Bangkok Blog

I was interviewed earlier this week for the People in the Know news and affairs program for China Radio International. CRI is one of the three state-run media organisations in China (the other 2 being China Central TV and China National Radio). Its main purpose is to broadcast China related content to rest of the world. Hence it is similar to Radio Australia, BBC World Service and Voice of America.

The topic was the new project in China for integrating their TV, telephone and Internet into one network. The interview was aired on radio today (Wednesday 7 July) and also can be listened to online.

A couple of weeks ago I was on holidays, tried to access the Internet on the laptop using my mobile phone as a modem and nothing worked. It had previously worked fine, but turned out my "upgrade" to Ubuntu 9.10 actually downgraded the capabilitys of the Ubuntu Network Manager to connect. Finally, I have found a work around. This is what I did.

Install wvdial and the corresponding Gnome GUI for it, gnome-ppp. You can install via the Synaptic Package Manager or the command line:

sudo apt-get install wvdial gnome-ppp

These will be used to create the point-to-point (PPP) connection via the modem (i.e. the mobile phone) instead of the default Ubuntu NetworkManager. So delete your existing Mobile Broadband connection that you may have already created (right click on the network icon in the top desktop menu, select Edit Connections..., go to the Mobile Broadband tab and then delete your connection).

Now configure wvdial and gnome-ppp:

gnome-ppp

Select the Setup button and then Detect you modem (make sure your mobile phone is plugged in to the laptop). It may take some time or multiple attempts to detect - mine eventually found the modem at device: /dev/ttyACM0. Yours may be slightly different.

Close the Setup window and you are returned to the main Gnome PPP window. For my service provided (AIS - see the details) I require the information:

• Username: internet
• Password: internet (in fact, I think the password doesn't matter)
• Phone number: *99#

Then Connect and after some time the connection is established. Open your web browser and you should have Internet connectivity!

This morning was the first real day of exercise. We trekked up Khao Sam Yot ('Three Peak Mountain' in Amphoe Phu Pa Man) at about 10:30am. Over New Years I went up to the first lookout, which took about 45 minutes from the bottom temple/car park. This time we drove up to the top temple, saving about 20 minutes walking/climbing, and walked all the way to the Buddhist lookout near the top of the mountain. It took about 90 minutes. The trek is not too hard, however the temperature of 35+ degrees meant I was drenched with sweat within the first 5 minutes. As we got close to the lookout the track become a set of ladders and platforms, partly made of bamboo. The lookout is set on the face of the mountain and looked slightly dangerous, but we ventured forward. In fact there is a large cave where the lookout is built, with several statues of Buddha inside, as well as more ladders up inside the cave to a room for the monks. It was a peaceful location, with an excellent view of the nearby villages.

After some snacks and photos we made our way down. I thought it was easy until I slipped. Some grazed arms, sprained fingers, bruised bum and nervous legs for the rest of the way down was the outcome. Although that dampened my spirit a bit, it was worth it. It is nice to explore the various mountains that create the valley containing 5 or 6 villages in the area.

Photo gallery

Going away for a couple of weeks I had planned to use the mobile phone tethered to the laptop for occasional Internet access. I had used it once or twice before, and although only EDGE (not 3G), it is good enough to check email, browse some news and check some tourist. As an aside, 3G mobile Internet is a contentious issue in Thailand, with very little UMTS coverage, including in Bangkok, provided by the popular operators AIS and DTAC. There has been a prolonged decision about awarding spectrum licenses I guess mainly because of the business and political conflicts between the two government telcos, CAT and TOT, and the commercial operators, AIS, DTAC, and True.

Anyway, I was foolish enough to assume the mobile broadband access would work when I got to Chumphae, without testing before I left home. Of course, it didn't, and I'm guessing that it is something due to my upgrade of Ubuntu from 9.04 (when it worked) to 9.10 (now it doesn't). When I plug my phone in to the laptop (via USB), it is recognised and the nice wizard for creating a new Mobile Broadband connection allows me to select my network operator (AIS). However when I connect, the Network Manager almost immediately reports GSM Disconnected - You are now offline. I do have Internet access on the mobile where I can browse some sites, so I checked some Ubuntu forums, but haven't found a solution yet. I will diagnose the problem when I get home, and post more, including my thoughts on Ubuntu "upgrades".

