Author: Serkadis

As the 2009 year comes to a close I thought I’d spend some time looking at the past before I look to the future.  We’ll do a quick rundown on how things are going at GeekTonic.  We’ll cover a few stats for the statisticians, talk about the focus of content for the blog and finally run through the most read topics of the past year.

Stats – Things Continue to Look Up

More than 1,493,000 Pageviews with a steady number of over 100,000 pageviews each month from February through December.  The trend has actually been positive in the past six months as well for both unique visitors and returning visitors.

The most popular referring sites included Google (of course), Stumbleupon, ZatzNotFunny, SageTV Forums, EngadgetHD, Consumerist, MissingRemote, Snapstream, GreenButton, avsforum, Lifehacker and delicious.

The most popular search engines used to find GeekTonic were Google, Yahoo and Bing in that order.  Google wins this battle with ease cornerning nearly 82% of all search traffic.

The top web browsers were Firefox (50%, Internet Explorer 33%, Safari 8% and Chrome 6%.

Countries Represented – GeekTonic visitors came mostly from the US 73%, Canada 7%, UK 5%, Austrailia 2% and Europe filling out most of the rest, but its always surprising to see that over 200 countries had visitors at GeekTonic.

I won’t bore you with more details, but going through the blog stats I also learned that GeekTonic readers are a loyal bunch and visit the site multiple times – even in one month.  Thanks for that loyalty – I hope to continue to make it worth your while.

Topics Covered

Topic-wise the blog will continue to bring you the things I think you’ve come here for in the first place:

1. HTPC – home theater PC’s are a passion of mine and I’ll continue to focus on them.  SageTV is still what I use day in and day out, but I’m also dabbling with XBMC, Windows 7 Media Center, Boxee among others.  I know HTPCs and I really enjoy covering them.

2. Media – TV updates (U.S. and Canada only) will continue to have front-and-center coverage here.  I won’t review shows much, but I’ll continue to offer the weekly updates on new show premieres, specials, finale’s and cancellations as well as the full guides to each new TV season as those continue to be popular.  I might on occasion cover other media topics such as movies, music, books etc – all digital of course.

3. e-Readers – I’m very interested in e-Readers as the devices improve.  I think we are in the beginning of something important here – a shift in the way we consume books, magazines and newspapers.  The Kindles in our home will continue to be covered as will new devices such as the Nook, Que and other e-Readers

4. Media Gadgets – This is a bit of a catch-all, but GeekTonic will cover those media gadgets that interest us and therefore make for good reading.  Yes, the focus continues to be on HTPCs, media players and e-Readers, but we’re not excusive in that way.  Watch for more on the things that interest you and me.

5. Everything Else – It looks like we might have a regular guest blogger here at GeekTonic.  You know her from her reviews of the Kindle and Nook – she goes by the name Mrs GeekTonic on Twitter.  Her focus will be on technology also with the occasional discussion of Tech in Schools & Education.

The main thing that keeps me from covering more is my time.  Because of this, I really enjoy reader-submitted articles which also add a different perspective that is often shared by GeekTonic readers.  You’ll note that two of the top articles from 2009 on GeekTonic were guest posts from readers just like you.

Most Read Articles on GeekTonic in 2009:

Media Center Plugin Brings Netflix Hulu and more Online Video via PlayIt – The MediaCenter fans were pretty excited to get Netflix, Hulu and other online video support.

Transform Your AppleTV with Boxee – Boxee made a huge splash – in large part because of Hulu support built in at the time

SageTV Ultimate Guide – A continually updated guide on all things SageTV (HTPC) is a very popular post here at GeekTonic

Hauppauge HD-PVR on Media Center Arrives – Media Center fans get to use the Hauppauge HD-PVR albeit with a hack and extra paid software.

KindleTips – Ultimate Kindle 2 Shortcuts and Tricks – Kindle tips & tricks including keyboard shortcuts

SageTV HD200 HD Theater GeekTonic Review – The HD Theater from SageTV continues to fly under the radar of the big media.  I guess they just don’t understand it, but that’s what keeps folks coming back for more here at GeekTonic

PopcornHour C200 Preview and First Look – A very nice media player with all kinds of capability including optional Blu-ray optical

iPod Without iTunes – The most popular guest post ever at GeekTonic.  Reader, ZetaVu hit a home run with this article which continues to get new readers daily.  Hmm, you think folks aren’t happy with iTunes after all???

Ultimate Fall 2009 TV Premiere Schedule – This is now dated, but shows the popularity of the TV Premiere schedules I prepare.  Thank goodness for that because I spend days putting this thing together three times a year and then countless hours updating it with changes and corrections during the season.  The latest version for Winter 2010 TV Premiere Schedule is already a popular item for this month

HTPC Wireless Keyboard Roundup Part 2 – Vidabox Premium Wireless HTPC Keyboard – A nice HTPC keyboard by Vidabox

SageTV Tip: TV Channel Logos in SageTV Guide – This was an easy how-to on adding TV logos to your SageTV EPG.  Also includes links to a huge number of TV logos which is part of the appeal of this post I’m sure.

