Songkran Water Festival (Thailand Holiday)… Squirter Sticks

SongKran is Coming… Get your Squirter Stick Made and Tested.

I rode by a PVC store a couple times recently. Everytime I do I'm on the way to eat and so I don't have time to stop and take a look. I'm on a quest to create the ultimate SongKran Holiday (water festival) water squirter.

Last year I had a student that gave me hers.  It was well made, and when some degenerate kid borrowed it for 10 minutes and broke it, I had a chance to examine the insides.  I think I've got it in my mind exactly how to make one like that, but I want mine to be a bit bigger - hold more water. I want to squirt twice (doesn't everyone) without having to refill the stick.

I'll try to explain the SongKran water tube (gun) and what it's good for.

Primarily it's a stealth weapon.  One doesn't need to run up to a truck, water bucket (dish) in hand and throw the water on someone who is fully aware that the water is coming. The stealth stick has the ability to launch anywhere from 3-10 meters (with wind) a large stream of water that retains it's cold temperature if one had the inclination to fill the tube with the iciest water available before firing it off.

I like the tube over the dish for many reasons…

1. I can stay in the shade over the overhang at the store I'm in front of while everyone else is out running into the sun's HARSH radiation rays every few minutes. I am able to retain my white glowing and luminescent skin while others are nung si dum (black skinned) and obviously lower classed than my white self.
2. My weapon is almost unique. Nobody really takes the care to make one of these the right way. There are cheap imitations that kids can be seen using, but they are weak compared to my manly stick.
3. It's a perfect example of mai pen rai. These squirters are illegal and yet nobody will say anything about them - police included because, it's SongKran… almost anything goes - and does.
4. I can usually stay away from the boys and katoeys that want to powder my already white god-like face with smelly powder that invariably goes in my eyes and in my mouth.
5. If someone is obnoxious by pouring ICE cold water down my back when I happen to be engaging some other opponent I can hit them with a strong jet stream straight to their eyeballs and smiling face that renders them temporarily blind and unable and unwilling to further their stupidity.
6. I can stealthily attack from a distance so great that the object of my stream cannot fathom who might be hitting them. This is very effective in short spurts. If I spurt the object (person) from a great distance and turn my head sideways and look sideways at their confusion it brings a secret smile and some satisfaction of a SCORE.
7. The dish can be turned back on one's self in the midst of an attack. Not so easy for the stick to be turned around to squirt me in the eye.
8. I made it. There is some pride in my stick. It's mine. Someone might borrow it for a few strokes of the plunger, but factually it's mine and it's a part of me after I use it the whole day.
9. If a fight ever broke out I could use my stick to beat asunder the 912 Thais' that are attempting to whoop me.  Try THAT with a squirt gun or a dish.
10. Soi dogs too - become victims instead of attackers.

So here's a description of how to go about making one. I hope I can make it make sense. 

The PVC tube should be about 3-4 feet long - a bit longer than a meter I think. Mine last year was about the diameter around of a little less than a cardboard toilet paper roll. I'll tell you about mine last year and then later show you a photo process of making mine for this year.
So, that is the outside tube. It must be hard and pretty inflexible. I'm guessing the diameter of the walls in that tube were 1/4" thick.   When I filled it up with water it didn't flex at all. It shouldn't flex easily, it should take a lot of effort to bend it at all.

Now, the inside tube should fit inside the the first tube.  The inside tube can be of thinner diameter plastic - maybe as thin as 1/16" thickness to the walls.  This tube should be 4-5" longer than the first tube because you'll need a handle to grip and to push out the water with.

Make sure the inside tube will slide easily in and out of the first tube since, if you're "playing songkran" correctly you'll be pulling that thing in and out about 400 times each day… x 3 days = a lot of pushing and pulling, and probably the most fun you've ever had.

Squirting strangers with your big stick for 30 hours over 3 days is a most exhilarating experience, I can assure you.

Now you'll need a handle for the 2nd tube. This handle can be whatever you want - but a plastic end cap works OK. Make sure it will be comfortable in your hand because you'll be using the palm of your hand to push the water out when you get tired of gripping the handle.

For the other end of the 2nd tube (inner tube is 2nd tube) you'll need a cap AND a round hard rubber loop to squeeze between the cap and the end.  What that means is -the cap must have a smaller diameter end that fits INTO the 2nd tube and you put the rubber ring around that inner piece first before squeezing on the cap and making the cap and rubber ring go almost flush with, but still a little larger than the 2nd tube.

The cap for the 2nd tube must be small enough to fit completely into the 1st tube just a little snugly. You'll be dipping the front end of the big stick into the water and pulling out the handle to suck up the water, so the seal between the rubber ring and the outer tube must be just right.

Once you have all those things - just buy a hard plastic cap for the front end of the 1st tube - that fits OVER the end and is flat at the end.  You'll need to drill a hole in that cap - or multiple holes if you wish to squirt multiple streams. I think one stream about as big as a pencil diameter is good. That's what I had last year. Maybe even a bit thicker would be better, but I think I'll drill a small one first and make it larger to experiment with the optimum stream size.

All of these pieces and a can of glue should run you about 200 baht I'm guessing. That's $5 usd.  Add to that the cost of buying a couple 30 lb blocks of ice each day and you'll probably spend $12.50 usd in 3 days.

If none of this makes ANY sense to you at all - just wait until I get my supplies together and I'll give you a proper how-to post for making your SongKran Stick Squirter.

Songkran squirter stick pic I found in someone else's blog >  This blog has a lot of great photos - you should have a look. 

I'm  jaded about the best places to go to celebrate SongKran - I think the northeast is the best.  Isaan.  The people have a great attitude and there are few bad incidents or negative incidents (fights or groping). I spent the first 2 years there and I had more fun than a farang should be allowed to.

Unfortunately this year it looks like I'll be in Pattaya because I've not seen a good reason to leave yet. I'm doing social research so to speak.  LOL.  God I've eaten some good farang food lately.  Add to that the Beer Laos I can get here and things are looking pretty comfortable. Pattaya isn't ALL bad… the dance clubs are great and the food is great. I've met some good people and there even appear to be decent Thai girls here as well. Not everyone's a bargirl…

Ok, I'll go out today and find some PVC parts to get assembled and take lots of photos for a good blog post.  Assuming I don't get loopy on the glue, I'll post it ASAP.

Until then…

Blogger (Vlogger) and Internet Marketing Consultant needs Blogging Job!

I've decided to Blog (vlog) full-time by getting a paid gig blogging if it's possible. The climate for this has been ripening lately and there just might be enough people in the market looking for a blogger that they are searching online for one. My resume should pop up in Google if they are.

I'd like to remain in Thailand and blog, but the possibility exists that I will need to go back to the USA if the position I find is more involved than just getting paid to blog somewhere.  Have a look at my resume and statement to see if there's something that I can help you do that would help you or someone you know.  Blogging subjects that I know best are listed on the resume (cv) but if you have something else in mind, run it by me and maybe we can make it work.

If I'm able to remain in Thailand and blog my rate for blogging 15 times per month can be as low as 10,000 baht.
Publishing a post every weekday (about 22 times/month on average) can be as low as 15,000 baht per month.
Publishing every day would be about 20,000 baht per month.

These are VERY low figures, but I figure if I can put my own links in the posts a couple times per month, it might work out OK for me in the short and long-term.

I was going to post the resume here - but the formatting would be hopelessly corrupt since the column width on this blog is so narrow.

Here is a link to see it at the ThaiPulse main site:

Blogger (Vlogger) and Internet Marketing Consultant needs Blogging Job! > HTML version

Blogger and Internet Marketing Consultant Resume / CV > Microsoft WORD Version

I Never got the Clever Answers when I Taught Math…

English, that was a different story…

A friend sent this link from Korea because he knows I taught high school math for Thai kids last semester .

Best Test Answers >

Clever kids…

Flat Tire in Thailand: Everyone’s a Motorbike Repairman

A flat tire last night gave me another good experience with a Thai person willing to help

Last night I was flying back to the hotel on the motorbike about 100km per hour, trying hard to beat the sunset which was winning the race. I have a dark visor on the helmet and it's dirty… there were no street lights and I was trying to follow cars since I could use their headlights to illuminate the motorbike path more than my high beam on the motorbike was doing. Low beams are better, since they shine on the road more - but mine was broken and I hadn't seen the need to fix it until that time.

The road wasn't horizontally flat really, it was angled a bit but still the tire in the rear felt a bit wobbly.  If you keep your tires pumped up full all the time you'll be able to notice a soft one quicker and save yourself maybe some skidding across the pavement on your arse or at least from having the nasty swerves that sometimes accompany a flat at high speed. 

