Is it my imagination or has software that used to take up little of our precious computer memory suddenly spawned into giant memory hungry monsters?

One of the biggest culprits I have seen through the years has been Yahoo messenger and ICQ. I have found them so bad that I eventually ended up removing them from my machine why do they need to take up 55megs of memory each when Google Talk only takes up 16meg? I remember when these programs would load instantly and only take up about 10meg if that!. I just can't understand what else they could have put into these programs to make them so chunky, half the features you will probably never use. One of my other pet hates is how long Adobe Acrobat Reader takes to load? Why does it have to load just about every single plugin under the sun wait about 3 minutes and then ask you if you would like to upgrade it before you get to read the PDF document you clicked on from an Internet site! That is so annoying so much so I decided to install an older version of Acrobat that didn't do it. I think as memory starts to become cheaper (and it already has) companies will start minding less about how much memory their programs take up on your machine.

Tags: Computer Memory

Check this out for fee calls over the Internet. Its a bit like a Skype interface and I am still not sure how they are able to offer 300 free minutes of calls but it works! :)

How cool is this? Using your iPod video as a a screen for your Wii console. Probably not the most usable but cool none the less. Why? because you can do it? :) Although you would probably need a degree in electronics to do it... I would anyway :)

I've noticed a large selection of people placing adverts into newspapers offering to fix your PC from 15 pounds and hour to 60 pounds and hour depending on where you look. Some offer no fix no fee and its pretty cool idea you are providing a service to people who may need it. Unfortunately among the elite guys who can fix problems and don't charge you the earth there are far to many who take advantage of people who haven't got a clue on how computers work to fix them. These people are kind of held at the mercy of others to help them fix the issue, I for one don't have a great knowledge of building and masonry but that's where I ask my father who comes around to help out and I return the favor with any problems he is having with his computer.

I have seen far to many of friends, relatives and friends of relatives who have got into the money pit issue on their computers where they have spent so much money solving problems on their machines where they finally get told by a relative "Hey Rory knows about computers why don't you give him a call?". I usually get some call about them running low on memory or their machine not starting up properly or its lost all its settings. They have taken it down to the local PC shop where they have now spent upwards of 70 pounds to try and get the issue solved. I usually end up taking one look at the PC fuming at how much they had to spend for in some cases to fix what was quite a small issue such as them just needing to clear out those large videos on their Hard Disk they took by mistake when testing out the camcorder that connects to the PC for video editing. In many cases I am offered money but refuse and end up getting book vouchers, free monetary advice or a plate of home made cookies in return.

So in the good spirit of the web, if anyone reading this blog needs some computer advice and doesn't mind me posting articles about the advice I give please drop me a line and I'll see what I can do!

I'm sure everyone's seen just what a hot topic the environment has really started to become and it appears that of late this has all started to center around carbon emissions. I suppose the thing that worries me the most is that people have been lead to believe that carbon is a bad thing. Carbon is basically one of the building blocks of life we are after all carbon based life forms without carbon we probably wouldn't exist. Just like most things, too much of something can sometimes cause an imbalance,  we breath in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide CO2, trees take in Carbon Dioxide and let out Oxygen in return through photosynthesis.

Its a simple enough process but there are other things that let out carbon such as cars, planes, factories and power plants. While the majority of carbon dioxide is actually not made by man but occurs naturally itself in the atmosphere from the oceans, volcanoes and natural biodegrading of plant life, the small percentage we contribute to the environment is thought to be enough to offset enough of the worlds CO2 to cause a global warming effect.  However people do not seem to realize that carbon is only one of the gasses thought to be responsible for global warming in addition to CO2 there is Methane, Nitrous oxide, CFC-12 etc. and what appears to have happened is a whole industry has sprung up around Carbon many calling themselves "carbon neutral" companies. There are organizations that have risen to start profiting on the idea of carbon credits. Now you can trade the right to create pollution and in theory if there is to much pollution the price of carbon credits goes up because everyone wants them or they in theory could face a fine.

How they measure how much carbon a company creates from production is probably another question but surely such a system can only help the world if major manufacturing countries such as those in the Asia economies sign up to the carbon credit idea? Another thing that appears to have got African states annoyed many with young economies only just starting is the imposing of these restraints on them. "Look how easy it is for you to go green" they are told."You have so much sunshine why not use solar power?". What many people do not understand is that solar energy is not enough by itself to power manufacturing in these countries and solar panels are still relatively quite expensive. Solar energy is also not very reliable, subject to popular belief they do get stormy weather in Africa and the sun isn't always available. I agree that more money should be spent investigating cleaner energy, but people in the developing world are often unable to afford it.

Maybe the cost of renewable energy should be offset against the tax's on fossil fuels?

It was my birthday on the 14th March and my wife got me these Cool Mini Tanks

These little tanks brought hours of amusement, charge them for a few minutes and then let the war begin! Each person gets their own remote in order to control these little tanks, once you shoot you're opponents tank its whirls around in circles for a second before you can commence again. The only problem I have found is the charge doesn't last long enough and you only get about 4 games before you have to charge them. The nice thing about these tanks is that you don't get shocked like the shocking tanks we used from the Joke Shop

Tags: shocking tanks

This has got to be one of the funniest videos I have seen in a long time using apple products to purvey a more political message.

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...