Linksys Discontinuing All Media Extenders DMA 2100 and DMA 2200 – This is my biggest disappointment of 2009.  Not necessarily just that Linksys dropped out of the MC extender market, but the absence of extenders for Media Center in general other than the XBox360.

The Ultimate Directory of SageTV 3rd Party Applications

DIY HDMI and USB Over Ethernet – An Extender Alternative – The second most popular guest post on GeekTonic

Thanks again for being a part of GeekTonic.  I appreciate all of the readers and contributors here and will strive to make GeekTonic even better in 2010!

Over 65 delegates from the mining industry, waste and recycling, engineering companies and representatives from local, state and federal governments and organizations enjoyed a discovery trip into the future of separation technology.

A very successful occasion was enjoyed by the visitors who witnessed Steinert’s Induction (ISS) and X-ray (XSS) sensor sorters being put to work on a range of sample materials following an informative technical presentation.

The demonstrations included sorting materials from shredder product, upgrading nickel ore, separating sandstone from kimberlite and removing metal and non-metal contaminants from woodchips and magnetite ore.

Following the demonstrations, visitors were free to view other Steinert products on display within the production area while they enjoyed refreshments in the true German spirit. Discussions that ensued left no doubt that the Sensor Sorting Technology launch exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Steinert would like to thank all visitors for attending a great afternoon and to remind those who couldn’t make it that the test unit is here to stay … and to be used!

PSA: Watch for the blue moon this New Year’s Eve
TenYears: The best console games of the decade
The courts say don’t blame Apple if your iPod caused you to go deaf
CrunchGear visits top robot store Vstone in Akihabara (photo report)
JO-ZERO: Super-agile, super-cool mini humanoid (video)

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iPhone accessory maker and recession antidote regular Mophie is about to make the most buzzworthy move of its short history by offering a credit card reader and accompanying transaction app for the Apple handset. Positioned as a direct competitor to Jack Dorsey’s Square iPhone Payment System, Mophie’s solution looks to be integrated into an iPhone case — making it possible to keep the reader on permanently, albeit at a slight cost to your device’s aesthetics. The decidedly cube-shaped Square system has a less ergonomic design, but we suspect that the winner (if either of these two succeeds) will be primarily determined by the usability of the app and affordability of the service. Look out for more info to emerge at some point during the maelstrom that will be CES 2010.

Mophie iPhone credit card reader coming to a CES near you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Dec 2009 04:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The first striking point of this villa in the village of Vals in Switzerland is that it has been carved out of a mountain wall. The second most interesting fact is that the designer Jeroen van Mechelen has created a cabinet- cabin in the guesthouse with cardboards. Designed by the renowned architectural firm SeARCH in collaboration with Christian Müller architects this cathedral-like cabin is defined out of a 3 dimensional cardboard matrix. The two complete chapel like ceilings have been carved out of this matrix. The lightweight cardboard sandwich panels were directly CNC-carved from the design files and easily put together by the design team.

[Design]

It’s an old Chinese philosophy that you can take a horse to a lake, but you can’t make him drink the water. Keeping the phrase alive, WattVision has developed this real-time energy monitoring device that actually allows the user to counts the units consumed over every electronic device in the house. This simply means that unless people are actually made aware of the reality, in other words the statistics, the conscience will not prick. Thus no actually change can be made. To be honest, there are several existing energy sensors that can be easily snapped onto your gadget to monitor your consumption. But what makes WattVision different from the rest is an interesting looking structure, smart pricing and easy display. If you talk to the people in their own language, the reciprocation is immediate.

WattVision claims to have very simple to understand display and they believe in the mantra that ’what is measurable is manageable’, thus they hope to instill the energy conserving habit into their consumers who have so far not really bothered about the acute energy crisis we are facing today.

[Treehugger]

After being lashed out at in the many Copenhagen summits, China has taken environment consciousness seriously and has a massive budget for the ‘landmark green building project’ being developed for the World University Games coming in August 2011. They have decided on a new set of two charging stations for electric cars at the Universiade Center in Shenzhen. Apart from this they plan on having about 134 pole chargers around the town. The charging stations can be used during the day time, while the pole chargers can be putt o use during the night, for slow or overnight charging.

[Autobloggreen]

By Don Clark, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

In a brutal year, technology companies responded by hunkering down and developing new products at a faster rate as they tried to wrest sales from one another.

While 2010 isn’t expected to be a blockbuster, consumers have shown they are still willing to spend on gadgets, at least for hot products like Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone and Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN) Kindle.

There are also signs that frozen corporate budgets are thawing—driven by aging equipment, falling hardware prices and new offerings, notably Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) Windows 7.

Tech vendors are tapping demand in China, India and other emerging economies for products like laptop computers and cellphones. At the same time, Web connections are being added to existing products in new ways that are spurring buyers into action.