Oh - if you do feel the bike starting to swerve at high speed you need to slow down slowly and evenly with both breaks. Hold on tightly to the grips since the bike might start swerving and you've gotta stay in control. I always put my feet down to the pavement too - like an extra brake and it HELPS! Your shoes will lose a 1/4 inch of rubber (or plastic if you bought your running shoes or sandals in Thailand) but you'll be so much better off since putting your feet down helps to steady the bike and cancel out the swerves.  In my experience anyway. 

I was just guessing that one of my tires was a bit soft - it wasn't flat - it's easy to tell if it's flat… so I did something stupid that turned out ok, I swerved on purpose a few times just to feel the tire. Yeah, felt soft.

I stopped and checked it.  I lost a lot of air -but still ok to go a few km depending how fast it was leaking.

I stopped by two guys sitting on their motorbikes and talking near a bus stop.  I pointed at my tire and made a motion like no air now. I STILL don't know the Thai language for flat tire… I should, considering I've had 10 or so in 2+ years.  I'll look it up, better to know it.  I said "aow gaht, mai me" - air, no have.  They understood immediately though I think the context and me pointing to the rear tire as flat had more to do with it than my made-up Thai.

The heavier guy jumps on his motorbike and tells me to follow - mah nee.

I do and we drive about 5 houses down the road.  It's pitch black.  Motorbike shop closed.  He sees a girl walking 2 doors down. He yells her name. They talk. He tells me, mah nee… I bring the motorbike under where she lives (house on stilts) and the guy goes about changing my tire using her families tools, air compressor, etc.  The guy had a hard time as he didn't know where all the tools were. They didn't have a spare tube for the motorbike so he had to patch it. The hole fell on an area on the tube where there were a lot of raised rubber ridges so he needed to sand those down really smooth before gluing and patching.  He was sweating and I was filming video of him working and when I could I was playing with the 3 kittens that were running around my feet.

For 20 minutes the guy did a good job, I made it the 12 km back without a problem. Not sure I have air this morning, but by the way he paid attention to what he was doing - I'm sure I have air. 

It's sucks to get a flat tire anywhere…. but in Thailand - you just point to your tire and they'll take it from there. Even if they don't WANT to help, I think they do something just knowing that you're a foreigner and you don't know anyone, so they help.  That, and the fact that some want to make some extra coin.

The way this guy was working and sweating, what is usually a 30-50 baht operation - a tire patch, I thought was going to be a 100 - 150 baht scam the farang operation.

Video of him changing flat motorbike tire >

When he was finishing up I heard him ask the girl how much to charge. She said 20 baht. I thought I must have heard incorrectly.  Then I thought, he must have asked her how much to use her tools and the patch and glue kit.  I thought he'd add his on top.

I asked how much - Taol rai kup? 

sewenty baht.

I said what?

Yee sip baht.

I said what?

I thought he meant 70 baht - which would have been ok considering the effort and now he needed a shower.

He said yee sip baht.  I said, oh no, here is 100 baht. Thanks so much man…

He was shocked and the girl was all smiles but he didn't really know what to do. He wanted to help, that much was obvious. I'm glad he took the 100 baht as it saved me a lot of effort to find someone else in that area - there was nobody else around.

So, if you have a flat tire on your motorbike, don't be shy about stopping and asking ANYONE that might be out. If they can't do something they'll probably go find someone that can. Or they'll just walk away from you out of embarrassment for not being able to speak English thinking you don't speak Thai. So, try out your Thai.  It's times like this, when I'm forced to speak Thai that I realize I should practice more.

A few days ago  I had a hilarious time attempting to tell some guys my battery was dead - it wouldn't start.  Thais' say battery like "batt a lee" very distinct syllables if you ever are in the same situation.

Land of Smiles… SICK SMILES!

They don't call Thailand "Land of Smiles" for nothing…

This from Thailand's Daily News a little while back.

An unknown guy (at the time) was beat up and hanged from a tree by a path around a famous park in Nakhon Sawan (the biggest park).

They suspect that he was a member of a teen gang called "Red Gang".  This gang frequently annoyed others.  I guess they wear red everything.

You must at least LOOK at the Thai newspapers sometimes. They are filled with the most horrible stuff. The photos that they allow to get into the papers are shocking but Thai people are smiling as they read them.

This young guy not only was killed, but his family and friends including his gang are all going to be quite embarrassed over this nationwide photo!  Red underwear with cartoon figures on them? What kind of gang is this - kiddy gang?

Who is going to take these guys seriously anymore?

Jokes aside, this is really disgusting to have two guys that are supposed to be investigating this murder and instead are all smiles and joking around about something that is funny to them.  Are they smiling because the guy lost bladder control after he died and pissed his red undies, or is it just that they think his red undies are funny?

Really bizarre man.

My girlfriend told me that she gets angry about it too. We've both seen photos in the newspapers of a girl that was raped and killed and left naked in a field somewhere. The photo in the news shows a naked girl with her legs spread and her face is thankfully blurred out. However, these clowns then go ahead and put a portrait of her face with a big smile within millimeters of the dead girl's photo so you can see exactly who she was.

Can you imagine this shite going down in some other "civilized" country like the USA?  Maybe it is in newspapers like the GLOBE and others, but I've not seen them for a long time. I know that nobody is cracking smiles in the pictures of grisly murders though.

Maybe this photo IS funny, but I'm not getting it…

Anyone getting it?

Land of smiles really means land of smiles. There are a lot of reasons to smile that foreigners would agree with, and yet there are a lot of things Thais' are smiling about that we "just don't get".

Here are some other posts about the Land of Smiles >

Thai Smiles ! Do you ever really know what you're getting?

Thai Concept of "Face" - a lot in here about Thai Smiles

New Thailand Videos: Waterfalls, Headless Centipedes, Cute Kids

Here are links to a few new videos that were shot long ago, but only today do I have a fast enough connection to upload them all to the server on my site.

Here I catch a gecko that was running around the living room. You should really invest in one of these small nets if you can. You can catch centipedes, spiders, geckos, dragonflies, large bees and anything else that flies into your home.

Thailand Gecko Video >

A boy of about 5 years old kills a lizard and brings it back for us all to see. We all make a big deal about it. This is the natural state of things in baan naawk (countryside) here in Thailand. They might barbeque it and fry it up.

Thai Boy, 5, Kills Lizard Video >

This is from Koh Samui. We are at the Big Buddha during a holiday and I wanted to document this Buddhist donation machine. Rotating bowls that collect the donations and recycle. GOOD IDEA.

Buddhist Donation Machine Video >

The next one is a Buddhist Fortune Teller Machine > This gives you a magical number that will tell you what your fortune is on the papers below corresponding to the number chosen by the machine. After we read our fortune I read the one next to it - which is quite hilarious.

For Chinese New Years I buy about 2700 firecrackers and light them off (in groups of 250 or 500 at a time). Good fun and a BIG MESS.

Chinese New Years Firecrackers in Thailand Video >

Cute Thai kids we met at a waterfall in Surat Thani on the weekend about 2 months ago. The girls were darling, the boy a bit annoying. We had a good time going off the vine into the water under the waterfall.

Cute Thai Kids Video >

Top of (or, level 8 rather) Dod Fa Waterfall in Surat Thani Province. There are more levels - but how to reach them was anyone’s guess. Supposedly there are like 22 levels I think? It’s even difficult to find this level 8 and I had some experience co-workers leading me up to it. We were the only ones there - really a cool place. The video shows some of the falls - but, further up and set back into the hill is more of it that can be seen through the trees if one steps back.

Level 8 Dod Fa Waterfall Suratthani, Thailand Video >

Handfeeding Thailand’s Piranha… (Tilapia)

Feeding Thailand’s Piranha Video >

Jonny Durex? We were walking around a wat on Koh Samui that is out further than the Big Buddha and we saw this memorial that appears to be a gag - at a Thai (Chinese) Buddhist temple. Someone created a memorial to Jonny Durex. Is this a gag? All the others were in Thai and serious (real). This one I’m not so sure about.

Jonny Durex Memorial at Buddhist Temple Video >

Kids will be kids… The same group of cute kids from the video above. They found a huge centipede and someone had chopped it in the head before we got there. When I started filming I wasn’t aware there was a problem with it’s head until it started to move. Wow. Then later when I was paying attention to something else, they had separated the head from the body and it was running around with about 2 segments and it’s head. Crazy eh? This IS the countryside…

Headless Centipede in Thailand Video >

A big Katydid.

Thailand Katydid Video >

Phurin Waterfall, Suratthani, Thailand. A long video (4:38) walking around the waterfall and pools and watching the kids having fun swinging on the vine over the water. I try it too.

