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Displayed prices are for multiple nights. Check the site for price per night. I see hostels starting at 200b/day and hotels from 500b/day on agoda.

frostfire

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Posts posted by frostfire

  1. For sure! The Addicts site has been working on their "upgrade" for many months and it still has all kinds of problems. Good luck with the changes and hope it doesn't screw up this site since it is currently working just about perfectly for my needs at least.

     

    That's exactly why I have taken so long to do it. Its not critical... but it is needed. While the site is working, it has a lot of security holes, and the newer versions are quite nice... and we pay for it, so we should be running it! (yes, I pay them every 6 months, like Martin did before).

     

    More on the update. I am fine-tuning the process now, but it appears that I will be hard-pressed to do the full upgrade in less than 6 hours.

     

    I started another test run today at about 1am Thai time. its 7am now, and I think its just about done with the final portion of the upgrade scripts... after which there is about 30-45 minutes of configuration changes to make before taking the site live again. I know I can shave 1 hour off that time, perhaps 2.... but no more than that. I am going to do one more full port over tomorrow and time it, and assuming I do not run in to any errors, I may do the for-real update the day after.

     

    When I do the upgrade, I will try to keep this site live but in read-only mode - no posting. I am not sure that will work, so it might just say "offline for maintenance".

     

    When all is said and done, the forum will look quite a bit different. Our skin will be gone, and our logo as well, temporarily. I may hire someone to make a new logo - same theme, just higher resolution and perhaps a little more with the times. But the posts will be here, as will the reputation system, users, permissions, etc. Everything we need. hopefully the new look/feel doesnt scare anyone away. it is different... but better in many ways, once you get used to it.

     

    Frosty

  2. And another quick update. Spent all day on this for the first time, and with good results. Found all the issues stopping the upgrade (again)... I am happy to report that their latest version actually fixed over half of the issues I had last time! I did send them a report about that when I was going thru it, and it seems they put in some very good fixes, which is great! Unfortunately they missed one huge glaring and stupid issue right from the start. For you developers out there, get this. Their "Get ready for IPB4 test script" did not test to make sure json was enabled on your php installation. My initial issues were because json_decode() was failing. Apparently its not installed by default with LAMP on CentOS7, and their script to test your servers compatibility did not test for it.

     

    So I sent that in to them, along with a list of the other errors I had to fix by hand. SO far so good.

     

    Now the bad news: The total upgrade process including the copying of the data is going to take 3-6 hours, during which time the site will be down (in maintenance mode) to prevent anyone posting anything. I was thinking about waiting until Christmas to do it to minimize the impact, but I suspect with all the custom steps I have to do that It might be best to do it right away as soon as I feel confident in the server working properly and all the little pieces fitting together right.... so do not be surprised if I take the site down suddenly in the next few days to handle the upgrade. Not much I can do to warn you... I might post under the FLB Bar facebook group when I start it. Many of you are on there. Other than that, just keep a eye open for everything to look different all of a sudden lol.

     

    Frosty

  3. As many of you may remember, a while back I took over the forum with a promise to get us upgraded (finally) to the latest IPB software, which offers a range of new options and features.

     

    I got a test copy of the board working after a successful upgrade some months ago that we tested a bit and announced ready to go... The only problem being the skin, which I worked on when I had time over the last several months.

     

    Well, low and behold in that time another version has been released, making the last obsolete.... and the new version does not like us very much. It seems it thinks we are worthy only of a 500 server error and nothing more. (no logs, no way to find the root of the problem, etc). lol.

     

    Today I was cut off from IPB's tech support with them saying that they would agree to perform the upgrade on our live site only, and not on a test site that I set up to make sure it works. I am simply unwilling to do that at this point for a number of reasons, the foremost being that I want this site moved to a server with more resources (more RAM and HD space available). I am going to continue working with it over the next few weeks in hopes that I can find and fix whatever issue is causing the errors so we can move forward with the live migration. Once that time hits, I will try to warn everyone ahead of time and schedule it to minimize downtime.

     

    So... the fight continues.

     

    Frosty

    • Upvote 4
  4. Hi guys,

     

    I am eventually going to sticky this thread, but need some info from the group. I want numbers, emails, etc that may be important to a visitor to Pattaya. I will start the list out, but please add to the thread and I will update this original post.

     

    Royal Thai Police: 191

    Tourist Police: 1155 (cell)

    Immigration Police: 1178

    Highway Police: 1169

     

    General info for Pattaya City (like a city operator): 1337 (then 9 for english)

     

    Bangkok Pattaya Hospital: 1719

     

    Fire/Rescue: 199

     

    Pattaya Sea Rescue: 038-488-134

     

     

    • Upvote 4
  5.  

     

    Just out of curiosity, can you make the report from anywhere in Thailand? Suppose your immigration file is in Jomtien but you're in Phuket?

     

    Provided it works correctly, yes you can. But don't count on it always working. It has intermittent technical issues, and is sometimes down for no obvious reason.

  6. You do not need a new sound card unless you are doing advanced audio stuff.... unless of course the low volume issue is due to a bad sound processor, and with a 9+ year old motherboard that is surely possible. Even that though should be fixed with a good set of speakers. In fact with an older motherboard like that I would suggest putting your sound output in windows to 20% or less and using the speakers amp to increase the sound level. That should increase the sound quality as well.