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Article Tags: Lorne Gunter

The decade just past marked the transition from red into green. It was the decade in which environmentalism replaced socialism as the authoritarians’ and the busybodies’ ideology of choice.

Why are so few environmentalists truly unhappy about the failure at Copenhagen? In the run-up to this month’s Earth summit in the Danish capital, many “greens” were warning that if the world’s leaders failed to reach a comprehensive pact to control climate change our planet was doomed within the century. In the summer, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon insisted “we have four months to save the planet.”

But nothing that will save the planet came out of the UN eco-fest.

Source: network.nationalpost.com

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Reader BakaYaro points us to this article about OPTi, the company that recently won a $21.7 million patent ruling against Apple, where the company’s CEO insists it’s not a patent troll because it’s only suing over patents that it got itself. It seems that Bernie Marren is trying to redefine what a “patent troll” is to mean just someone who buys patents and sues. But the real story shows that OPTi is yet another example of patents harming, not helping, innovation. The company used to produce products, but other companies eventually caught up, and OPTi couldn’t compete. Now, in a true capitalistic society, the companies that can’t compete, go out of business. And that’s a good thing. Failure is important for free markets to work. But, thanks to the very un-capitalistic concept of government granted monopolies, known as patents, tech companies never need to fail and go out of business. They can just sue over patent infringement. So, OPTi went from a 235-person company producing products and adding value to the market, to a 3-person company that just sues and extracts money from the companies who actually provide value on the market. So OPTi went from providing value to sucking value out of the market. It might not be a troll, but it’s difficult to see how it’s good for the economy or for innovation.

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1up is of course you favorite Nintendo Character and that is why you of course can’t have a life without this magnet.

The 1up get a life magnet is great for the office or your fridge.

Order your 1up Magnet today.

A day without landline phones? Some may say that’s inevitable, but it looks like AT&T is now starting to try to speed things up a bit, with it recently responding to an FCC request for comments with a 32-page filing that details its position on the matter. That more or less boils down to two major requests: that the FCC eliminate the regulatory requirements that it support a landline network, and that it provide a firm deadline for phasing it out. To back up that request, AT&T has provided the FCC with a whole host of statistics that paint a bleak picture for landlines, including the fact that less than 20% of Americans rely exclusively on switched-access lines for voice service (though plenty more still use them as their primary voice service), that at least 18 million homes now use a VoIP service, and that those two numbers are fast growing in opposite directions. Needless to say, such a change would have a broad range of regulatory implications, and AT&T isn’t providing answers for everything — like exactly how it expects that last mile of users to transition away from landlines, or how to deal with issues of public safety or those with disabilities.

AT&T asks FCC to phase out landline regulations originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A las clásicas listas de “lo mejor de 2009 según xxx” se pueden añadir las listas “agregadas” entre la población y las personales, los mejores grupos musicales 2009 según el perfil en Last.fm de cada uno. Aunque pasó a ser de pago (servidor es usuario suscriptor del servicio), el scrobbling sigue siendo gratis y otros servicios musicales como Spotify lo integran.

Este año alternan clásicos de siempre, Los Planetas, Wilco, Radiohead, con escuchas sobre todo de discos antiguos, con algunos de los grupos que he ido incorporando en los últimos meses: Francisco Nixon, Niños Mutantes y The Jayhawks. Después de seis años utilizando Last.fm, resulta curioso observar como hay grupos “efervescentes”, que copan las escuchas durante un periodo de tiempo para luego desaparecer y otros músicos cuyas canciones no pasan y te siguen acompañando. Os dejo con uno de estos últimos, Wilco y su Sky Blue Sky,

By Mark Mllian, Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times

This year was certainly significant in the world of online social media. Facebook surpassed 350 million users — more than the U.S. population — and Twitter’s short blogging service skyrocketed in popularity, led by celebs, tech lovers and top companies.

Here’s a look back at 2009’s biggest events in which social media played a major role.

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By Miguel Helft, Reporter, New York Times

YouTube, the video site owned by Google (GOOG), is about 10 times more popular than its nearest competitor. But Hunter Walk still thinks of it as an underdog. For Mr. Walk, director of product management at YouTube, the competition is not other Web sites: it’s TV.

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By Anil Dash, VP, Six Apart

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, I’ll have gained another follower or two on Twitter. Within an hour, I’ll have added more followers than 99% of Twitter users ever have. On a typical day, I’ll have averaged 100 new followers every hour. It’s not that I’m great at writing tweets or because of any effort or merit on my part; It’s because I’m part of Twitter’s list of suggested users.

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By Farhad Manjoo

Facebook had a watershed year as both the young and old flocked to the site. Many users, however—even veteran early adopters—have found themselves puzzled over the site’s rapidly growing complexity. In a column that debuted in October, Slate’s tech columnist, Farhad Manjoo, recently fielded some of the most common reader questions about social networking and other staples of online life.

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