Phurin Waterfall, Suratthani, Thailand Video >

Enjoy these videos from Thailand. Copy them, share them, whatever…

How to Lose Weight in Thailand (Skip the Rice or Get a Tapeworm)

How to Lose Weight in Thailand… (23 lbs, 10 kg or so)

I don't know what happened over the course of a couple months but I went from 184 lbs down to the present 152.  Losing weight was something that I didn't think I'd EVER have to even think about…

A friend had taken a photo of me sitting without a shirt - pretending to meditate somewhere and when I saw that picture I realized - holy hell man, you got FAT over the last few years.  I'm 5'11" in height and at 180+ I was a bit flabby and I could pinch about 2 inches of fat in my stomach. That's the fattest I've been by far.  

During my whole life I've been playing soccer, bicycling, running, and doing triathlons and biathlons. I never had to lose weight, I was always at 170 and felt good.  At about age 35 I almost stopped exercising and focused more on stressing myself out over the computer and other work-related things.  I would still run a couple times per month, but nothing that was actually doing my body or cardiovascular system any good long-term.

So, I saw this photo and realized something should be done before I blimp up like an American or something.  Vern had to lose some weight. It seemed like I was at that critical point where the pot belly, made infamous in Pattaya suddenly started growing out of me.   

I didn't think I was eating too much - and probably that was true. I wasn't gaining much by the months, maybe 1-2 lbs.  The trick is, once you reach what you consider your ideal weight - not to gain or lose any.

My girlfriend I stay with in Thailand ate MORE than me and she clocked in at about 95 lbs.  She has a great metabolism though, one which I know millions of people would PAY big money to have.

In the morning I would have gwit diao moo  - noodle soup with vegetables and sometimes meatball type things.

In the afternoon - something with rice - gai pad king or kowl pad moo (fried rice with pork).  In the evening my friend would cook and she'd make these AWESOME big meals for just two of us… I'd have 3+ cups of rice and eat until I was so full I couldn't move but to play some badminton later.

So what I did was…

I continued to eat my same morning breakfast.

Sometimes for lunch I'd have just 2 dragonfruits and a cup of coffee.  Sometimes over the couple weeks of first starting this lunch meal I needed to eat something else around 3 pm - a couple cookies or something. I ate them if I needed it. I hate to be hungry at all.

For dinner I cut way down on what I ate. I did it gradually though. At first just 2 cups of rice… then later 1 cup… and then many times I'd have no rice at all.  

Sometimes for dinner I'd have 2 BIG corn on the cobs and I was so full I couldn't eat anything else.

Sometimes I'd have a plate of Kanoon (jackfruit). Sometimes I'd eat some dragonfruit. Sometimes I'd have just whatever my friend made, but without rice. Sometimes I'd have fried chicken (gai yang) and some fruit. Sometimes a big fish (bpla nin) - a Tilapia.

I'd not stuff myself until bursting anymore. I'd eat until I started to feel full - and then stop.  In American I don't know why we eat until we're ready to POP at every meal.  That's gotta be the reason we blow up so big over the years.

I started to drink a full glass of water WITH my meal, not saving water until the end when I was already full.  I noticed I eat much less when I do this - as water takes up a lot of the stomach and is heavy - making me THINK the stomach is quite full with food.

I started to walk and run more… I'd go walking… and usually after 10 minutes of seeing everyone passing by me that was running - I HAD to be running. I'd run until I felt tired and stop. In Thailand one need not run a couple miles continuously to get some respect. Some Thais run… walk… run….walk…  If you get too tired, just walk for a while.  There's no shame!

So I made these simple changes… and you know what?  Over a couple months I lost a hell of a lot of weight.  None of my pants fit, I can see veins in my arms, stomach, legs, and forehead that I've never seen (well, not true) before.  When I was doing triathlons and bike races there was a point that I went down to 147 lbs. I was in awesome shape…

When I smile - my smile has wrinkles.

My face is gaunt almost.

But, since I'm running all the time I know that I'm healthy - in a sense.  I might have tapeworm, or cancer or AIDS but, at least I feel good!

But I think I look like hell.  Everyone that I knew in the past has commented that I look so much worse than before. Apparently FAT is healthy in Thai eyes also. Probably means you have money to GET fat too, so they see it as a sign of status or wealth.

Now, here's the thing…

Was I doing enough to lose that much weight over these months on my own with my diet and exercise, OR, is there something else going on - like I'm dying of something and my body is cannibalizing fat and protein to fight off the disease!???

Only in the last couple weeks as EVERYONE has said I look like shite have I thought - hmm, something could be wrong here.  My complexion is good… I don't have headaches or weird pain.

I try to eat more, but, since my stomach has shrunken I really can't eat more than I do.  I am not usually hungry, but I eat 3 meals a day and always some snack. I think my total caloric intake if I don't have a large beer Singha is about 1000 calories. It's probably STILL too low to maintain weight though. I must eat another 400 calories maybe.

It's easy to do in Pattaya as there are PIZZA places and good food everywhere. Lots of beer too.  Hmmm, we'll see.

I'm still running and it feels awesome, it's easy to run again without all the extra weight.

Today I had about 4 mixed milk drinks - like chai yen, som tam with sticky rice and I ate until I was full.  I just finished ice cream. I am considering having a donut later.  I'm going to take a nap in about 2 hours.  I've gotta gain some weight today!

I wonder if something's wrong, and then again I don't.  Why care?  I've had a full life and I've always thought that life after 40 goes downhill from there. My downhill started about 35 so, anytime now will be good for me to go to the next step.

Anybody had this experience in Thailand?

Do we NEED Computers Anymore? Mobile Phones are Doing it All…

Do we need computers anymore?

I’ve been wondering this for a while now…

But, I’d been effectively technology disabled with my 2005 Motorola e680i phone and no personal computer or internet access except at work. This phone might appear to be something pretty advanced, and maybe it was in 2005… it has quite a few bells and whistles but the whistle has been overshadowed by fog horns on the newer mobiles.

I’d taken a year and something off from the technology world that was my life back in the USA. When I came to Thailand I did NOTHING in technology. I didn’t read about it or use it, save for my motorola phone which I could reach the internet with - but that was the extent of my internet savvy in Thailand.

I’d missed a LOT in a year. Recently I started blogging at this ThaiPulse! blog and I’ve been reading about new technology everyday, trying to catch up on what I’d missed. This blog seems to be coming along now, I’ve got an average of 100+ people coming daily to read what I’m writing about. I think I really want to make 2007 the YEAR OF THE VERN like I predicted in my 2007 Resolution statement on the blog. It was a joke then, but I think I’m up to it… bold prediction eh?

It’s just that blogging on ThaiPulse is a lot of fun. I have some ideas to take it to the next level and I’ll start those as soon as I leave this school and get more free time to blog.

I like the idea of mobile blogging. It’s SUCH a pain in the azz to shoot photos with a 4.1 mp camera, edit them down to 350 pixels in width, optimizing for size considerations because internet users are still needing smaller sized files to see in their browsers. After I shrink the dimensions and file sizes, optimize colors, contrast, and brightness I fire up the notebook, log into blogger.com and create a new post. I upload the picture and create the blog in their next to worthless text editor and then re-format it a few times before it’s perfect and then hit “publish” and pray.

Publishing VIDEO is WORSE. More steps and more considerations - one of which being - people that will steal the videos for their own websites and call them their own - unless I create titles and credits on my videos that show my website as the original source. It’s a big pain.

I want to be mobile in the sense that - if I could shoot photos and videos and upload them to the blog automatically that would be the best. If I could blog from ANYWHERE and not be tied down to logging into my notebook computer - which must have an internet connection that is stable (a rarity here in Thailand), I’d be so much happier and more free to create articles on the fly.

Well, I think the time has come… or, it’s coming. I have been researching phones for QUITE a while now. 3 months of intensive research and trying to identify what it is I need to do with the phone to become as mobile as possible and yet as comfortable as possible in the field churning out blog posts here and at my other blogs.

There are SO MANY THINGS to consider.

Connection speed for GPRS or other internet service: EDGE, 3G, etc. Unfortunately in Thailand we are relegated to EDGE right now as our high speed connection for mobile data service. This sucks, as it’s only about 4 times as fast as a regular GPRS connection to the internet from your phone.

It sucks 7 times harder that EDGE is available only in major cities in Thailand, though the list IS growing and quite dramatically even. Bangkok and Pattaya used to be the sole places to find EDGE speeds for internet access in Thailand. Now there are other cities - and I was blown away to learn that I am IN one of those cities presently!

Khon Kaen, Ubon Ratchathani, Koh Samui, and Surat Thani have been recently verified as having EDGE service of some sort - either DTAC or AIS flavors.

