The Flying Mac Blog

(This is completely unrelated to Flying Mac, and is probably blog abuse, so there’s not much point reading it unless you’re off to Thailand. If you are, lucky you!)

Pronunciation

Most things are said as they look… except ph, th and possibly some others, which are just said like p and t. So the middle word of “Ko Pha Ngan” (an island near Ko Samui) is said Pa - don’t say Fa, it’ll just makes you sound like an ignorant melonfarmer. (Kind of like pronouncing Manurewa as Manure-wa. Actually, that’s quite tempting.)

So “Surat Thani” has a hard t and more or less rhymes with blarney.

Oh, and they do use those letters without the h as well, eg. you might hear people talking about a place that sounds like Pie - it’s spelt “Pai”, not Phai (or Phie or Pie for that matter). No way of knowing really.

Ko means island by the way. Like a lot of languages that are transliterated over into our letters, spelling varies a bit, so you’ll also see Koh. Ditto “Had Rin” instead of “Hat Rin” etc etc.

Bangers

(page on wikitravel)

If you want to stay here and have a look round, and you should, do it when you arrive not before you leave. The idea being it’s better to leave with a beach vibe than with a lungful of carbon monoxide. It’s manic. If I were going back to Thailand, I’d make sure the end of my trip involved a connecting flight to Bangkok from Ko Samui or somewhere else near the beach, then straight onto the international flight.

Guest houses will usually look after excess luggage (and shopping) so you can flee to the islands with just a loincloth, a camera and a good book. Cannot overstate the joy of travelling light.

If you can manage it, take the opportunity to stay in a 5 star hotel for not too much money. It’s totally worth it - the peace and luxury is so much better when it contrasts with Bangkok madness. Make sure you stay two nights, not just one - you need a complete day. asiahotels.com is how we booked. Check with Marion and Rohan to see where they stayed. I’ll have a look too.

It’s good to stay around Khao San Road if you’re not somewhere flash. Yes, everyone goes there, but it’s worth it. But don’t stay on Khao San Road itself - it’s freakin loud and probably only for people who don’t know any better. Five minutes wander away and it’s much nicer:

View Larger Map

Taxis (but see below)

Cars are nice because they have air-conditioning and are relatively quiet.

Tuk-tuks are faster because they can fit through smaller gaps and cheaper, plus you get to breathe in the sweet sweet city air.

Getting on the back of a motorbike taxi is quicker again, but with obvious disadvantages (especially once you’ve seen the driving).

Showing the driver where you want to go on the map isn’t as useful as you might think: I suspect quite a few people can’t or don’t want to read, while others just find maps a bit abstract. Maybe they just don’t think that way, and besides, your map’s probably in English. In any case, it’s more useful to tell them where you’re going.

Don’t let them take you anywhere else (usually shops) “on the way”.

Other ways to get around The Kok

The boats running along the river like buses are a great way to get around if they’re going where you want to be. There’s a stop a couple of blocks north of Khao San Rd for example.

Skytrain is also great if it’s going your way. Aircon, efficiency.

Basically it’s just more chilled out if you don’t travel by road.

Getting around the country

I am old and lazy and think it’s worth flying if you can manage it. Bangkok Air does a deal for US$60 a flight that I used while I was there once. I think you need a minimum of three flights. You can include international flights - Luang Prabang in Laos is absolutely stunning for example. Will probably cost a bit more.

Second best are trains - sleeper trains are good as it’s 12 hours or something to go south for example. Watch out for aircon - their philosophy is “if cold is good, colder must be better” - and you can end up freezing your testicles off, especially since you probably only have summer clothes at this point. Nobody needs that.

I’ve never gone more than a few hours by bus, although you can, and it’s cheaper. But “buses” are often actually vans, in which case they’re fairly cramped, the drivers often drive slowly to save petrol and won’t use the aircon - again, to save petrol. Now you’re hot, cramped and frustrated by the slow driving. Actual buses are referred to as “big buses” as far as I remember, and were reasonable. I like trains though.

Accommodation

Always make sure you see the room first…but you knew that already.

Beaches

South for beaches, north for culture, basically.

Probably best to avoid places associated with package tours, specifically Pattaya and Phuket. Actually I bet Phuket has nice bits too, but I’ve never been there. I’ve never heard anything good about Pattaya though. Also avoid Ko Chang (the one near Trat - there are two) - me and Jo had a crap time there mostly. I think it’s cursed.

