Feeling envious - Sister returns home

My sister returns home today after 10 days in Thailand. I really wish I was going with her so I could see family/friends. For the first time, I’m feeling home sick today.  It’s been really great spending time with my little sister, she’s a great laugh! Here’s a few pics we took when we actually did have a camera on us!

Last night eating some great Thai food at Bann Kaniit

Dinner at Biscotti

Followed by a night out at Bed Superclub - I hate Bed myself, but my sister loved it!

Another night out down Ekamai and Thonglor - This was a great night

Just passing through

Not exactly. These elephants are all around Bangkok guided by guys selling bannanas to tourists. I snapped this while I was having a beer last week:

Playing with my new toys

Over the last week I bought myself 2 new toys, an IPhone and a Sonicare toothbrush.

Let’s start with the toothbrush. It doesn’t sound that exciting does it? But finding a new toothbrush to keep my teeth clean was much more of a mission than finding a new phone. Firstly, I went on-line to find out what the current best toothbrush is on the market (hey, you gotta take care of your teeth right?). After reading the reviews of the Sonicare HX6932 I decided this is the one my teeth need.

I looked around nearly every electronics/shopping mall in Bangkok but couldn’t find any Sonicare’s anywhere so I ended up buying it via Amazon - But the thing was that Amazon does not ship to Thailand. In the end I got it shipped to my Mum’s place and she kindly forwarded on to me, at $30 for delivery that only took a week, it wasn’t so bad.

I’ve had the toothbrush a week now and well chuffed with it. At first it was like putting a power drill in my mouth 2 times per day which meant lots of blood and cut gums, however after a week’s worth of use my gums have finally got used to the sheer power of the thing. I won’t bore you with the details of what it can do, afterall it is just a toothbrush, albeit the best toothbrush I’ve ever used.

My next toy is the IPhone. I’ve been waiting to buy an IPhone ever since Apple released it in the states last year. Initially I’ve been waiting to buy it from an Apple store, although now I’ve got one I’m not to why I was actually waiting. The only difference from my IPhone to those in the UK and in the States is that I can’t access 3G - But this isn’t because my phone is un-locked or not on a monthly contract, it’s because there is no 3G in Thailand!

Before I bought the phone I had read on-line that the IPhone doesn’t have a camera which was my only gripe - Imagine how frilled I was when I came home to find that there is a camera on it!

Although I’ve only had it for a few days, my first impressions are mixed. It’s a great looking phone with more bells and whistles than I actually need, however it’s just too heavy and big for my liking. I’ve always had really small phones so they can slip nicely into my jeans pocket without me even noticing it’s in there, however with the IPhone it’s like I’m carrying around small brick. The camera is pretty shit as well. Anyway, I’m going to give it another couple of days to see if my love for the phone grows on me, if not I’ll get myself a Sony Ericsson W890i

True, your giving me a hot heart

Warning: a bit of a rant ahead:

Our internet still sucks

We are now 3 days (working days) late with our magazine launch and were not any closer to our launch than we were 3 days ago due to our internet connection. We pay for a 2mb service but only receive, at best, up to 200kpbs Having 5 people up-loading and downloading with this kind of speed is a joke - practically impossible.

It’s pissing everyone off and I’m getting pissed off all the time. We call our ISP but they honestly couldn’t give a monkeys. They say it’s a problem with our router, but we have tested the router at another location and it works fine. They then promise they will send an engineer out, but he’s only come into the office and then fucked off again 5 minutes later the once. We call and call and call but they keep on fobbing us of.

I’ve been reading on-line about the possible reasons why our net is so slow and think it could come down to the following reasons:

• There are just to many people/companies on the same line (our office is located in the business district)

• There is a problem with our phone line

• We are to far away for the data centers, which causes a delay

• True a limiting the size of our connection but not telling us due to the nature of our business: i.e we upload and download more than there average customer would.

Yesterday we decided to order another internet connection from a different provider. Only one of the ISP’s do not rely on True for a phone line (TOT) but there cusomter service is apprently even worse. Well, that lived up to the truth as they are not returning our calls so far. All other ISP’s (loxinfo, buddy and KSC) have told us that they need to confirm with True for a phone line and this could take around 5 days. It’s a joke.