Here in Surat over the last 24 hours since I bought this new mobile phone with EDGE support, I have had data download speeds of 10KB per second. Yes, CAPITAL B. That’s 80 kbps. Not bad really. The service has been remarkably stable too. I’ve uploaded (at 7-8) KBps by FTP to my http://www.thaipulse.com site over 25 megabytes of video this morning and not had ONE timeout. The whole batch went through with no disconnections. The efficiency of the EDGE mobile connection I have with AIS Thailand is BETTER than TOT’s ADSL 1mb service that I was paying 1000 baht per month for!

I bought 100 hours of internet GPRS service (which includes EDGE) for 350 baht. I’ve already used 20 hours in 2 days so I think I need the next plan - but still, it’s very reasonable cost-wise to use the EDGE mobile internet service instead of ADSL at TOT. I had such an inconsistent connection with TOT that I griped and moaned and finally got out of paying for ANY service for October through February. I did pay for the installation and the monthly maintenance on the phone line of 160 b or something like that. About 10 days in those 4 months I received the data rate I was paying for - the rest of the time it was drastically worse. Fairly, part of that was due to the earthquake in Taiwan’s waters, but I still wasn’t going to pay for that.

I wasn’t sure what to do - get an EDGE PCMCIA card for my notebook computer - but then I was still tied to the notebook computer and lugging that around anywhere I wanted to post to the blog. The goal was to get RID of the computer sometimes and not be carrying it around in my hot padded backpack all day in the heat. I was also considering going to Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia for a time and definitely didn’t want to be dragging this Compaq lugnut around.

I found phones that had EDGE compatibility built in. Great stuff… but, how long did their battery last with that running? I figured battery life was something I’d be fighting with every option. Carrying the plug for the laptop is no joy either - considering it’s heavier than ANY mobile phone on the market just by it’s self. But, I’ve done it - because what else could I do?

So I agonized over what phone to get that could replace the laptop for certain functions.

Specifically I wanted a cell phone that:

Has a QWERTY keypad so I could respond instantly to email and approve comments at my blog, leave comments for others and write blog posts of short length. My fingers are medium sized, I don’t have monkey fingers or anything, but most QWERTY pads I tried in the stores just weren’t cutting it. The Samsung i320 and i600 and the Treo series just were way too small. In Hawaii I was lucky enough to try a friend’s sidekick II which was NICE. Very smooth and easy to type on, however, the sidekick III that’s currently in the states doesn’t have nearly the features that I need.

Has a touchscreen for easy internet browsing since I’d become used to my Motorola e680i’s touchscreen web browsing with Opera’s browser - it is really STILL the standard for easy web browsing.

Allows push mail of some sort so I could get into Google mail and also be notified whenever I received new mail.

Has a voice recorder. I am still playing with the idea of changing my long e-book into a podcast type thing. I’ve done the first two pages - 50 minutes of recording my voice. But I have YET to upload the 8mb file because I’ve been focusing on video at the moment, not mp3 files.

Has a 1.3 or 2mp resolution camera (as a maximum), but not as small as the .3mp that I had in my Motorola. It had to be good enough to take quality photos for the web, but adjustable enough to change the resolution so the file wasn’t TOO big to upload quickly to the blogs.

Has a video recorder that could specify the size of the video as I couldn’t use 640×480 for the blog - it’d be WAY too big physically on the page, and the file size would be too large to upload or for visitors to download. Ideally it would create video in mp4 or wmv format which is accepted by youtube AND converted quickly into their format which I think is MP4.

Has speakers to listen to music - I LOVE my moto for the stereo 3-d speakers it has.

It has to have EDGE of course since regular GPRS wasn’t cutting it. With my moto connected as a modem to the notebook and using the AIS GPRS package internet plan I was getting about 2KB per second throughput which really crawled. (See photo, taken during an especially slow period)

Has WLAN access (wireless LAN) so I could connect to wireless networks that I sometimes come across in office buildings, hotels, and friends’ homes.

Has bluetooth for a wireless connection which is fast to share files between phones or computers.

It should NOT have a large screen that was touchscreen since I think battery life suffers too much to make it sensible to use one. I’d love it while the battery worked, unfortunately the battery drains QUICKLY with internet use.

Hmm, that was about it. There weren’t many phones that fit the bill. There were some that were soon to be released like the MOTO Q q9 and the Moto Q gsm, but when they’d materialize was anyone’s guess. They’d likely be over 25,000 baht too. I was hoping to stay under 20,000 baht, but, if I found the right phone I’d have gone 35000b as it was VERY important.

When I said that to myself I started to wonder about just getting another very small laptop with an EDGE card 35,000 baht buys a decent computer… but unfortunately not a very light one with a great battery and a 10,000b EDGE card. Hmmm….

So - I agonized for a while. I read everything on the phones that almost fit the bill perfectly and those that were promised in the coming months and quarters.

I decided I needed one NOW.

I went to Telewiz and told them what I wanted. They had some new e series phones there by Nokia. I spent an hour going over features of the phone with the tech guy there and finally bought one. This phone has NO QWERTY pad.

How in the world am I going to type long blog posts? (like this one!)

Well, before I decided that TODAY IS THE DAY I realized something. There are bluetooth keypads that let one connect to many of the newer phones on the market. A KEYPAD! HEY, that’s exactly what I need. Who thehell can type a 1000 word blog post on a handheld phone anyway without carpal tunnel?

That’s when I knew the answer - buy something that does everything else but that. It was fairly easy then because there are lots of phones that are not QWERTY but that had all the other advanced features. The internet version of the Nokia 80 seemed pretty decent too, though quite thick - almost as thick as the old e680i and that was just too thick.
If that was the only one that fit the bill I’d have got it - it was 16,500 baht at the Tesco mobile phone hawker stand.

When I saw the phone I bought I thought, wow, that’s THIN for having everything I want, but the tech guy at Telewiz insisted it had EVERYTHING. I tried it out and yeah, it did. The only concern I really had was whether the video would be good enough quality online after I uploaded it to youtube and they converted it. But, there’s no way to know what it’ll be like until it’s done. So now, it’s done and the quality is quite acceptable for mobile blogging.

I have not purchased the bluetooth keyboard yet, I’m letting my pocket cool off from yanking 16,300 baht out of it yesterday. I am not sure how much the keyboards are either, but whatever the cost - it’s worth it to have a full sized keyboard to type on!

I figure they are lightweight and easy to take with me.

I took some mobile phone video last night at Makha Bucha Buddhist Holiday at the temple close by and it turned out great. I also tested Gmail - works great - I get a beep everytime a new Gmail message comes into the inbox. I tried mobile picture posting at blogger - it worked great. I uploaded over 20 megabytes of video today both to my website and to youtube, and it didn’t even DISCONNECT ONCE!

I’m all smiles so far, just hope it lasts.

In the coming weeks I’ll post more from the road, as that’s where stuff is usually happening that’s interesting and I only had the video camcorder with me 1/4th of the time I needed it. This way, I have the camera with me ALL THE TIME and the posts might be more timely because I don’t necessarily have to wait to return home to the notebook and ADSL connection to upload and publish to the blog.

So - we’ll see.

Do we really need computers anymore?

It won’t be long - and I think we’ll have something small enough and yet able to do EVERYTHING we want…

Now, if I could just get a little bigger screen….

hahahha

If you have any questions about how to get started mobile blogging ask and I’ll try to help or point you in the right direction…

Vern

Pattaya Beach, Thailand! So much to do!

I like Pattaya for certain things.  The food.

There's a wide range of food to eat compared to Isaan. Many places to drink coffee and read the newspaper… type up blogs on the notebook computer.  Pattaya has a couple good spots for wireless internet, but what's really great is that the EDGE service from AIS works well. I can plug my phone in by cable to the notebook and use it as a modem for the next 7 hours (as long as the notebook is plugged in because without that - it lasts about 90 minutes before it dies.)

The discos are very fun - Lucifer's was great last time I was here, though I've not been back since. Too busy just people watching. MAN there is a lot to watch here, as you might imagine.

I like to grab a pizza at Pizza Company and watch all the people go by and come in the shopping center. There are so many types of guys that come here from overseas, and even many women and families too!  WHO in their right mind brings their family and kids to Pattaya?  It seems like about 5% of Europeans visiting.  I am not sure I've seen American families here, though I'm sure they come. How do you talk your wife into that one? 

Honey - I decided we need a vacation this year…

OH GREAT! she says…

Let's go where there are more whores and whoremongerers gathered in one place than perhaps anywhere else in the entire world.  He offers.

*)#)(#($(%)_!  she INVARIABLY says…

How does a guy turn THAT around and get a "yes"?  Tell her that there's great shopping and she can shop all day if she'll just leave him alone for a couple hours with "the boys at the bar"???

If a guy CAN'T get some free time from the spouse and kids how would he be able to STAND THE PRESSURE of coming here and seeing every other guy with testosterone going with 15-50 girls during their 2 week stay?