In the south, you’re either on the islands off the east coast - Ko Samui, Ko Pha Ngan, Ko Tao - or on the west coast or islands. It’s a few hours’ drive from one side to the other, boats not included.

To generalise, the east is cheaper, more laid-back and generally more backpackery, although you certainly don’t need to slum it.

Ko Samui is pretty commercial and I haven’t spent more than a night there.

Ko Pha Ngan

Most of my beach time on this side has been on Ko Pha Ngan.

I reckon you’d really like Thong Nai Pan, which is where Jo and I went. It’s got a range of accomodation, a beautiful beach and a few different restaurants to make life interesting. In fact just thinking about it makes me want to go back. Lots of these places have “Ao” in front of the name which just means beach (I think).

If you’re feeling rich you could stay at the Panviman Resort which is rather luxurious, up on the hill away from the hoi polloi. But you can do very well in a bungalow on the beach. We stayed at Baan Panburi which was great. They seem to be pretty well organised with a reception area and everything so you could even book ahead here to make sure you get a nice room.

If you look at a map you’ll see there are actually two beaches: Thong Nai Pan Noi and Thong Nai Pan Yai. We stayed at Noi; it seemed nicer.

Avoid Hat Rin (home of the full moon parties) unless you’ve suddenly become party animals. You pretty much have to stay out all night here because the bars open all night and music’s really, really loud.

I spent two weeks at Bottle Beach. It’s more basic than Thong Nai Pan, and you can only get there by boat, but it’s pretty cool. You really need to be prepared to do not much at all here.

Ko Tao

People mainly come here for the diving - the beaches are better elsewhere - although diving’s not all it has going for it.

We stayed and dived at Chalok, a smaller place away from the main town (ie. where the boats get in), but still close. A scooter is useful here for nipping around. Actually when I came back I stayed in a cool place up a hill over the sea, further out again from the town. I think it’s called New Heaven.

West

I haven’t been over this side since the Tsunami - I know it did a lot of damage in some places but what things are like since I dunno.

Anyway, it was stunning over here - heaps of crazy dramatic limestone cliffs over beaches. You go to a town called Krabi and get to places from there as far as I remember. There’s an absoltely stunning place you get a boat to and stay at, but I’ve totally forgotten the name for the moment. Hmm.

The Norf

Don’t know if you’re going up north or whether you just want to stick to islands ‘n’ beaches. But if you do….

Hang out in Chiang Mai for a while.

Go to Pai - I didn’t, but everyone I met raved about it.

I hear Chiang Rai is good too. Charlotte the New Girl suggests doing a cooking course here (or in Chiang Mai if you don’t make it). Bloody great! You’ll love it!

Lots of people do trekking up here, ride on elephants and stay the night in hill tribe villages. Not to be a grinch but personally I thought this sounded bloody awful: half an hour on an elephant is quite enough, walking through the jungle probably about the same, and the idea if being a tourist in a “real village” with “the natives” just sounds a bit gross. People have stories about being the only white people some of them have seen, but (sorry Charlotte) I’m not convinced. Still, people often get to smoke opium, which I suspect is why they really go.

Call it a pre-Christmas sale, a recession sale, an end-of-year sale or whatever you like - now is a particularly good time to buy FarFinder and Webjimbo. We don’t discount often.

FarFinder is $25, down from $35, and Webjimbo is $20, down from $30. Family licences are discounted too.

The iPhone-native version of FarFinder is nearing completion. This will much improve the FarFinder experience for iPhone users; highlights are:

• View more document types, including iWork and MS Office
• View videos and listen to audio
• Download files to your phone for offline viewing
• Faster performance and a slicker user experience
• Smart detection of local FarFinder Macs
• Remembers your Macs and your login details
• Email files to people in your phone’s address book
• Improved Spotlight support

There are also lots of little details which make the whole experience just that much better.

No extra charge

The iPhone app will be available free of charge from the Application Store. You will, of course, need FarFinder on your Mac in order for it to be of any use.

You can be a beta tester

Before it hits the App Store there will be a period of beta testing. If you want to help test, please do. The deal is that you should expect bugs and be prepared to report them in reasonable detail. On the up side, you get to play with it before everyone else does!

To register for beta testing, use the Contact link on the main web site to send me your phone’s identifier. (Instructions on how to find this follow.) When the app is ready for testing I’ll let you know what to do.

