- HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:
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The magic of movies
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Bytes, bits and mega tips
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What’s your beef?
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Jenny’s Fate -Part Two
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The magic of movies
Rayong’s Rocket Products International provides “James Bond” style action for Visa Card International commercial
An advertising campaign for Visa Card International was
recently filmed around Bangkok. The television commercial involved a tuk tuk,
James Bond (Pierce Brosnan), and some big action sequences, which were shot
through traffic jams, markets, a restaurant, a billboard and a construction
tunnel.
The tuk tuk was airborne most of the time and James Bond
was taking a back seat in the action, literally.
How
about jumping through a billboard?
The commercial was produced by Australian production
company ‘Good Oil’, and during the 10 day shoot employed over 150 cast
and crew, 60 feature cars, 4 tuk tuks, a few trucks and 2 limousines. The
company also employed the services of local equipment, stuntmen, catering,
casting and rigging companies from Thailand.
One of the services needed by the production was Rocket
Products International, a Rayong based film equipment manufacturer. The
company supplied large custom screens for image replacement techniques that
will be used in postproduction.
Jumping
through a market.
The
featured tuk tuk here is “jumping” over a flower truck.
After a
hard day’s work, the star tuk tuk collapses, literally. Well, it’s about
to anyway...
Filming included a series of action shots with the tuk
tuk and a large green screen behind it. One particular shot was constructed
so the tuk tuk was suspended by the front wheel from a large industrial
crane, and filmed while hanging and spinning to give the effect of it
rotating in a tunnel. The green will later be replaced with an action
background sequence; this process is called Chromakeying.
Rocket Products International, a BOI privileged company,
has been manufacturing in Rayong since 1999, supplying custom screens and
lighting textiles used specifically for the motion picture industry.
A wide range of raw textiles are imported to Rayong or
manufactured around Thailand, then constructed and shipped by Rocket to
productions around the world - most recently to the new Matrix films,
Ghostship, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Scooby Doo, and now the new Tom
Cruise movie The Last Samurai. Rocket distributes to locations in Australia,
New Zealand Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and England.
As well as specializing in chroma-key colored screens,
the company also has on the shelves an extensive range of lighting control
textiles and equipment. These fabrics and equipment are designed to diffuse
or soften particular light sources, reflect or reduce the intensity of the
light source.
Recently the company has called on the expert advice of
Thai Taffeta to help in the design of fabrics to be used in new products.
Thai Taffeta is also a Rayong-based manufacturer, and is one of the biggest
suppliers of synthetic woven fabric in the region.
Rocket Products has produced a range of tool pouch and
bag carrying systems that have been designed for film technicians and
equipment that is required on a film set.
Technicians around the world, from sound recording,
makeup and wardrobe people, camera and lighting assistants are using these
tool pouches. Eddie Knight, English chief lighting technician of Vertical
Limit, Star Wars and currently Tomb Raider 2, insists all assistants wear
Rocket pouches as it brings a professional edge to his team. Even George
Lucas ordered bags for his postproduction team at industrial light and
magic.
Rocket Products is one of many quirky little companies that operate on
the Eastern Seaboard, training local people with unusual skills,
distributing to a world market; employing sub contractors, and using
services that surround them.
Bytes, bits and mega tips
Domain names and webhosting
I received a telephone call from an old working
colleague recently. Hysterically upset, he told me that his website was no
longer accessible and he had no idea why.
I have experienced similar situations with other
websites before and I was almost sure of what had happened - he didn’t
pay his bills.
When I told him that, he said he paid all his bills
(all he received, anyway) and if there happened to be one that he missed,
he would pay it. So, if he wasn’t receiving his bills, the next obvious
question was, just where were his bills being sent, if not to him? But
we’ll come back to this later.
First we had to rule out the possibility of the server
being “temporarily” down, which we did. I then advised him of what
possibly could have gone wrong. There were two options: either his domain
name registration had run out and needed to be renewed (because he
hadn’t paid the bill he never received) or his web hosting company was
asking for a few more “rental” dollars.
