I previously wrote Will Thailand unblock YouTube now?

According to Mashable Thailand is going to Sue YouTube…

“Today the situation became even more problematic, with the Thai government saying it has plans to sue YouTube. Sitthichai Phokai-udom, the minister of information and communications technology, told The Associated Press that the government will file suit in a Thai court next week on charges of offending the monarchy. The minister’s statement was remarkably blunt: “Thailand is a fairly small country and not the economic or military powerhouse, so we are at the mercy of the greedy businessman in America”.”

If YouTube is still blocked in Thailand you can use YouTubeProxy to access your lonelygirl15 videos.

Hack MSN Spaces has an article on how to Auto-start any YouTube video. When you add a YouTube video to your blog or website it does not start playing automatically. With this simple hack it is possible.

• Go to YouTube and search for the video you want to play on your Space.
• Copy the embed code that is given for the video

• Open notepad or a new blog entry and paste the give code

For example, I got:

• Modify the code by adding &autoplay=1 after the URL which is shown highlighted above. (This URL will be different in your case as it is a different video)

I got:

• Paste this modified code on your Space / blog / website  and your YouTube will start to play automatically.
• Done!

I was really excited when I found out that you can use a USB drive as a RAM booster on Vista but was disappointed when Vista decided that my USB drive (1GB Microsoft MVP edition) does not meet the requirements. WTF??

Well, I came across an article by Chris..

“Got a USB stick that Windows Vista doesn’t want to use for memory? Read how to use it anyway.

Sooner or later, everyone’s computer tends to slow down. Call it old age or simply doing too much, but even the most cutting edge PC’s seem to lag after a year or so of use.

For those who aren’t keen on opening up their PC to put in more memory, Windows Vista has a handy little feature called ReadyBoost that can use USB sticks for additional memory. Unfortunately, Windows Vista doesn’t take kindly to the slower sticks on the market and refuses to use them. Proving once again that we control the computer and not the other way around, here’s four simple steps to get around this limitation and use any USB stick you have to increase your computers memory.”

Click here to read the article and boost your PC speed in no time!

(It seems to be down, Click here to see the cache)

We couldn’t put it clearer - use Firefox! It is so much better than Internet Explorer or Opera, even Safari. You can get Firefox on a number of different platforms - for Windows, Linux, Red Hat, and even Apple Mac, don’t forget mobile editions.

It loads things faster, it’s more secure, it’s simpler, it shows websites much better than Internet Explorer, it manages passwords and saved data much better, it’s easier to use, it updates itself automatically to keep you secure from online threats, it has in-built safety features such as a phishing filter (which Microsoft stole of course). All these, and it’s completely free.

Currently 61% of Live and Beyond viewers (as of 31st March 2007) use Internet Explorer and only 28% use Firefox. C’mon, use Firefox to view Live and Beyond and show us that you really support open-source and better browsing. Let’s try and get that figure up to at least past half way. If you’re using Internet Explorer, we’ll tell you so in the top right hand corner of your screen.

Here is a very brief 10 step list:

1. Make a list or a How-to tutorial: If you look at past Digg posts, you will find an endless number of ‘Top 10 Photoshop tricks’ tutorials and ‘Top 30 CSS’ sites lists. To top it all, take this post as an example!

2. Flame the RIAA: Post any story that is negative about the RIAA, it is definitely going onto the front page.

3. Flame the RIAA again!: Flame the RIAA again and make it to the top, twice! You can add in MPAA and Sony too to spice it up a bit!

4. A Witty or Catchy title is always a Bonus: Post your story with a catchy title, this applies not only to Digg but to anything you write. ‘Why this is’ ‘How the RIAA..’, ‘5 reasons…’ are a few examples.

5. Write about Digg and Kevin Ross: Diggers love Digg and just about any news related to Digg and its founder.

6. Write about the evil alliance: Writing anything bad about George bush, Fox News, Wal-Mart, Microsoft will get you there…

7. Write about Google, Apple, Firefox, YouTube, Ubuntu: These are the good-doers in Diggers eyes. Write about them and you will be on the front page (I hope). C’mon how many freaking Ubuntu articles have you seen on the front page?!!

8. Get your friends to digg for you: A friend in need is a friend indeed and this applies to Digg as well. Add top diggers to your friends list and Digg their articles. They might Digg your articles in return and vice-versa. You can also get all your 50+ (MSN) messenger contacts to Digg for you, Hey you can even co-ordinate a massive digging session!

