Ahhh the last episode of StarGate SG1 was shown on Sky One today.

Let me just say what a crap ending! There were some really odd things about the ending.

WARNING SPOILER Read no further if you don't want to no what happens
Why on Earth did the Asgard not destroy the Ori if they had the weapons all the time? Why did they have to give it to the SG1 team to do it? Why didn't they use them the first time they met the Ori?

Also they never showed how they destroyed the Ori, maybe this gets revealed in Star Gate Atlantis?

Anyway, farewell SG1 its been a great 10 years!

Its quite interesting how being green has become the next big political thing. Politicians have finally woken up to the fact on how important it is to be green, they have realized what a vote winner it can be for them.

What they seem to have done so secretly however is avoid the discussion about Britain's future energy requirements. I like many of you would love most of our energy to come from renewable energy sources, the problem however is that these renewable energy types are not yet very reliable. Wind energy is not the great solution it was thought to be and still leaves us at the mercy of the wind, it has also been campaigned against by ironically enough green campaigners. Solar energy also has its issues, the solar panels are still quite expensive and will take in some cases a life time to pay back for the energy they generate they also rely on sunshine which we don't have much of in winter. Hydro electric power is reliable but relies on there being a steady damn however it does not generate enough power for our means and it requires some change in fragile ecosystems when damns are created.  This only leaves nuclear power as emission free but with a far more serious issue later on - nuclear waste. So what on Earth can we do?  Well what ever is decided on you are bound to annoy someone, so it all comes down to compromise doesn't it?

I wonder if anyone will ever come up with the ultimate green abundant energy source?

Sky appear to be rubbing in the fact that Virgin no longer carries all of their channels anymore, by way of a TV advert on Sky One confirming to customers that they will still get all of the Sky channels even though Virgin customers won't. So what on earth is that all about? Of course we will get all of our Sky channels as Sky customers because that's what we pay for isn't it? This obviously can't be for the benefit of Virgin customers because they don't get Sky one anymore!

I think Sky must be getting a bit worried. Its been a long time since Sky has had any major competition the last was ITV Digital. There is nothing wrong with some healthy competition it helps us the customer have a wider selection of offers.

When cooking chicken on a BBQ there is always the risk that it is never cooked through correctly. The amount of times I have been to a BBQ and been served chicken that has not been done correctly (still pink inside) has happened to many times to mention. In some cases people don't even BBQ chicken because of the risk.

So here are my tips on getting your chicken right.

I prefer to BBQ chicken breasts, a good way of BBQing chicken breasts is actually to place them between cling film sheets and flatten them with a mallet. The benefit of this is now that they are flat they will cook a lot faster and are easier to turn.

Always have a knife and fork present so you can cut into the chicken. If you are cooking chicken legs ensure you cut through to the bone to make sure the chicken is done. Never rely on how the chicken looks on the outside. Remember just because its burnt on the outside does not means it done. If the chicken is burning raise the grill a level up and allow the chicken to cook slower.

Remember its better to cook the chicken slower so it doesn't get burnt but is cooked thoroughly.

Get yourself a BBQ thermometer, these usually come in the form of a BBQ fork you can use to test if the chicken is done.

Happy BBQing!

I have often said what a great games console the WII  is, never before has a games console appealed to so many different age groups. My father in law was over the other day and I showed him some of the WII Sports games, he was a bit apprehensive at first when I asked him if he wanted a go, but after he understood how the WII remote worked he was addicted to all the WII sports games. I have a  feeling he will probably be purchasing one soon and not for my brother in law but for himself!

Just been looking at an interesting post on my friend Owens blog about the risks of tape backup. Now a days hard disks have become so cheap most people do their backups to these hard disks which you can start off at 250gigs for 78 pounds and now even 1 terabyte for 600 pounds from Amazon. The problem with having so much hard disk storage is you are probably tempted to use it as extra hard disk space instead of backup space!

Also the problem with having a terabyte hard disk is you need another one to back it up! And off site backups start to get costly on bandwidth...Oh the dilemma of too much hard disk space! :)

According to this BBC article coffee doesn't give you a boost in the morning!

Well to be more accurate it has more of an effect on people who don't drink it regularly and more of a suppressing withdrawal symptoms for those that drink it regularly.

So coffee was a placebo to me all along? Mmm well if I choose not to believe the article then I should still get the benefits of my placebo?

Coffee leads to doughnuts, doughnuts leads to sugar withdrawal, sugar withdrawal leads to the dark side! Mmmm dark side...

Have just been playing with ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 previously known as ATLAS. The last time I worked with AJAX was in .NET 1.1 where you had to literally code all the calls by hand yourself in JavaScript. Now Microsoft have made it the easiest thing in the world to code .... almost too easy. All you do now is drag your server side controls into an Ajax Update Panel and hey presto! Your application is now "AJAX'd", I was amazed by how fast I could convert my old applications.

Take look here to get the recipe!

If you've been duped into clothes shopping with your wife or girlfriend (yes we love them to bits) all men can sympathize with each other over the bored waiting around inside a women's department store, waiting for your wife or girlfriend to try on the 10 outfits she took into the changing room with her. I think the main thing is there is nothing to do but wait and probably chat to the other poor souls obediently waiting about the football, although my wife has another solution to the problem in this blog entry from my wife

In my previous blog entry I blogged about The black art of SEO and bridge that is Google on how so many web sites were at the mercy of SEO and search engines such as Google rating them high for their keywords. However sites are increasingly rising to popularity not through being found first in Google, but by web 2.0 community type sites such as Spicy Page, de.icio.us and digg where sites are judged by a vast community of people to be cool or not. instead of being brutally forced into the public domain by a mass marketing campaign or spam campaign this newly formed SEO blog has an interesting article on the subject which I found quite interesting on how sites should focus more on their content and user communities than focusing on trying to be number one in the search engines. If you're site is any good it will eventually get to number one because communities will start voting for it and linking to it.

I have found it fascinating how blogging has evolved during recent years, how not only has it become a platform for the technical elite but also the platform for the masses to have their say. I can't think of any time has technology empowered a person to convey a message to so many people as blogging has. It has allowed the sharing of ideas and for people to bring their own points of view with no middle organization involved to everyday people.

I think one of the most important things blogging has done is give us facts, it lets us know what genuine real people think about things if they are on the Internet or in the real world and allow us to make up our own minds instead of having to rely on a commercial or government source. Of course many oppressive governments around the world have realized this fact and have kept a very close eye on their blogging community. Thing we take for granted in a more liberal first world about saying if we don't like what the prime minister or president is doing on something could quite possibly get you locked away or shot in one of these more oppressive regimes. 

I wonder when these oppressive regimes will start realize that:

• Its impossible to stop people thinking about something or express it with someone else. You can scare them or torture them if you find them out but they will still talk about it among themselves.
• You cannot force someone to believe what you believe if they don't believe you then you have failed as a politician or a speaker. Even if you force them to say they believe you, these are only words and you have fooled yourself in thinking they believe you.

I wish there would be some Internet advertising guidelines about flashing advertising banners some of them are incredibly distracting however the thing that worries me the most. Are people who suffer from photo sensitive epilepsy being exposed to these adverts. I feel websites and advertisers who place these adverts on pages should take the responsible action of making sure these adverts (if they have animation in them) will not affect people with this condition.

I understand that adverts are very important to these organizations to try and make the most of the adverts they get but they should be more responsible. They could also use a tag line in their adverts saying "our adverts are photo epilepsy friendly" which would make people more likely to take a look at their advert. If an advertiser cares that much about their customers they must be willing to offer a good product or service surely?