After all this information about webhosting, webdomain,
registration and renewal - he was understandably a little confused, and I
could already foresee the next step: He asked me to have a look.
Since I had worked with him before, I knew he
wouldn’t be able to provide me with any information on registration or
the name of the company where his website was hosted. And when I queried
about his (former) webmaster, he told me he had long gone. Of course...
I agreed to help, but before I let him off the phone I
tried to explain to him the difference between webhosting and his domain
name, and that you need both. Here we go:
As he had some experience with domain name registration
(he was one of those people who bought more than a few domain names with
the purpose of reselling them later), I started there.
I told him that his domain name is basically the name
by which he is called when people look for him. Domain names are
“friendly” names, like www.myfriendlosthishost.com, for
not-so-friendly IP addresses, like 169.201.158.166. Domain names are part
of the Domain Name System (DNS). Most Internet services rely on DNS to
work, and if DNS fails, web sites cannot be located and email delivery
stalls.
His webhosting company is basically the apartment where
he stores all his stuff, where people end up when looking for him, or
information on him. This is where you put everything you want people to
find out about you. But it requires space. The more space you need the
bigger your “apartment” needs to be.
As with everything in life, nothing is free. You have
to pay for a name and you have to pay your apartment. If you don’t, they
throw you out.
Being satisfied with my little tutorial speech, we hung
up and I started to trace the problem.
I connected to the Network Solutions website (www.networksolutions.com)
to find out more information on his domain name. Network Solutions is a
website where you can register domain names and look up web address
information, web site details, domain search, and personalized email. I
was especially interested in when he registered and how long it would
last. For this I had to use the “whois” database search option. You
can find the button for it in the upper right corner of the Network
Solutions website.
On the new page I typed in my friend’s domain name in
the field marked with a (1), then clicked the “Go” button and waited
for the result.
Going through the list I saw that his domain name
registration was still valid, but would run out in a couple of months. I
made a note to inform him of this, as I didn’t want the same call in a
couple of months. Because the second time, I would be accused of having
done a bad job. This also comes from experience.
Having checked one of the two possible problems, I knew
I had a 50% chance of finding the mistake next time. Sherlock Homes at
work, eh?
As I still had the list of information on the domain
name on my screen, I looked further down until I found the “Domain name
servers”. They usually start out with “ns1.” and “ns2.” followed
by a website, i.e. “webhosting.com”. This is usually the website of
the domain hosting company. I visited their website and found a support
email to get in touch with, asking if my friend’s website “www.
myfriendlosthishost.com” was hosted with them.
After being able to identify my friend as the owner,
they then forwarded to me the necessary information, which we checked to
see why he didn’t receive an invoice.
We found out that the billing email address was
different and thus my friend never received a bill. We updated the
information in the database of the hosting company via a form to ensure
this will never happen again.
After that was done and my buddy paid his overdue bill,
the website was up and running in no time.
So, what have we learned from this and how can we avoid
these mistakes?
When registering a domain name or signing up for a
hosting service make sure your contact information, name, address, and
contact email is correct. Think carefully about what name you want to use
to register it. Changing contact details, addresses, etc., is pretty easy
and free (if you have all the details); transferring a domain name to a
different owner is not so easy and costs money.
Most likely you will receive a username/password. If you register your
domain name through your webmaster or a third person, ask for all
information and keep it somewhere safe, and somewhere where you can find
it when you need it. Although in the scenario above, I think my friend’s
old webmaster didn’t do anything wrong, I suggest not relying on
him/her. Keep this very important information and file it with your
company papers. After all, it is part of your company.
What’s your beef?
Behavioral researcher seeks agitated expats
Are you a foreigner living or spending a significant
amount of time in Thailand? Have you had a difficult time adjusting to Thai
ways?