There are many things I don’t like about living in Thailand, as with every country where one decide to live, but the thing that pisses me off the most here is customer service. Not just from ISP’s, but nearly every Thai operated business I’ve dealt with have caused me problems. From ordering my desks, to the PC’s, to ordering a fridge: all have required me to return to the store with problems. I often feel these companies are run by clueless school kids. When I have to deal with a Thai company, I cringe… because I know what’s coming.

There’s a saying Thai’s use that goes “Jai yen yen” which means to keep a “cool heart” i.e - to keep calm. I’m losing around $450 per day due to our ISP and it’s kind of hard to keep a cool heart, which is why I choose to work from home today so my staff d not see my have a “hot heart” i.e - angry, tempered.

It’s killing me that after 3 days of chasing around, we are no where closer, and myself or anyone in the office just doesn’t know what to do.

What would you do if you were in my shoes right now?

Update:

We have decided to up-grade our internet connection from a 2mb to a new 2mb business - apparently this line has less users on it so should give us more speed. It’s crazy, here we have a company providing my business with the worst service possible, and I now find myself committing to paying them even more every month. I feel like there rapping me. I’m desperate, so anything is worth a try.  If this fails, I’ll seriously consider moving office.

Discussing Thai Politics And Taxin With A Thai Taxi Driver

I just come across this video I took of my mate having some friendly banter with a Thai taxi driver on Christmas Eve (2007) discussing Taxin and Thai politics. The taxi driver was a cool guy, but obviously wrong with his predictions.

A few sites for sale

Okay, after quickly browsing through my list of sites, I’ve decided to let these go at silly prices due to needing some money in my Paypal account ASAP:

• http://www.7wondersguide.com SOLD

• http://www.arsenalfanstation.com/ SOLD

• http://www.asianbeerguide.com/ SOLD

• http://www.icecream-world.net/ SOLD

• http://www.novak-djokovic.org/ SOLD

• http://www.oasisfanclub.com/ SOLD

• http://www.personaltravelblogs.com/ SOLD

• http://www.sushibarguide.net/ SOLD

• http://www.taxisoftheworld.com/ SOLD

• http://www.whiskey-guide.com SOLD

All sites are priced at $39 Please contact me if you are interested in buying any of the above sites.

Update: Thanks for everyone that bought a site. I’ll go through my list of sites again next week and post any others I want to sell here.

Cyan Bangkok Restaurant Review

I’ve been building a list of restaurants I want to visit in Bangkok this year and sitting on top of my list was Cyan. Cyan Bangkok is a mediterranean restaurant located on the ground floor of the Metropolitan Hotel on Sathorn Road. The restaurant is located right next to the swimming pool which creates a nice setting. We had the option to sit out on the terrace by the pool or inside - we choose to sit on the terrace as it looked very romantic with the lights from the pool.

First up was some tapas from the Chef as a complimentary dish. Here we have toast with some really nice ham, a leaf of rocket and some quality cheese on top - It tasted like a pizza The round ball was some kind of fish, sitting on Tartar sauce - this was very good. Lastly the olive with antrovies was not to my likening.

Next up was Fresh Oysters with different sauces - I had the one on the bottom right hand side of the picture and was very good - the sauce was like a light soy. My girlfriend said she really enjoyed the others.

Beef Carpaccio - I’m a real sucker for this dish and as soon as I saw it on the menu, I knew what I was going to have for starters This had some really small mushrooms mixed in which I’ve never had before and the salty toasted bread went really well with the beef, rocket salad and cheese.

The great thing about eating with my girlfriend is that she loves to share what we eat. So we shared the above and below This is Suckling Pig and with roasted peaches and avocado sauce. When you added a piece of the pork, half a peach slice and some sauce - it created an amazing sensation in the mouth, a great combination of flavors I have not experienced before. I love chefs that try and create new flavors by using different ingredients to create a unique taste - and this dish did just that.

Organic Chiang Mai Rabbit - My girlfriend and myself have never eaten Rabbit before and as this dish contained 6 different ways of cooking Rabbit, we decided to give it a try. We both were a little disappointed to be honest. The Rabbit sasage was by far the best followed by the rabbit ribs.The sauce/vegetables were also very good.

Green Beans with Garlic - We ordered this as a side dish rather than potatoes. They was way to salty - a real let down considering how good the dish looks!

Myself enjoying some rabbit spare ribs - They were probably the smallest ribs I’ve ever eaten!