These are things I wonder about as I sit in this fine coffee house and the girl serving me coffee is flirting with me - thinking I'm going to give her my hotel room number…

Ahhh, Pattaya… so much to do…

Steps to Starting a Blog in Thailand on Blogger.com

This post is squeezed into this thin column and this will seem like an EXTREMELY long post if you read it that way. Better for you if you right click the link below and download the .PDF (Adobe Acrobat) formatted copy I put on my other site ( www.thaipulse.com) so it will print out nicely and be much easier to read.

Steps to Starting a Blog in Thailand on Blogger.com (PDF file)

If you are interested in Advertising in Thailand on your current site or blog just scroll to the very bottom of this post and you will see links to 1 download and 2 Google Advertising programs that are exceptional and will get you started. Make sure you get those 3 and then you can go to: Advertising in Thailand

I started blogging recently here at http://Thaipulse.blogspot.com and I wanted to help others that want to get started but don’t feel like they have all the information they need in ONE PLACE. That was how I felt when I started and I already had years of background with internet marketing and web site e-commerce projects under my belt. Hopefully this is written in an easy format so you can go step-by-step and learn it as you go. If not, and if for any reason you need to email me to ask a question about a detail or if you’re having trouble seeing the “big picture” about some topic or subtopic, just write me and I’ll try to help. I wish I had someone telling me the step by step process to go through as it would have made life easier. But, now that I have it - I’d better share it.

These are the steps you could follow to start your own free blog in Thailand at Google-owned “Blogger.com“. I chose Blogger because I believe it’s the easiest way for people to get started blogging. It’s fast. It’s intuitive. It’s filled with great features. It’s rarely off the air. They’ve integrated EVERYTHING you could possibly need into their system so it is the natural choice to get started in blogging. Otherwise you are putting together a system by yourself and the interaction between parts may not work smoothly and will cause endless frustration. Just do everything with Google and you’ll be happier, I promise.

If you have a knack for writing or photography or videography or making cartoons or making people laugh, or even if you want to blog about new gadgets that are coming to the market in Thailand you can use a blog to do that.

A blog is short for “web log”. They started out as online journals. Some posted personal journals and other people started posting about topics that were interesting to them. Some people make money with their blogs and some make nothing. Some want to make money and some don’t care. I will add what you know in order to make money, but if you don’t care just skip those parts.

1st step: Choosing a topic to blog about

Decide what you will blog about. If it’s a personal blog or journal this part will be easy - just include whatever you want about yourself. Know this, most people will not read your personal journal unless they are family, friends, or you are writing about yourself that reminds them of themselves or you are in a position that they wish to be and they want to find out about your life and who you are and what you’re doing. If you’re a very interesting person you might have a lot of readers. There are teenagers blogging about being teenagers that have a 100,000 visitors per day reading their blog about teenage life. Even if you are a VERY interesting or inspiring person - it will take months and likely years to build up a good base of readers. But, if you’re in it for the long-term - you can set that as a goal. Maybe not 100,000 readers a day, but something realistic that will make you happy.

If you write your blog as a personal journal you will likely not make much money, again, unless you have flocks of readers coming daily.

If you want to blog for income you can choose a topic that people are searching on the internet for - which translates into topics that people have interest in.

Some TOP blogs focus on politics. Some on new products or reviews of products. Some top blogs focus on how to make money with your blog or optimize your blog for greater readership or readability. Some good blogs focus on a favorite sports team. A guy’s blog was recently bought by Sports Illustrated… he focused his blog on NBA (National Basketball Association” teams and players and is reaping major income from that deal. Blogs can be bought by interested parties and more recently this is happening more.

Perhaps the BEST way to decide what to blog about is to assess what you are interested in, or knowledgeable about. Perhaps you know English teaching in Thailand - how to teach Thais’ English. Your blog can be about that. You may know digital cameras or photography. You can blog about that. You may know Thai politics or have opinions about things going on and you could probably have a successful blog about that.

The key is, you had better LIKE what you’re blogging about because you’ll need to do it EVERY SINGLE DAY if you want to make any money from it.

The main search engine on the internet is Google. That’s no secret. If you make Google happy with your blog - and focus your blog on a narrow topic similar to those that I mentioned, you could eventually see some success. There are many things Google needs to see at your blog before it showers you with Google’s good and gracious gifts…

Things that make Google happy:

1. A daily blog post of 300 words or more focused on the topic of your blog. If your blog is about Basketball you can focus on ANYTHING related to basketball in your individual posts. Variety is good. Variety under the main topic of Basketball. You might choose to blog about where the rubber comes from that they use in NBA basketballs. The next day you might choose to blog about a specific team. The next day a specific player. The next day the way the process goes for semifinals and finals. The next day, how much money players on team B make per year, per game.
Everyday you should have a post about something related to your blog’s topic. Multiple posts per day are good for Google, but you need to balance that with how many posts your readers are going to read everyday. For my ThaiPulse! blog I am writing large articles as often as I can, and posting notecards and photos and videos often. It is too much information for people to take it all in, but I’m not concerned with that too much right now. If I have daily readers that keep coming back, that is a bonus to me right now. It isn’t my focus. My focus right now is to bang out 200 or 300 articles that are great for Google. Once Google starts sending the masses then I’ll start writing posts that people like to read everyday - short and sweet and filled with information that’s bulleted or filled with links to help those coming to my site see more of what is good in Thailand.

IF you are posting more than once per day, you do not need to follow the 300+ word rule for every post. You might post a photo by itself with a Title and nothing else. You might add one paragraph to it or 3, but you don’t NEED to make it 300 words or more. But, once per day you really need to. Other posts are up to you, and actually variety is good. You could post a photo or a “Top 10″ list of something or anything in a different format than your usual 300+ word posts that you do daily and Google will love you a little more for it.

2. A photo or photos or sound clip or video along with your written blog post. Google loves multimedia. If you can, you should add at least a photo to all blog posts. It will be seen as more informative, and have greater value in Google’s eyes.

3. If you post a photo - you should “optimize” it for Google. Meaning, you should learn about “ALT=” and “TITLE=” tags that go in the HTML code behind the scenes. Read up on this, it is not difficult and, Google’s blogger.com allows you to edit the code in your post to add these two tags. These should not be missed as you will improve your post but also make your photo available in Google’s “Image search” feature of the search engine. Your photo could come up which might lead visitors to see your web site. (More about how to make your photos available in Google Image Search later).

4. When you name your photo before you upload it to blogger.com you need to name it with some keywords that you think people might search under to arrive at that blog post or at that photo. Your keywords in the name of your image file should describe the image too. If you have a photo of a monkey in the zoo in Thailand you might name your file ” monkey-zoo-thailand.jpg” before you upload it to Blogger.com. Avoid using short filler words in your image title, you would not want to use “monkey-in-big-zoo-thailand.jpg”. Separate words in your image title with dashes (-), not underscores (_).

5. Google likes to see a heirarchy of information. If the main topic of your blog is Traveling in Thailand. Then you should have a group of posts that relate to a subcategory under that main topic… maybe a group of blog posts about “traveling in Isaan” or “traveling in boats”. It’s no coincidence that DMOZ.org is arranged in a very neat heirarchy that separates levels of topics nicely. Dmoz is Google’s directory of web sites. You might draw out an outline for your blog heirarchy like this:

Heirarchy of Information for your Blog >

6. In the TITLE of your blog post you need to use keywords that describe the information you’re presenting. For example. The name of this blog post is “Steps to Starting a Blog on Blogger.com in Thailand”. I have put the major keywords in the title. Google pays a LOT of attention to the title. If your title does not match the information in your blog post then you will likely not rate high in Google search results for that blog post - ever. When you use the keywords that you think accurately describe the blog post in your title, you should REPEAT those keywords and keyword phrases (groups of 2-5 words that go together) in the body of your blog post.

7. Once you know the keywords that describe your blog post you and you use them in your title and body, you must realize that you’ll need to use them MORE for longer blog posts than you would need to use them for a shorter blog post of just 300 words. Meaning… Google looks for a certain “keyword density” in the blog post when deciding to rank your page in the results of a search someone is doing at Google.com. If you use your keywords 3-5 times in a post of 300 words then that is probably plenty enough that Google will consider you highly for those keywords. If you post a 3000 word article (like this one will be I’m sure), you’d need to use the keywords a LOT MORE to keep up the keyword density level. I might have to use my main keywords 20 times so Google will think the entire article is focused on those keywords. Otherwise, it wouldn’t think so. You can’t trick Google really, it was created by some of the most brilliant minds on the planet, don’t even TRY to trick it and risk getting Google Hate in the form of dropping your whole blog or web site from being indexed with them.

8. Keywords in Large or BOLD text within your blog post. I don’t use this much, as it’s not naturally my writing style - but you can, and it will probably help you if you can find a way to bold or make your keywords larger in your post without detracting from the style or message of the post. Don’t just bold words irregularly because it’s a keyword. But, if you can see a reason for bolding it once or twice then go ahead if you like.