It is common for individuals who move to a foreign
country to experience problems adjusting to the social, political, economic,
religious, and/or cultural climate of that country. Having moved here six
years ago from my home in the U.S., I’ve certainly had my share of
problems adjusting. As a psychologist, I am interested in learning about,
and perhaps classifying the types of problems experienced by expats living
and working, or even retiring in Thailand.
Quite obviously, life in Thailand has much to recommend
it. Most people living here do so for a reason. As far as I am aware, no
foreigner is being held here against his or her will, unless, of course, we
are talking about that sorry group of foreign bank robbers being held on
legal charges. If you are in that category, I’m sure you have some
complaints as well. However, most of us living here are here because we
choose to be. We are sold on the many positive aspects life in Thailand. We,
nevertheless, inevitably find things about which to gripe and complain.
If you have experienced problems adjusting to life in
Thailand, either now, or in the past, I would like to hear from you. What do
you get upset about? Please address your correspondence to me, Dr. Michael
Catalanello, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Asian University of Science and
Technology, 89 Moo 12 Highway 331, Banglamung, Chonburi 20260, or email me
at [email protected]
Jenny’s Fate -Part Two
The Urban Peasant
It was still raining cats and dogs when the security
guard called out to the housemaid, Saeng at three thirty in the morning.
“Jenny is giving birth, hurry, hurry!”
Jenny’s
pups - some black, some white, some black and white.
Saeng rushed out to little house in the garden to find
Jenny already cleaning up her three little boys that came out to see the
world.
“Quick! Help me, what should I do? Get me the
Madame’s towel on the clothes line!” Saeng called out to the guard,
still in a state of panic as what to do first, with her first time midwife
skills put to the test.
The guard advised her to call her boss, Khun Puchai, but
Saeng refused. “Are you kidding? He just got home a few hours ago and is
fast asleep, if I wake him up now I will become a dog satay on a grill.”
Tired but kind hearted Miss Buriram stayed on and gave
moral support to Jenny as she produced another three babies within the
following 4 hours. Then at exactly 7 o’clock on the 27th of October,
number 7 squeezed her way out to join her siblings. Saeng had the honor to
help deliver her this time and named her Judy.
I asked her why the name Judy, she said well, her mom is
Jenny and the many 7, 27, 7 numbers, which in Thai 7 is number “Jed”, so
- Jenny, Jed= Judy. Sounds very logical indeed.
All excited with her masterpiece, Saeng decided to wake
up her boss. Just as thrilled, the boss jumped down 4 steps at a time, and
went out to count the pups. “Saeng! It’s eight puppies, not seven.”
The number eight must have come out while she was in the
kitchen fixing a meal for her Khun Puchai.
After breakfast she wanted to say goodbye to Jenny before
going to work when he exclaimed, “Whoaaa...It’s nine! It’s a very
auspicious number!” said Saeng. “I will name him Namfon, which means
rain. It rained when Jenny got pregnant; it rained when she gave birth to
them.”
When I went to visit the mother and children, Saeng took
me to the doghouse where we brought out the babies one by one and placed
them in a basket. Four females and five males, three black and 6 spotted
Dalmatians. Jenny, the proud mother stood near as we admired her little
babies.
Saeng gave a beaming smile as she unmistakably picked up
Judy and Namfon from the lot, saying that Namfon is a spoilt brat. When all
pups lined up on Jenny’s breasts for milk, he would push his brothers and
sisters left and right thinking they were getting better milk than him. Then
when he sucks on he whines and complains of the slow flow. “He will grow
up to be a spoilt dog, maybe he’s like his father.”
When asked about their father, and if he ever came to
visit his wife and kids, Saeng made a yukky face. “I just found out that
all the bitches in this soi were impregnated by him. He’s made more than
40 children around here and never supported them. On top of that he’s
still luring younger girls. He is a playboy.”
“But aren’t they all?” I replied, forgetting for a moment that she
was talking about a dog.
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