Update: I worked out how to fix this - see my solution.

With the long Songkran holidays coming up (public holidays from Tuesday 13th to Friday 16th April and 1 days annual leave to make a 9 day holiday), we decided to head back to Wan's home near Chumphae for the week. However Wan's grandfather passed away on Thursday so she went home early (she had only been in Bangkok for a few days after returning home for her grandmothers funeral in March), and I drove up today to catch the last days of the funeral.

The funeral involved about a week of Buddhist rituals at his home, although he was buried on Saturday. A few photos of the funeral.

Today I finally got my Thai drivers license. For the past two years I've been driving with my Australian license with an International Driving Permit. The permit only lasts one year (I was lucky enough to be back in Oz to renew it last year). Driving with the permit is legal and hasn't caused me any problems. The 4 or 5 times I've been stopped at check points, the police have not had any queries about it. However both my Australian license and permit are due to expire soon, which motivated me to go through the steps to get the Thai drivers license. Here's what I had to do.

Documents Required

As I have a valid International Driving Permit, there is no need for a (written or practical) driving test. The procedure for getting the Thai license is taking the correct documents to the Department of Land Transportation (DLT), completing a colour-blindness, reaction and depth perception test, and thats it. The Driving in Thailand website gives an excellent run-down of what is needed. This is what I took:

• Australian license and International Drivers Permit. They both must be valid. You need the orignal plus 1 signed photocopy of each.
• Work permit, as a verification of my address. Photocopies of the pages with printed information about you (address, employer etc.)
• Passport and photocopies of: personal details, the white arrival card, latest entry stamp, and current non-immigrant visa stamp.
• Health certificate. I got mine at Krung Siam St Carlos Medical Centre on the weekend. It cost 160 Baht and the checkup involved: a sight test (the typical read a row of numbers with one eye shut); colour-blindness test (read a number, printed in dots of one colour, surrounded by dots of another colour); measure of blood pressure, weight and height; and a question from a doctor if I suffer from epilepsy. In total, they took about 15 minutes, plus a good hour and a half waiting.
• A translator (Wan was nice enough to come with me)

The signed photocopies of all the documents (except health certificate) are necessary. The people at the DLT mainly looked at the copies, not the originals.

Photos are no longer needed - they take a digital photo of you there and immediately print it and attach to your license.

Getting to the DLT in Pathumthani

There are in fact two DLT's in Pathumthani. The main office in Lat Lum Kaeo, and another office in Klong Luang. Some friends had been to the office at Lat Lum Kaeo, and so I decided to go there. (Out of interest, the office in Klong Luang is, according to these two posts, at the Inland Container Depot in Klong 4. It can be reached by going east on Klong Luang Road until the Eastern Ring Road, but going left along a local road. Although I haven't been yet, I think this is it on Google Earth).

To get to the DLT in Lat Lum Kaeo, travel west on Pathumthani-Rangsit Road (number 346), crossing the Chao Praya river. About 3km from the Chao Praya river is a set of traffic lights at a T-junction. Go right (left takes you into the main business district of Pathumthani town), and then turn right at the next set of a traffic lights (this 2nd set of lights are 5km from the Chao Praya river). The DLT is on this small soi: there is a government building about 200m on the right which is NOT then DLT; another 200m is the DLT on the right (there are some small food and copy shops on the left). See the map below or the find it on Google Earth.

Getting the License

Inside the building is where the translator first becomes useful. We arrived a bit after 9am, and the car park was already almost full and there were quite a few people inside. All signs are in Thai. The license centre is upstairs on floor 2. There are about 6 numbered windows/booths, a couple saying One Stop Service in English, all other signs in Thai. We were directed to window 5 and proceeded as follows:

Received the application form from Window 5. The form is in Thai - the 2nd reason for a translator. It asks for name (in English and Thai), age, nationality, passport number and a set of tick boxes which I still don't know what they mean. Fill it in and return to Window 5.