All in all it was a nice place with a really creative menu, which is why I decided to check Cyan Bangkok out. While most of the food was great, the service let the place down. Simple things like waiting for us to complete one course before bringing out another was a little annoying.

The bill come in at 3,500 which I thought was kind of pricey considering we didn’t have any wine or desserts.

My Views On Outsourcing Link Building - Open Question Post

My “Ask a Question” feature aims to try and answer any questions my readers have regarding SEO, Web development, Thailand, Bangkok or anything else you think I may be able to answer I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer all of them, but I will promise I’ll try!

Today question come from Guy:

Im after some recommednations for link builders within Asia and pretty much the whole world. I currently outsource my work to a few companies in India but the links they do arent good enough. I am scouring the world for link builders who
can work on websites like clothes/fashion to insurance/homes and coffee/food etc…I have a real diverse range in websites and alot of websites which i look after but could never link build for all.

Just wondering if you know any companies in Thailand who could cater for this sort of work.

Any info is most welcome.

Guy, this isn’t going to be the answer you were looking for but I hope you’ll appreciate my views on outsourcing link building.

Firstly, just to let you know that I’ve had my fair share of experience with outsourcing my link building campaigns to freelancers and companies over the years. Link building, either manually or organically is the backbone to SEO and is the only way you’ll be able to get your sites/pages listed high up within the search engine results, considering you have your On-page SEO on track.

I split link building into 2 sections, Organic - which lies down to getting other sites linking to you off their own back (social media also plays a role here) due to great content and Manual - going out and requesting links from other sites. Both link building tactics take a different set of skills from my experience and I used to outsource both to different people. This is easier said than done.

Link building is the hardest, and most time consuming SEO task there is. It’s a pain in the but to work with but it needs to be done. I outsource a lot of my work, design and programming but I do not outsource my link building anymore… I do this myself and with less time on my hands these days, I had to re-think how I was still going to manage building links for my sites. I decided to hire someone full time who sites next to me in the office - by doing this I can help him understand all aspects of finding, evaluating and getting links while having piece of mind that I’m guiding him to get results, and know that I have someone 8 hours per day building links to my sites. You can not get this piece of mind outsourcing your link building - unless you really rust them (I don’t trust anyone in business, not sure if that’s a good thing or not though)

You get what you pay for - especially with link building

When I was in the same situation as you a few years back, the results I was getting from third parties were poor as well. I had 2 options, one was to hire a trusted link builder that rightfully wants good compensation (from $250 per hour) which I would need to trust or handle link building myself. I choose the 2^nd option.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that working with freelancers and most companies more often than not produce poor work unless you go with someone with experience which then gets very expensive. The best bet, if you haven’t got time to manage link building yourself is to employ someone full time, give them a share of your business based on results and you’ll both benefit.

Twisted Movies

When my sister arrived here in Bangkok last week we got talking about the different films we really enjoyed. She mentioned how she thinks Saw are some of the best movies she has ever seen. Although I’ve heared of Saw, I had not actually seen any of the Saw movies (there are 4). After talking about them for 5 minutes we were on our way to the movie shop and luckily I managed to get all 4 parts. I watched all 4 in 2 days and can say they are some of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I love not knowing what happens next, I love the head fuck style and how they all have a twist. If you’ve not seen Saw yet, I highly recommend.

What I want to ask you readers is: What movies have you seen and can recommend that have real good twists to them?

Magazine Up-date

Things have gotten a little slow over the last few days with the Magazine. The engineer that our ISP promised did not turn up last week when promised, but he did arrive on Friday, only to walk straight out of the door after 5 minutes. Our internet at the office is at it’s worse now… a right pain in the arse.

We had our Magazine launch party on Friday, even though we haven’t launched the magazine yet  It was great fun to chat with my team on a more personal level, even though I did get a little tipsy myself!

It’s a national holiday here in Thailand on Monday, so we’ll be really busy getting the magazine ready for launch this week. We are nearly there, I sometimes think whether I should post the URL now

I come across another problem on Friday - I cannot add funds to my Thai paypal account, and I currently have 10 or so people I need to pay for work. I hate being paid late myself and I make a real effort not to pay my staff late - It’s very unprofessional. Unfortunately, you can not add funds from a Thai bank account - So now the only way to get some funds is to have a look at a few sites I can put up for auction.