9. Repeating keywords toward the end of a blog post. I think this is still valid as a technique, but if you review the topic of your post at the end of your post - in a summary type statement then that has made Google smile in the past.

10. HUGE HOW TO articles do well. They are referred to as “Pillar articles” and these are what Google would love to have more of. I am attempting to make THIS blog post into just what Google wants to see.

11. Google doesn’t pay much attention to the Keywords or Description Meta tags that were so important in the past. The TITLE is the most important and Blogger.com takes care of putting that into the TITLE tag for you if you enter it on the TITLE line as you edit your blog post before publishing. The titles are dynamic in Blogger, meaning they grab the title from your POST, not the title of your web site. In that way, when Google looks at the blog post - it gets a more relevant or truthful idea what the post is specifically about. It’s worth mentioning that if you have another web site in which you’ve created your titles to be the name of your site for all the pages - it will not do well in Google. Change them all to be relevant to the page info, not the title of your site!

12. I’ll say it once more… consistency. If you post consistently every day you will do better more quickly than if you post once every other day. 5 times per week or 6 times per week. If you can post 14 times per week, it is all the better. If you can post 60 times per week then you might be on the way to superstardom if you follow these guidelines.

So, now you know some essentials about what Google likes.

You have an idea what to blog about.

Step 2: Researching top keyword areas that others are interested in so you can focus your blog on the right topic

Google Adsense is an advertising program that helps people with something to sell - to put advertisements on websites. If you have a Blogger.com blog you can add others’ advertisements on your pages quite easily by adding this program to your blog. You would be called a “PUBLISHER” of the ads when they show up on your site.

Google has a wonderful tool that you can use to find out what the top keywords and keyword phrases are that people use Google.com to search on. The reason this is important for you is because if you do not focus on keywords that everyone is searching on - you will never have decent traffic come from Google’s search engine results - and it can be MAJOR traffic for some topics.

URL for Google Adsense Tool >

You will see: Results are tailored to English, United States Edit

You can click “Edit” to change where the results are pulled from. I typically choose worldwide English because blogs in Thailand are found from all over the world really, I’m not only concerned with the USA results.

Next look at the box below it that says, “Enter one keyword or phrase per line” where you are to type keywords about the topic you are thinking about focusing your blog on. you can enter as many as you like, but if at first you just choose one or two keywords or phrases then you’ll be better off.

For myself, when I created the ThaiPulse! blog I used only “thailand” at first - just to see the top keywords that people around the world are using in Google.com to search for things.

Leave the rest of the settings at their default setting. The drop down menu should say “Keyword Search Volume”.

Click the “Get more keywords” button.

This tool will spit back a list of keywords related to the one(s) you entered and tell you a little bit about how many people are searching on the term and what the advertiser competition is for each term. You can ignore the advertiser competition graph, but pay close attention to the first column of graphs. The graphs have a blue bar that move from left to right to indicate how many searches were done on that keyword phrase. If there is just a tiny amount of blue, and much more white - few searches have been done. If there is a LOT of blue versus white -then many searches were done.

You can order the column by clicking the top of it. Mine says “February search volume”
You’ll then see the top terms arranged in order from most searched upon down the line to least searched upon keywords (terms).

This is the way you will go about choosing the exact topic area you want to blog about. If you are interested in Thailand travel you would go down through the list and look at how much interest there is in that topic - and any keywords that might relate to Thailand travel. “Koh Samui, Thailand railway system” and many other terms relate to it. If you can find a LOT - then better for you.

It’s very hard for me to explain to you how to pick a winning topic for a blog. Really you should go with your own interests, query them with this tool to see if others are interested too - and then decide on the topic for your blog.

You should query many different keywords and try to see where the most interest falls. Of course the most searches are done on the most general terms. Thailand as a term would have a LOT of searches. Should you focus your whole blog on Thailand? Maybe, but probably a subcategory of a major area is better… Thailand travel is a good one.

You can also consider how much has been written about your chosen area already. There are MILLIONS of things written about Thailand. There are hundreds of thousands and probably millions of things written about Thailand travel. But, one of the keys to blogging and what makes it successful is that eventually - in a year, you will have over 360 posts that are all CATERED to what Google loves and craves in one site. That jumble of information will be seen as a pot of GOLD in Google’s eyes as it can feel confident sending visitors there to see an abundance of varied information about your topic. When you have a large collection of articles around Thailand travel you will only be competing with other bloggers that have also chosen that same topic. Bloggers beat all other sites in the search engine rankings because GOOGLE LOVES TEXT. The point behind 300+ words per day is that GOOGLE CRAVES TEXT and blogs give it text. A large travel site like American Express might have a million pages of web site. They’ve spent gadzillions of dollars to create and manage it.

YOUR SITE might have more relevant, varied, and valuable information presented in a way that Google loves MORE than AE’s whole site. Your page rank will never be what theirs is - page rank is a measure of how many other sites related to your topic are linked (have links to) your site. Google uses this as a barometer of quality among sites as well as good quality posts. It IS possible that your site has a pagerank of 3-5 and yet you are beating American Express (page rank 9 I would guess) in the search engines on many keyword terms after 1 year of blogging about many subjects.

Yes, you can do this at another site too - with your own URL, but since Google owns Blogger.com - you won’t do better than what you can do there!

Step 3: Download Mozilla FIREFOX browser

Use it everytime you want to login to Blogger.com (go to bottom of this blog and you will see a button for downloading FireFox browser. It’s time to give up Internet Explorer as it does not work well with Google’s Blogger.com or some other advertising tools. Firefox is much more consistent, has fewer security problems, and is Easier (faster) to use than IE. I was amazed when I switched and now I feel like a cheerleader for getting people to switch…)

I will forewarn you that in an almost unimagineable twist of things… Google does NOT work well with Internet Explorer. If your browser is IE you should seriously consider changing to FIREFOX browser since you will connect MORE often and with MUCH greater ease than you will using IE. I tried for 2 weeks to get IE to work well with Blogger.com. I wrote to Google and I posted on Google Groups questions about how to make IE work with Blogger.com. You know what? IT DOESN’T WORK. I was so frustrated when the tech support told me by email that I should try FireFox browser that I almost popped a vein. How could they recommmend that I change my WHOLE BROWSER SYSTEM?

That was months ago and the transition was almost effortless. Mozilla’s FireFox browser is SOOOO nice compared to IE that I’ve regretted the couple years I stuck with IE as the rest of the world changed for the better. IE is SO slow to go back and forward - and it used to pizz me off to no end. Only after installing FireFox did I realize that not all browsers were as mind-numbingly SLOW as IE is.

Firefox has a lot of customization options that are really nice to use, but that’s not the focus of this post.

Do yourself the greatest favor and download and install Mozilla’s Firefox Browser as soon as you can and don’t ever look back at Internet Explorer again. I have put a button at the bottom of this site (scroll the WHOLE way down) where you can download and install FireFox. Don’t worry, you will still have IE installed if you want, but my guess is that you’ll soon be uninstalling it.

Step 4: Sign up at Blogger.com for a new Blogger account

Go to Http://www.blogger.com/start and sign up for a new account.

Step 5: Choose your domain name

Choose “Create a Blog” once you’ve logged in at Blogger. Your name should be short, have the major topic of your blog in the name if possible or you should create a unique name that you will brand over time so everyone knows who you are. I chose to create “ThaiPulse!” as a unique name that has “Thai” in it - and that will hopefully rank well over time and become branded as a site and group of sites that expats and visitors to Thailand know. When I first did a Google search on the term “thaipulse” there were about 9 results to pop up. JUST 9! It was definitely a unique term that I could brand for later. Now if you do a Google search you will get a couple of hundred or maybe 2000 results. All of those results were created by me making web pages or others that are talking about the ThaiPulse! sites.

Every blog name you create has “.blogspot.com” attached to the end of it since you’re actually publishing your site on Blogspot.com’s site as a sub-domain.

At one of my other blogs I created the name “ko-samui-thailand.blogspot.com” since I wanted to use those keywords in the blog title and I wanted to have people understand exactly what the blog was about.

Those keywords have a decent level of searches for them daily.

Try to use keywords that have a lot of searches and you’ll be better off. Unless you know you can brand a whole site over time and make the name more important than the search engine boost you might get if you had named it something with just keywords.

Kowl jai mai? (Do you understand?)

If not, email me!

Step 6: Choose a template

A template dictates the style that your site will take on. The colors can USUALLY be changed, though not always. You’ll need to experiment with different templates to see which on you like. I like the minima black or white and also some of the Rounders and MOTO templates.