    • Upvote 1
  7. Totally depends on how important good sound is for you.

     

    I have the Logitech Z906. Its quite spendy, and as far as I have been able to find there are none for sale in Thailand. I had to order mine from hong kong. But.. the sound quality is unmatched. The surround sound for movies is awesome, and for gaming you can actually hear the direction something is coming from. Doesn't get much better.

     

    For a still good quality but cheaper option, take a look at Creative Labs stuff. They sell them here, and most are fairly cheap (

     

    I think the Logitech cost me about 10k baht delivered.

    • Upvote 1
  8. Yes, it does appear faster this morning.

     

    Ya. Its new home is on a monster server. Over 100 processing cores and 512GB of RAM. Its a real beast. On top of that, it appears the old servers RAID controller has been failing for some time. The packet loss was pretty bad by the time I noticed it, which undoubtedly has been sucking up "speed" from all the servers on there. New controller will be delivered in about 8 hours and will get it swapped out.. .but ill leave ptalk on this bigger server. :)

    • Upvote 2
  9. As part of the upgrade process I am going to change servers as well.

     

    I am not a linux person. But the version of Linux martin had installed here is very difficult to work with, even for linux (lol). The test server I set up with a basic linux OS is much easier to work with and diagnose issues on, and I will create a new server (more powerful) with the same for our final server. Thats going to happen in the next couple weeks. With any luck that will make these issues go away.

  10. Frosty- Just FYI, I got the following error a few minutes ago when I tried to post:

     

    attachicon.gifSQL.JPG

     

    The board does seem to be running slow for me.

     

    Also, I cannot use the multiple photo upload function, the advanced uploader. The Choose Files button doesn't show. I have no problem uploading pics one by one.

     

    attachicon.gifflash.JPG

     

    I have the latest version of Flash and it's enabled, so this might be a conflict between my browser and the Invision software.

     

    Evil

    :devil

     

     

    Yup, im working on it. Will update as soon as I am sure a fix is in place.

  11. RAID - is that the Random and inexpensive disc array? old tech isn't it?.

     

    Lol anyway, thanks for the greenie KM, I have asked if the whole topic could be deleted actually, then I can re paste everything from word and insert the pics. they're only around 350kb each so nothing too massive.

     

    LOL... I can't tell if your being serious or not there.

     

    RAID - Redundant Array of Independent Disks - essentially its a piece of hardware that combines multiple physical drives (in this case 16), in to a single usable logical drive that the operation system can see. In short it can keep working even if 2 of the physical drives fail, tho it will run slow until the damaged drive(s) are replaced. That is not what is happening here tho - all 16 drives show as online and healthy. Something else is wrong. But it will fix itself.

     

    I have turned off all but 2 of the VPSs running on it to speed things up, so hopefully most of the speed issues will not be noticeable until the scan is complete.

    • Upvote 2
  12. ok so I am just going thru this trying to figure out whats going on, and I think I have a partial explanation.

     

    The server this site is running on is a VPS, and the host computer its running on is not even near its useful load, but it does have a very complex storage system known as a RAID. This essentially keeps the data safe in case of a drive failure (or multiple drive failure in this case). One of the downsides to running a RAID is that it sometimes has issues and needs to re-build itself, or in this case do whats called a Consistency Check. These checks take a god-awful amount of time and slow the drive (and thereby the whole system) down to a crawl when running. One of those scans is running now. Worse, its going a lot slower than it should be, and I have no idea why. Its been running now for 2 days and is only at 10%. I could cancel the check, but I dare not as its the second time its run itself - the last time just a few days back I cancelled it for taking too long and slowing down everything. This time I am going to let it run so it can find and fix whatever issue that prompted it to check in the first place. Once completely finished the issue slowing things down whatever it is should be resolved.

     

    In the meantime, I will look in to moving the pattayatalk VPS to one of my other servers. Not sure if that is a viable option or not, but if it is I will get that done today.

    • Upvote 1
  13. Absolutely zero agenda but hovering over their names (or any names) doesnt do anything ??

     

    If someone could come back would be grateful, if not will just post the minor issue here

     

    Thanks

    There may be an issue with your browser. You should get a menu when you hover over a name.

     

    You can also go here: http://www.pattayatalk.com/forums/members/

     

    Search for the mod you want, click on their name and message them from their profile there.

     

    You can also start a new message from your own mailbox and just type in the name:

     

    http://www.pattayatalk.com/forums/index.php?app=members&module=messaging&section=send&do=form

     

    Hope this helps.

  14.  

     

    Weren't we in Annabelle's as well? (Also quiet)

     

     

    AH yes we were.

     

    So... Annabells: Very quiet. We walked in and were about to walk right back out when the manager (who appeared to be known to Big Brian?) walked up... Brian says something to the effect of " is going to buy us some drinks, so we can stay" ...and the manager appeared to agree... but that never happened, so we drank a quick one and moved on. I'm surprised I forgot to mention this bar because I was going to mention that this place was also owned by Dave (windmill), and was the 3rd bar that was a disappointment last night. Very surprising. Ive always liked his places - and he always seemed to find good girls. I hope he's ok and will return to making things great again some day.

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