The Annoying Windows Automatic Updates Restart Dialog

Windows XP users have turned on Automatic Windows Update will have absolutely no problem recognizing the "Restart Now, Restart Later" Dialog shown in the screenshot below:

When Windows XP is finished downloading and installing new updates/patches from Microsoft Windows Update website, it will ask you to restart the computer to complete the installation.

The Restart Dialog Window can be removed by killing the wuauclt.exe process from Windows Task Manager or SysInternals Process Explorer but the most irritating part is that the window pops-up again after few minutes.

There are two solutions to get rid of this annoying Restart Window depending on what version of Windows XP you are using.

The easiest way is to start Windows Command Prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd) and type the following command:

sc stop wuauserv

The Restart Window will disappear immediately including the icon in the system tray.

How to Burn Youtube Videos to DVD

How to create a DVD movie of video downloaded from Google Video, Youtube or Myspace so that these videos can be watched on the TV screen ?

Before you decide to watch Youtube videos on TV via your DVD player, keep in mind that the video quality will be very low - The video resolution on sites like youtube or Google Video is 320x240 while DVD frame size is 720x480 for NTSC or 720x576 for PAL.

If you are still game, here's how you can burn one or more video onto a DVD without spending a penny:

Step 1: Download the Internet Video to your hard disk in Flash Video format (extension: flv) using any of the free tools like iTube, vixy.net or keepVid.com.

Step 2: Get the free DVD authoring software called DVD Flick. The software takes all your videos, encodes them and burns a DVD that can be played on any DVD player. Follow this step-by-step guide on how to burn videos using DVD Flick.

With DVD Flick, you can also add Titles, subtitles and audio tracks to your Youtube DVD project to make them more interesting. Keep your Blank DVD disc ready.

Why is OOF an OOF and not an OOO?

Here’s an interesting historical question - when we say Out of Office, why does it sometimes get shortened to ‘OOF’? Shouldn’t it be ‘OOO’?

Inside Microsoft, ‘OOF’ means not just the message which says you’re Out of Office, but it has grown to mean the act of being Out of the Office too - so you’ll get people putting sticky notes on their door saying ‘OOF Thurs & Fri’ or even people verbally saying things like, "Oh, Kevin’s OOF on vacation for the rest of the week’. I suppose that sounds better than "Oh, Kevin’s OOO on vacation ..."

OOF was a command used in the days of Microsoft’s Xenix mail system, which set a user as ‘Out of Facility’ - ie Out of the Office. The usage of the term ‘OOF’ just stuck, as did the term ‘Little r’ (e.g. on an email sent to a distribution list, "Who wants to go to the cinema tonight? Little ‘r’ if you’re interested", meaning reply just to me) - as preserved in Outlook with CTRL+R for Reply, and CTRL+SHIFT+R (aka Big R) for Reply All.