You can always go back to the TEMPLATE tab and choose the subtab or link called “Pick New Template” to change them around. Keep in mind if you change the template after you have many posts and some customization of your template colors and fonts and Adsense ads and other things - a new template may distort or erase some of that formatting.

Step 7: Create your 1st Blog Entry…

Choose “Create post” while logged in at the DASHBOARD.

Title your post, “What is (name of your blog) all about?”

Enter in the body of the post everything that your blog is about. You might describe who you are, why you started the blog, what you hope it covers, where you hope it goes, questions it may answer and why you think people should come and read it.

At the bottom right you can create a label to associate with that post. A label is more like a category. You should think about the categories you want to have in your blog. 20 total categories might be about right. Don’t have 100 and don’t have only 2. If you scroll back up and look at the notecard in which I told you about the heirarchy of subjects to write about - you can use the subtopics as your labels. You should probably associate just ONE label with each post. Resist the inclination to label your post with EVERY category that it falls into since your readers will tire of that quickly if they find one post in multiple categories… they then have to waste time skimming over that post multiple times as they read the different categories. Pick the best label that fits the post. (I use 2 labels sometimes but as an exception and not the usual practice!)

You can then choose Publish or Save as Draft depending on your needs. You can find the drafts in the “POSTS” category or EDIT POSTS category anytime you want to go back and change or add something.

Step 8: Familiarize yourself with the options at Blogger

Now you’re blogging. You know how to create and publish a new post.
You can click the photo button and add photos to your blog. They are added to Blogger’s servers so you don’t need to worry. I think you can upload 100MB of files total, and up to 100KB of photos for each post. I am not sure about this - I’ll re-read the FAQ. You should read it too!

Go over everything possible and test it out. You can delete bad posts at the EDIT POSTS control panel so - test things.

Blogger has many help links on the DASHBOARD page. Look at the right side column and there are numerous help links. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for more helpful links too. There are help links on nearly every page you’ll find yourself on in Blogger too.

Step 9: Choose Settings for your Blogger.com Blog

In the DASHBOARD, Click your blog’s “SETTINGS” link. This will take you to a series of tabs (Basic - Publishing - Formatting - Comments - Archiving - Site Feed Email - Permissions) that you’ll need to setup.

On the Basic Tab you’ll fill in a TITLE for your site - use the best descriptive words you can use with high search traffic as you found with the Adsense keyword tool earlier. Your title should be less than 9 words. Be careful for TITLES as you don’t ever want to have 2 spaces next to each other in your titles. In the past Google used to penalize for that. Better not to do it now either.

Description: You can max this one out - it shows up under your title and is visible on every page of your blog - like the TITLE is. Use keywords and combinations of keywords as you write. If your site is about Thailand travel, use Thai, Thailand, Bangkok, travel, travelling, tourism, tourists… as many words as possible that describes your site - but you must do it in paragraph form. It should be fluid an make sense.

Here is my description for “ThaiPulse!”:

Thailand “Thai” people stories and articles about culture, bargirls, girls, ladyboys, katoeys (katoys), tourists visiting Thailand and Thailand’s expat community. Things to do, travel, attractions, Blog filled with: Videos, photos, stories, notecards. Expect humor (humour), sarcasm, and occasionally a bizarre rant.

Add your blog to our listings? YES! Choose NO! if you have an adult site or a site that has very disturbing content (gross or sexual in nature) Your site won’t show up on blogger but will still be indexed in Google (they say).

Show quick editing on your blog? YES!

Show email post links? YES

Global Settings - these affect all blogs you create under that login that you registered with Blogger.com

Show compose mode for all your blogs? YES!

Show transliteration button for your posts? NO -

Then hit - SAVE SETTINGS Orange button.

********************

CHoose the next tab, “Publishing”.

Blog*spot Address - this will already be filled in and you can change it anytime,but it’s NOT recommended as anyone who linked to you will have a broken link once you change this address. Pick one domain name and stick with it!

Send Pings? YES! Pings are used to let blog directories know when you update your site. It’s automatic. You should also register your site with www.pingoat.com because they ping a long list of directories that will all index your site when they get pinged by pingoat. (You must check off the whole first section of directories in Pingoat to notify them all).

Choose SAVE SETTINGS orange button.

********************

Choose “Formatting” tab at the top of the page.

Show I use 8 posts on the main page. My posts are so diverse that I want to give anyone that comes to the home page a good dose of the variety of stuff that is on the blog. So, everyone will see the last 8 posts I’ve made. It may take a LONG time for it to load, but my research has shown that 85% of my visitors all have fast connections to the internet so I don’t mind. At times I play with this - to see if there’s effects on my pageviews statistics (more about that later). Today I’ll turn it to 2 days of posts to see what happens with stats. I love to experiment.

Date Header Format Format all of these to your liking - up to you.
Archive Index Date Format
Timestamp Format
Time Zone

Language ( I chose English USA)

Convert line breaks YES!

If Yes is selected, single hard-returns entered in the Post Editor will be replaced with single <br /> tags in your blog, and two hard-returns will be replaced with two tags (<br /><br />). This also applies to the comment-posting form.

Show Title field? YES

Show Link Field? YES

Enable float alignment? NO! I’ve not used it - but it refers to how you can position text on your page - and maybe photos and things. You should experiment.

Post Template: You can add things here later as you get more advanced.

Hit “Save Settings” orange button

********************

Choose “COMMENTS” tab at top of page

Comments? SHOW!

Who can comment? ANYONE

Comments default - New posts have comments!

Backlinks? Hide

Backlinks default? New posts have backlinks!

Comments Timestamp format - choose

Show comments in pop-up window? NO!

Enable Comment Moderation? YES! You’ll want to moderate comments since there are programs and people that post spam to your site and you can’t remove it easily.
Enter your email address to notify you of a comment. You should approve comments QUICKLY and respond to them with your own comment too as soon as you can.

Show word verification? NO!

Show profile images on comments? NO! I don’t, but no matter. I think you’ll get more spam though.

Comment notification address: enter yours for notifcation of all comments.

Hit “Save Settings” orange button

********************

Choose “ARCHIVING” tab at top of page.

Archive frequency? MONTHLY!

Enable post Pages? YES!

Hit “Save Settings” orange button

********************

Choose “SITE FEED” tab at top of page

Blog posts feed? FULL!

Blog comment Feed? FULL!

Per post comment feeds? FULL

Feed Item Footer - ignore for now. This will add text or code after every feed. You can update anytime. It is not such a good idea to fill your feed with ads or pictures or other things.

Hit “Save Settings” orange button.

********************

Choose “EMAIL” tab at top of page

Blogsend Address? Enter an email to have your blog emailed to you after you hit the publish button - so you know it went through successfully.

Mail to Blogger Address yoursitename.____________@blogger.com This is really cool. You can post to your blog by sending an email to this email address that you create - and only you (or your friends that post to your blog) know. Choose something you’ll remember.

Click the PUBLISH box if you want the post to be published without having to login and publish it. If you don’t check the box here it’s saved as a draft when you send the email to this address.

Hit “Save Settings” orange button

********************

Choose “PERMISSIONS” tab at top of page

You can add AUTHORS to your blog - if you want others to post here and be able to login to your account.

You can choose to display your blog to ANYBODY, only people you choose, or Only your blog authors. UP TO YOU! I choose “Anybody” because I want everyone to see the blog, not just people I choose.

Now if you click TEMPLATE tab at top of page you’ll see more things you can change.

Under Page Elements tab you can drag and drop the rectangular pieces of your site and create new pieces to plug in. If you click Add a Page Element you can add photos or text, links, etc. You must wait for the code to load completely in the box that pops up before you click something else or errors will result. Just go slow and it goes well. When you add a page element the default place it goes is at the top of the column so you’ll need to drag and drop to arrange the new element in the right spot.

It is in this section that you can add Google Adsense ads to your blog. You’ll be guided through the process after clicking “Add a page Element” and then “ADSENSE” Add to blog button. They’ll set you up with an account that is linked to your blog. You do not need to give credit card information.

When you make changes to the Page Elements page you’ll need to click the orange SAVE button at the top right if you don’t see it greyed out (you’ll understand when you see it greyed out).

Under Fonts and Colors you can go crazy formatting… If you want a whole new group of colors to be chosen FOR you you can try the link for “Shuffle blog colors” which is to the right of the color pallette. Warning - it will shuffle all colors - so be sure you don’t save changes if you’re just playing around.

Under EDIT HTML - don’t do it unless you have GREAT instructions for changing something. Leave it as it is or let a professional change it only.

Under Pick New Template - it’s good to take a look at all the options before you customize your blog much with adding page elements and things. Experiment early on and see which template appeals most to you.

I use one of the ROUNDERS series. The MOTO also looked cool, but I think I’m happy with Rounders for now.