Behind the booths are some people getting there photo taken and doing sight tests, as well as a small room labeled E-Exam. We were directed there. There were a few people in line and being processed quite quickly. As I approached the woman, who turned out spoke ok English, showed me a single colour-blind test sheet. This was the same as at my health checkup, except only one number (health checkup had about 10) and the same number as the previous guy - I could have just repeated his answer. She then directed me to the other test area (next to all the computer terminals for the written test).

Supposedly a reaction/reflex and depth perception test is required. Four applicants sat waiting for about 20 minutes for a tester to come. There was a seat with accelerator and brake pedal in front of it, and then 6 or 7 metres away a box with green light and a 30cm vertical ruler with a thick line marked on it. You put your foot on the accelerator and after a few seconds some green LEDs start lighting up along the ruler. Once they turn red you must push the brake pedal (before the red lights hit the thick line - less than 1 second). The first guy pushed the brake before the red lights came on - a couple more tries and he got it right. The next older guy, didn't hit the brake before the red LEDs hit the marked line or the top. But he got it close after another try. The third guy was successful, then on my turn I was too slow, slightly going passed the marked line. But before I got a chance at the 2nd attempt, the tester had already ticked all my tests (including, I guess, the depth perception that no-one else did either) and sent me back to window 5.

The lady at window 5 looked at my documents quickly again, return them and a number to me and told us to wait 'over there'. This is the part I hate about such places (in any country). There are people, queues, tests every where. Which line do I wait in? Even the translator didn't help this time: Wan asked another lady where and she sent us into a waiting room, which ran an instructional driving video, as about 30 people wait. It took as 25 minutes before we realised that the people waiting didn't have the number I did - they were outside.

Once I got in the correct queue (of 2 people), the next woman looked closer at my documents, entered in my details and I paid 205 Baht. Then a photo. 3 minutes later my Thai license was produced and we were finished.

It took less than 90 minutes in total. It would've been about 1 hour if I got in the correct queue. That is very good service, and I'm not too concerned about going back in a 1 years time to get my real license. This one is just temporary.

At work we have a new Canon LBP3370 laser printer. Most of our other printers have been HP, and printing from Ubuntu Linux has been relatively straightforward. HP have very good support for printing in Linux through the HPLIP software. My HP multi function printer (including scanning) at home works fine with Ubuntu. However I had some problems with the Canon printer, especially printing PDF. Below is the original configuration in Ubuntu of using the Canon driver, and then the way I fixed the problems by using a HP driver.

Using the Canon Driver

When adding a printer in Ubuntu 9.10, I followed the steps of selecting 'Canon' and then 'LBP-3360' (the LBP-3370 is not listed) which gives the option of four drivers:

Canon LBP-3360 Foomatic/pxlmono [en] (recommended)
Canon LBP-3360 Foomatic/lj4dith [en]
Canon LBP-3360 Foomatic/ljet4 [en]
Canon LBP-3360 Foomatic/ljet4d [en]

As was suggested, I choose the pxlmono driver. Note that the LBP-3370 uses direct sockets printing (the device URI is 'socket://IP'). Unfortunately I had several problems when printing (mostly PDF - not sure if it also applied to other formats). Firstly, sometimes the first page of the PDF would print and then an error message would be printed (on the paper):

PCL XL Error
  SubSystem: IMAGE
  Error: MissingData
  Operator: ReadImage
  Position: 8644

And then some documents were taking a loooong time to print (5-10 minutes per page).

Fixing with the HP Driver

A quick search at OpenPrinting indicated that the driver I selected may not be reliable. It suggested using the hpijis-pcl5e driver instead (surprise, surprise - a HPLIP driver). So I downloaded the driver directly, saved it in /etc/cups/ppd/ and selected it from the printer Properties (under "Make and Model" select "Change" and then "Provide PPD file"). The result is shown below (note the "Make and Model").

For the past few weeks printing to the Canon printer using the HP driver has been trouble free. Nice job HP!

