first time I carried my new Panasonic LX3 camera on a trip. The LX3 is such a great little camera. (All three pics in this post were taken with the LX3.) It's much much easier to pull out than my Canon DSLR, which I did also bring on this trip. Having such an easily accessible camera allowed me to capture gems such as this:

Monumental parking lot

Thaksin supporters surrounded the Victory Monument yesterday making the normally bad traffic in the area even worse. Unfortunately I happen to be working at a different site right now, or I would be there to experience it first-hand.

I did watch the whole thing on TV though. It's funny how a few months ago when the anti-Thaksin people took over the airport and basically destroyed the country, the TV stations were all interviewing the demonstrators and they all got to say on TV how much they hate Thaksin and they want their man to be the prime minister. But this time around, the TV stations were all interviewing the commuters and telling us how the commuters can't get home in the bad traffic. I guess not being able to go home is worse than having your country destroyed.

There won't be an end to this mess just yet. There are two opposing sides, and each side wants their man to be the prime minister. I think it's just plain stupid earlier when anti-Thaksin people had to find all kinds of excuses to get the prime minister removed.

Go red shirts!

Casi cielo

My SO bought some Starbucks Guatemala Casi Cielo for my birthday in advance. I'm so happy. I could now get good coffee at work now without having to visit the nearest Starbucks. Guatemala Casi Cielo is supposed to be available only once per year.

In other, unrelated, news: I haven't been able to make many posts this month because the Internet censorship in Thailand is now working overtime. I couldn't access blogger.com half the time, and other websites take forever to load or fail to load completely since the ISP's proxy is working overtime too. Maybe I should switch to wordpress.com, or move to another country.

Traffic light fraud

I read about the Italian police scandal a few weeks ago where they set the duration of the yellow light too short in order to catch more yellow light runners, and to spread the profit among those involved.

I could imagine the giant light bulb turning on above the Thai police chief's head when he read this news, since a few short weeks later, we now have traffic cams installed and actively catching offenders at all major intersections. The trick though, is that Thai yellow lights have always changed to red by counting down from three. But each count is far shorter than one second. So the three count of yellow light is more like 1.5-2 seconds. I could now see the bulging pockets of the traffic policemen. What a great way to boost the ecnonomy. Yay!

List of traffic cam installations (all in Thai):

Non-crowd at iPhone 3G launch

The iPhone 3G launched here in Thailand over the weekend. Since the market is already flooded with imported handsets that are pre-modified for local use and pre-loaded with every game available, the launch is a true anti-climax. Compare photos below:

A week before the USA iPhone 3G launch, line already forming outside the San Francisco store. (Photo: www.wired.com)


Empty seats at the Thai iPhone 3G launch "event". (Photo: www.itcoolgang.com)