Note - at any time you can right click “VIEW BLOG” link that is next to the main tabs at the top and choose “open link in new tab (if you’re using FIREFOX browser)

Extra Info:

MOBILE BLOGGING FROM YOUR PHONE

At the DASHBOARD screen you’ll want to choose the link for “Learn how to start mobile blogging” on the right side in the middle vertically. What happens is this… Once you have a blog setup with Blogger you can then take photos with your mobile phone’s camera and send them to ” GO@BLOGGER.COM” using an MMS message.

If you’re lucky Blogger will then send you back an MMS or SMS message that tells you a “Claim Token”. Write this down. You then go to: http://www2.blogger.com/mobile-start.g and enter your claim token that was given to you over the phone (hopefully).

If you do this - you may be asked to login to your blogger account. DO SO! Then you can associate which blog your photos taken from your phone and sent by MMS - go to automatically.

Here, read the Blogger Mobile FAQ and see what you make of it…

I could not get this to work with AIS Thailand’s service, but no matter because what I did was set up my mobile phone’s account with GMAIL.com’s pop3 service. I can receive and send email by my gmail account on the phone. So, I can send email with a photo attached to GO@BLOGGER.COM and they post it to ThaiPulse! automatically.

Since I could not get the Claim Token sent to my phone I just did it from a computer the first time. I sent an email to “GO@blogger.com” from my gmail account on my computer - that had a photo and title and some text. Blogger sent back to my gmail account the claim token. I logged into blogger.com and clicked the mobile blogging link that I showed you above and I entered my claim token and linked my email to my blog - now I’m all set to go. I can blog from the phone for photos or text using my gmail account and sending to Go@blogger.com.

Remember earlier when I told you to add a “Mail to Blogger” email address to your account - that looked like: yoursitename.____________@blogger.com ???? Well, you can send email to this address also, but there is a CATCH… it will not publish photos that you attach to the email - but the go@blogger.com email system WILL. So, if you just have text - use either one. If you want a photo attached to the top of your post then use the Go@blogger.com email address and attach the photo in the email.

MOBILE VIDEO BLOGGING FROM YOUR PHONE

Yes, this is possible, though it’s not a great system yet. NOKIA offers a free blog for owners of their N-Series phones. You take a video and send it to their blog site and they upload it for you and give you a URL to access it. You can have hundreds of videos online in a short time because you don’t have to do ANYTHING but shoot the video and upload it. The rest is done for you.

Unfortunately you have to use Nokia’s go.vox.com site for your blog video. If video is your thing you might want to just host a blog there. I am not familiar with their blogs and I doubt you’ll have 1/10th of the goodstuff that Blogger.com offers, but if your goal is just an easy blog site to shoot video and photos up to, then Nokia has a solution.

Here is Nokia’s free Blog site for owners of N-Series phones. I have an E-Series phone which isn’t on the list of supported phones.

YOUTUBE offers a service where you can upload videos from your phone to their site. They have a fast conversion and the video is up on the site quickly if you use a 320×240 (or similar) resolution and not too small or too large a resolution. MP4 format works the quickest it appears. Once you email or send a MMS message with your video to the YouTube site they will convert it if necessary and post it up at your channel for you (some small configuration in “my account” necessary first so they can give you an email address that looks like 69970007877@mms.youtube.com to send your video to.). You will then need to create a blog post and use the link that Youtube created for your video to enable readers of your blog to see it.

Google Video is supposed to work hand in hand with Blogger and some other blog sites and they are supposed to link the video into my blogger.com site - but they only accept certain file types and MP4 is not one of them. I just tried it from my Nokia phone and it didn’t work. If you’re lucky enough to have a mobile phone that shoots AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, Real, or Windows Media type videos then you should look into Google Video at http://video.google.com.

WAYS TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET IN THAILAND

1. One of the best ways - and perhaps the simplist solution is to buy a phone with a Class 10 modem or EDGE capability. EDGE service is a faster internet service that will give you acceptible speeds to login to Blogger and to upload video and photo files. EDGE is available so far in: Surat Thani town, Koh Samui, Bangkok, Pattaya, Khon Kaen, and possibly Chiang Mai - though I haven’t confirmed this. Internet service through your phone is available through at least 3 of the major mobile phone connection services: AIS (1-2 call); Orange (True); and DTAC. I have AIS and the connection is quite good almost anywhere in Thailand. You can use your mobile phone as a modem to connect your notebook or desktop computer by connecting it through the USB port usually. It’s a fairly detailed process but Nokia’s PC Suite software makes it a breeze to connect to the internet using their phones as a modem. Though I can’t see why you’d prefer to, you COULD connect your blue tooth enabled phone wirelessly to your notebook or desktop computer to use it as a modem as well. The speeds might not be as great - though I think the difference in speeds of cable versus bluetooth connection are negligible.

There are many price packages for internet service. At AIS the EDGE service is not differentiated from the regular internet connection (GPRS) connection so when you purchase a special data package from the TELEWIZ store (which serves as AIS customer service) you’ll get access to EDGE if your city has it - at no extra cost. I use AIS and my 100 hours of internet cost 350 baht or 50 hours for 214 baht I think is the figure (3/2007). There is an unlimited service for 990 baht per month, so you can keep your push email service on all the time and receive beeps that you have new email in your gmail, yahoo, msn or other pop3 enabled account if you require it. (Your phone needs to have this service as part of it’s features too. E-Series Nokias have it built in).

2. You can purchase a phone dial up card from 7-11 or your favorite newspaper stand. I used CSLOXinfo 12 hour card for 199 baht I think. You’d connect your notebook or desktop computer using a phone line to the wall and your computer. Then configure an internet connection to use dial-up over the phone line. The connection can be OK, but usually only as fast as using your phone as a modem through AIS or DTAC and more expensive this way. You may be charged a small fee each time you dial out on that home or business phone line too.

3. TOT or TT&T ADSL service at your home or business. I tried this service and found it very frustrating. I paid for 1mb of bandwidth which was 1000 baht per month - this translates into 120kB per second downloads - which I never saw. For the first 10 days I saw speeds of 100 kB and I was quite happy at that time. Then it slid downhill as many expats have related theirs did as well a short time after installation. For the 4 months after that I received an average speed of 7 kB per second - totally unacceptable and equal to a dial up phone line using CSLOXinfo. I cancelled the service and had been complaining steadily for the 4 months so they didn’t charge me anything for the internet service for those months. Upload speeds were faster, at 25 kB per second - and almost acceptable, but still overall a bad experience. Some expats report good speeds all the time and they’re happy with TOT or TT&T. Your mileage may vary.

4. Satellite dish service. I know nothing about this except it’s expensive. I believe it works fairly well in some places and horribly in other places in Thailand.

5. Internet cafes - go in and see if they have a free RJ-45 internet cable free that you can hook into your notebook computer. Or, they might have WIFI - wireless LAN connection you can use if your computer supports WIFI ( 802.11 a/b/g).

6. Your phone may support WIFI - mine does. It makes the uploads of video and photos MUCH quicker to be connected by WIFI. Some Starbucks and Black Canyon coffee places have WIFI connections you can use for a fee. You can ask the employees and they will set you up with a user name and password you can use to login so your WIFI will work in the store.

Some apartment buildings and hotels offer WIFI connections gratis (free) if you stay with them. Stickmanbangkok.com has a WIFI listing at:
http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/wifi/ThailandFreeWirelessInternetWiFi.htm

Once you’ve signed up for Blogger.com and have your own blog you will want to scroll down to the bottom of this page and sign up for their Adwords and Adsense programs. These programs will allow you to post ads on your blog - from other publishers and make money from them. They will also allow you to buy some advertisng space for your own ad that is placed on other web sites and blogs in Thailand or anywhere in the world if you choose. These programs cannot be beat when you are starting out - and will give you the background information for understanding more about how internet advertising works so you can expand into other programs later as you feel comfortable.

This has been a detailed post about how to start and run a blog for income in Thailand. If you would like to know more about Advertising in Thailand please click this link to see another page we’ve devoted to that subject.

Advertising in Thailand

Or, if you still haven’t created your blog with Blogger and you want to get started now then scroll down to the bottom of this blog page where we have 3 of the most important tools to help you get started: FireFox Browser (a must); Google Adsense; Google Adwords. Once those are setup you can go to www.blogger.com to start your blog by following the instructions above.

Again, if you’d like to download the PDF file - go to: Blogging in Thailand (PDF)

If you have any questions about anything that we’ve covered in this How to Article about Blogging or, if you have questions about Advertising in Thailand please write email to: T~h~a~i~P~~u~l~s~e@gmail.com and remove the “~” sign from that address.

Oh, here is a link to my Blog Simply site where I take you step-by-step through the blogging process.
GOOD LUCK!

Next Page »