Its always nice to see and deal with other people using Unix-based operating systems. If a student comes to me for help with a software problem, although I'll try to help no matter what OS, I am much more interested in spending time with them if they are using a Unix-based OS (Ubuntu, MacOS, etc). This is mainly because that is what I know best. Of recent, more students have Ubuntu installed, either as dual-boot or in a virtual machine, on their personal laptops. And they are starting to learn that the Windows GUI way is not the only way. I am encouraging the further exploration of Linux in my networking lab (ITS332) where 90% of the tasks are completed on the command line in Ubuntu (the other 10% using Wireshark in Ubuntu). In other courses, although I don't require the students to use any specific operating system, I demonstrate how easy it is to complete networking tasks in Unix-based OSes, such as measure the throughput of TCP in a network with varying packet loss rates (three command line operations using iperf and tc).

One of the local Unix gurus at SIIT is Yoichi. As well as doing his research, he has been active in labs and teaching introductory computing to SIIT/Thammasat students. He has started to blog about some of the simple, yet very powerful things that can be done via the command line in Ubuntu. Yoichi and other teaching assistants and graduate students are spreading the word in SIIT that Windows is not the only operating system available. And their efforts are starting to show as more students are coming to me for help on a network or programming assignment with their laptop booted into Ubuntu.

New Years Eve 2009 was spent around Wan's family home in the north-east. We left Bangkok about 2am on Tuesday 29 December with the intention of avoiding the traffic jams seen last year. It worked - there was almost no traffic, even less than normal. It took 6 hours to drive to her home, which is midway between Chumphae in Khon Khaen and Phu Kradeung in Loei (normally it takes about 7 hours, although we didn't stop for food so much this time).

Apart from relaxing and catching up with family and friends (Ann, Wan's sister, and her husband Simon were also there) we had a few day trips to: Nam Nao National Park in Petchabun, a local mountain, Phu Pa Man, and near Phu Luang in Loei. As always, a lot of good food and a few beers. New years eve involved a party with a lot of family attending, followed by some late night dancing at a street party. All good fun.

The trip home on Sunday was not too bad. It took 9 hours, which was probably 1 or 2 hours less than it could have been because we took a back route to Saraburi, bypassing the busy Khorat to Saraburi road.

Check out some photos.

The CABINN Hotel was recommended to participants of the CPN Workshop. It is part of a chain of 6 or 7 CABINNs across Denmark. They have the aim of the providing cheap but comfortable accommodation near the centre of the city. The tradeoff is the room sizes. They follow the layout of cabins in cruise ships; small and with bunk-beds.

The hotel is about 10 minutes walk, straight along the main shopping mall, from the Arhus central station (where trains and the airport bus stop). The area between central station and the hotel is the main (only?) area for shopping, pubs, restaurants and night-life in Arhus. So the location of the hotel is great.

I arrived at 1pm, and despite the hotel web site saying checkin was between 3pm and 6pm, I was immediately given a room. As expected, it was small. There was a single bed, and a bunk-bed above it. There was a desk, small TV, electric kettle and small bathroom containing toilet, shower and sink. There were 3 or 4 coat hangars and a couple of shelves to store clothes. The room size was not a problem for me. However if there were two of you with full size suitcases you probably would find it too small. Of course there are a few larger rooms at the hotel.

Despite the small room sizes, the rest of the hotel is quite good. The lobby is large with a couple of sofas, and then there is a TV lounge with 5 sets of tables and chairs and a LCD TV. On the 4th floor is the breakfast room which was great. Each morning there were fresh loafs of bread, bread rolls, bread for toasting, to be accompanied by cheese, slices of ham/turkey/salami and 3 or 4 delicious jams. There were 3 types of cereal, milk and yogurt and of course, coffee, tea and juices. It wasn't fancy but it was more than enough to get you full in the morning. I loved the fresh bread with salami and cheese, and made about 3 slices each morning. There is a restaurant/cafe on the bottom floor but I never went there (not sure if it is just part of the hotel or on fact an external restaurant). Finally, the reception sells snacks and drinks 24 hours a day (a bottle of Tuborgs beer was 27 Kroner).

The room price was 465 Kroner plus 60 Kroner for breakfast; a total of 525 Kroner per night. I think this was a discount of 20 Kroner per night (as we booked as part of the CPN Workshop group). As Denmark is one of the most expensive countries in Europe, I consider this price quite good value and would recommend others to stay there (unless they need a large room).