9. Use a fancy profile icon: Looks go a long way. On the predominately white background Digg page, bright coloured Profile Icons stand out. You have more chances of being Dugg if you have a colourful profile icon, as this attracts attention.

10. Last but not the least: Write a ‘10 steps to get onto the Digg Front Page‘ article! Hey, it is worth a try…

Want a list of useful and interesting web companies and startups? Yes, it is arranged in an alphabetical order.

Guess where?

The TechCrunch Companies and Product list that lists all the Companies and Products featured on TC. Very useful when you want to quickly search for a company/product or randomly click on any link if you are bored!

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve just ordered 3 copies of it on disk. You need to be a Microsoft Partner, and that’s a 15 minute signup job and it’s free to sign up to.

1. Go here and sign-up for your Microsoft Parter account (if you don’t already have one).
   Note: make sure your address is correct, as this is where all your free stuff gets sent to.
2. Go here and sign-in with your Windows Live ID.
3. Select the third drop down box and select “Small Business Server (SBS)”
4. Below where it says “Windows SBS 2003 R2, Evaluation Software”, select your quantity (and feel free to be greedy :)
5. Click on “Proceed with order” and carry on with the wizard!

No need to thank me, I’m just good at being bloody sneaky.

Doesn’t that frustrate you? You have a few minutes to kill or have a break and you can’t access Digg. Here is a simple trick to access digg when it is down and I hope it will work for you. It has for me most of the time…

Digg usually only blocks entry from http://www.digg.com/ and http://www.digg.com/news when it is down. If you try any other digg address you can still get through.

Go to http://www.digg.com/news/upcoming instead and you should be able to access digg and get digging in no time! Any other address like http://www.digg.com/news/page1 works as well.

I couldn’t get through digg and it displayed the Out of Service page. I put in http://www.digg.com/news/upcoming and was able to see the page. (Screenshot below)

Happy digging!

Microsoft has built into Vista a function that allows anyone to extend the operating system’s activation deadline not just three times, but many times. The same one-line command that postpones Vista’s activation deadline to 120 days can be used an indefinite number of times by first changing a Registry key from 0 to 1.

This isn’t a hacker exploit. It doesn’t require any tools or utilities whatsoever. Microsoft even documented the Registry key, although obtusely, on its Technet site.

But dishonest PC sellers could use the procedure to install thousands of copies of Vista and sell them to unsuspecting consumers or businesses as legitimately activated copies. This would certainly violate the Vista EULA, but consumers might not realize this until the PCs they bought started demanding activation — and failing — months or years later.

The following describes the Registry key that’s involved.

1. While running a copy of Windows Vista that hasn’t yet been activated, click the Start button, type regedit into the Search box, then press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.
2. Explore down to the following Registry key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ SL

3. Right-click the Registry key named SkipRearm and click Edit. The default is a DWORD (a double word or 4 bytes) with a hex value of 00000000. Change this value to any positive integer, such as 00000001, save the change, and close the Registry Editor.
4. Start a command prompt with administrative rights. The fastest way to do this is to click the Start button, enter cmd in the Search box, then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter. If you’re asked for a network username and password, provide the ones that log you into your domain. You may be asked to approve a User Account Control prompt and to provide an administrator password.
5. Type one of the following two commands and press Enter:

   slmgr -rearm or rundll32 slc.dll,SLReArmWindows

   Either command uses Vista’s built-in Software Licensing Manager (SLMGR) to push the activation deadline out to 30 days after the command is run. Changing SkipRearm from 0 to 1 allows SLMGR to do this an indefinite number of times. Running either command initializes the value of SkipRearm back to 0.

6. Reboot the PC to make the postponement take effect.
7. To extend the activation deadline of Vista indefinitely, repeat steps 1 through 6 as necessary

Read full story and other tricks at source.

KissyouTube allows you to enter YouTube video URL’s and it will give generate a download link for you to download the selected video in a .flv format. Or you can just add kiss in front of a YouTube URL.

For e.g: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Iw1uEVaQpA becomes http://www.kissyoutube.com/watch?v=2Iw1uEVaQpA

I don’t really download YouTube videos but this maybe useful to a few YouTube addicts. Nice to see how people come up with ways to create stuff around YouTube and MySpace Social Networking sites.