Opening Time For Bang Chang Bars Slipped To 5.00pm ~ Pattaya Rag

As Ban Chang is not a tourist area bars there have today been advised that they can only open from 5.00pm to 1.00am daily. In addition, customers can not buy drinks for bar staff.

A deposition of bar owners visited the local police chief to appeal but only got further confirmation that the shortened opening hours will be enforced.

As a key source of income for Bang Chang bars is golfers calling in for food and fun in the afternoons, after a round and before heading home, this ruling is a potential bar killer.

Sierra Tangos

A correction to my earlier comments on bars being allowed to serve alcohol from 6.00pm Saturday. Bloke down pub has just corrected me by saying it will be business as usual from Sunday 6.00pm. Apologies for the confusion. So bars will be dry on Saturday through to Sunday, 6.00pm

Heavens Above Leap Year Party 8.00pm, Friday Feb 29

Former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra has returned to his homeland, 17 months after being deposed in a military coup.

Thousands of flag-waving supporters, including key figures in the newly elected government, gathered at Bangkok's main airport to greet him.

Mr Thaksin was taken straight to court to face charges of abuse of power during his time in office - charges he insists are politically motivated.

He was granted bail and told not to leave Thailand without permission.

Mr Thaksin has said he intends to stay out of politics now he is back in the country, but correspondents say there are fears his return could lead to political turmoil. [via BBC]

Major roadworks are to commence from March 1 on Soi 17, South Pattaya [via Pattaya City News]

Englishmen badly beaten following incident inside Karaoke [via Pattaya City News]

16 year old girl claims she was raped by American owner of South Pattaya bar [via Pattaya City News]

The BBC has just launched a new home page at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ - you can customize almost every section on the site to match your topics of interest.

Don’t like reading Sports news - push that module down or remove it complete from the home page. Think the colour scheme is too simple, pick a different one from the presets. Want more news from South Asia - you can set that as a preference.

The site is more IE friendly and there were a few rough edges while making customizations inside Firefox.

Nevertheless, the new design is beautiful and very usable. This year we will probably see some more prominent news website following the BBC model. [via Digital Inspiration]

Add Your Google Personalized Homepage To the Firefox Sidebar

If you track important stuff (like favourite feeds, stocks, email, etc) using the Google start page, here’s a useful Firefox extension for you - the iGoogle Sidebar.

Like the Google Talk trick, iGoogle Sidebar places your Google personalized homepage in the Firefox sidebar so you always remain in touch with your favourite content no matter what tab is open in your browser.

The extension supports iGoogle tabs and you can even use drag-n-drop to change the layout of your Google Home page while staying inside the Firefox sidebar.

And hitting the Alt+Ctrl+I hotkey will toggle the iGoogle Sidebar so you need not worry about wasting that that precious screen estate. [via Digital Inspiration]

How to boost and increase your Internet speed

Need to increase your Internet connection speed - there are a number of tweaks out there that will enable you to maximize your system’s performance and likewise, there are lots of things you can do to tweak your Internet connection to boost Internet speed. There are tons of them out there, but this article just lays out two of the most useful ones.

Tweak 1: Un-reserving bandwidth

By Default, XP reserves 20% of your bandwidth for it’s own use. This is a crying shame and should be undone immediately. To do this, you will not require any additional software, just follow the steps below.

Access the Group Policy Editor. This can be done by typing gpedit.msc in the Run box (Start, and then Run). You will now be looking at something like this.
Navigate to Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Network/QOS Packet Scheduler using the pane on the left side.
In the left pane, there should be a Setting with the name Limit reservable bandwidth, right-click this and select properties.
Now this might seem a bit weird, as the State will say “Not Configured” but Windows by default will reserve 20%. So the trick is to set it to reserve 0%. You can do this by clicking enabled and then setting the Bandwidth Limit % to 0. It should look like the image below.
Hit OK then close the Group Policy Editor.

That’s it! You’re done with the first tweak. Just a quick side note here, there are lots of other little things you can change easily using the policy editor. Feel free to wander around!

Tweak 2: Optimizing TCP/IP settings

This next tweak is going to require a piece of freeware called SG TCP Optimizer. This nifty little utility will optimize the manner in which your PC sends and receives data packets, which will as a result speed up your connection. Though It is most effective for broadband connections, it works for just about any type of connection.

Download SG TCP Optimizer. You don’t need to install it, just double-click and it will run. Once you run it, you should be looking at this :
That is quite an intimidating interface, but we won’t be touching most of it. Under the General Settings tab, just drag the slider to match your connection’s download speed. Then, at the bottom of the same window, select the “Optimal Settings” radio button and click “Apply Changes”.
You will now be looking at a window like the one below.
Make sure that the “Backup” tick box is ticked and then click OK.
All that’s left is to reboot your system, in order to apply the changes. You will be prompted to do so.
Once your system has rebooted, surf around for a while. If for whatever reason you feel your connection has been affected negatively, then fear not, for the changes you made can be undone. Start SG TCP Optimizer, click File and choose restore backed up settings. This will bring up a dialog box where you can navigate to where you downloaded the program. There, you will find a file with the extension .spg with a filename containing the date. For example If you applied the changes on the 21st of February “sg_backup_2008-02-21-xxxx.spg” would be the filename, where the xxxx is any number. Once you find this file select it and press open. This should bring to a dialog box similar to the one shown above. Click OK and reboot. Your original settings are now restored.