(Apple provides a distribution method called “ad-hoc distribution” which allows developers to provide applications without going through the App Store. The application is tied to your particular phone and can’t be redistributed, which is why your phone’s identifier is needed.)

Finding your phone’s device ID

• Launch iTunes, connect your phone and select it in the “Devices” section on the left
• Click on the Serial Number field and it will change to your Identifier
• Press Command-C to copy the identifier to the clipboard
• Now you can paste it into a message and send it in.

On a personal note, my heartfelt congratulations go out to all Flying Mac’s American customers - your country has elected a president you can truly look up to and be proud of. To borrow from George McGovern, the appointment of a man of such intelligence, integrity and imagination to so prominent a position on the world stage is enormously encouraging for all of us.

What a way to start a blog!

Most of you will have noticed a stream of updates to FarFinder and Webjimbo over the last twelve days. Some of you will have experienced the problems that led to those updates.

First Things First: Reinstall

If you haven’t already, you should get a fresh download from the site and reinstall.

To be safe, you should do this even if you’re not having problems. Releases 1.2.5/2.2.5 broke the self-update system, so if you upgraded in the 24 hours this was in the wild, you won’t even receive the fixed version automatically.

An Apology

I’d like to sincerely apologise for the hassle caused by these buggy releases. I realise it’s frustrating when software doesn’t do what it should, and I know some of you have gone through several updates without having a functional product. I acknowledge this frustration and hope that now things are settling down you can go back to enjoying FarFinder and Webjimbo doing what they do best.

If it makes you feel any better, it’s been enormously frustrating for me too. New releases tend to generate publicity and lots of new interest in the products, so a buggy release means that the first impression for some of these new users is of a product that doesn’t work properly, or even not at all. This isn’t exactly good for business. And then of course there’s existing users: they upgrade in good faith to the new release, and suddenly it comes apparent that you’ve landed them with a dud, turning what was a useful and liberating tool into a metaphorical doorstop.

So, in the interest of openness I though I’d explain a bit about what’s happened in the last twelve days.

An Introduction

For those of you I haven’t met yet, I’m Adrian Ross, an indie Mac developer living in Wellington, New Zealand. (This is the bit where you think “oh right, Lord of the Rings”.) It’s nice here. I work from home; below me is a surf beach with an airport next to it, and from my desk I can see surfers, small waves and out to the open sea. It’s sunny today.

Lots of Releases

I count seven releases in the last twelve days; that’s a lot. It probably looks worse than if there’d been just two releases in the same time period, even though that would have meant some users had downtime for this whole period. Thus operates perception.

A quick bug-fix release is a gamble. When it works out, it’s great customer service - affected customers have a minimum of downtime and can get on with their business. But if it doesn’t fix things for everyone, some users see an update, install it thinking their problems are solved, and are disappointed and perhaps frustrated.

Better not to release at all, some will say, until you’re sure there will be no problems. But then you’re delaying a fix you know well help a number of people. And besides, the reality is that you can never be 100% sure a release will be trouble-free. No matter how much you test, some problems only reveal themselves in certain situations. And the more moving parts you have, the wider the variety of possible situations. These apps have a lot of moving parts.

So it’s a question of striking a balance between speed and certainty. On reflection, perhaps the balance wasn’t right this time. Intentions were good though.

So What Actually Happened?

Release 1.2/2.2 brought Webjimbo into line with FarFinder, gaining the more up to date features of the newer product, and allowing both applications to run within the same network connection. Although this didn’t make much difference to FarFinder as a product, there were significant changes under the hood.

One of these changes was the way the different parts of the applications talk to each other. It became apparent after the first release that in certain people’s networks there were delays in communication that effectively made the apps inoperable. (This was triggered by badly-configured DNS, if you’re interested.)

Over the space of two more releases parts of this problem were solved, each one fixing things for some people, but it was becoming clear that the code libraries in question didn’t really do what they said on the box.

At this point, replacing the problematic code with a home-grown system seemed the only reliable long-term solution, and this is what’s in the product today. It works swimmingly, although it required an extra release to get exactly right.

Thanks to the Users

There were several users who helped out with the diagnostic process by co-operating with my requests for terminal commands and screen sharing. They’ve done us all a favour and have my hearty thanks.

Yesterday’s Release

Yesterday’s bad release was nothing to do with the problems described above - it was my own stupid fault and I apologise again. For the record, breaking your products’ update system is a Bad Thing.