GeekTonic Returns… again.

After a failed attempt to get back into the blogging game last summer I packed it up just under a year ago.  Lots has happened in my work and personal life since then, but things seem to be slowing down ever so slightly.  Here’s a quick recap:

We sold our suburban home faster than I expected.  Decided to rent in a more urban setting for a year or so to see how this downsizing thing would go.  This meant going from a relatively large space to a much smaller, more open loft in a building originally built in the late 1800’s.  This meant some serious downsizing in “stuff” especially electronic junk.  I’ll share more about that in a later post.

After moving into the loft we continued to search for a more permanent home.  This meant lots of looking around town, lots of realtor time, and some fun exploring our newfound urban landscape.  I also learned the “fun” involved in wiring for my SageTV setup in a rental situation with brick walls.

At the same time our daughter moved from one college apartment to another before moving back in with us for a semester while she student taught and then finally moving to another town after getting her first job out of college.

During all of this my company continued to expand into new businesses and added some new systems & websites.  To say the least the work-life had continued to consume more of my time away from the blogging stuff.

Most recently we purchased a new loft/condo not far from the loft we had been renting.  It was a short sale so it involved all the fun that comes with a non-standard purchase.  This new place is much newer (built just over 10 years ago) but also needed a lot of work.  The positive here though is it was wired fairly well and is on the list of Fall installs for Google Fiber – more on that later).  Notice the unfortunate fact that I’ve been involved with a LOT of moves in the past year or so.

So that’s what has been going on around the GeekTonic home.  My plan is to talk more about these changes, what I’m using for my TV setup as well as my other home technology at the new place.  I’ll also share with everyone some of the tech stuff I’ve run into and more importantly what I know about Google Fiber so far.  This blog won’t be quite like what it was several years ago, but I won’t give it up completely.

GeekTonic Rises

It’s been a nice, long break away from blogging these past many months.  Back in September of last year I mostly gave up writing on GeekTonic except for the weekly TV-centric posts and then in February I even stopped those.  Near the end of last summer I was already burning out but I tried to stay with it – it just wasn’t in me.  I invested a ton of time & energy in this thing because I love technology, especially when it’s mixed with media of all kind.  But the time spent on the day job mixed with preparation for a pretty major move (for me at least) finally pulled me away.  Today I decided to ease back into blogging on a smaller scale.

Articles will be less often and might be a mixture of topics.  I might at times really focus in on things such as Google Fiber, Apple TV, my transition from a suburban home mega-HTPC setup to a smaller, urban loft and who knows what else.  This will be me not following any of the advice I’ve read and learned about blogging, but I hope you’ll still enjoy reading.  I’ve had a lot of people encouraging me to get back into the game including family, friends, subscribers, twitter followers and Google + friends.

Checking In–The State of GeekTonic

Long-time followers of GeekTonic might have noticed that I’ve taken a few steps back from the media gadget pulse over these past few months.  Especially since Google purchased SageTV I’ve been a little…. okay a lot quiet.  Here’s the deal:

In the past two years the blog had to take a back seat to my day job which has quite honestly consumed me.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing for me – keeping busy in this economy is a good thing and I enjoy what I do.  But I hate that I’ve not been able to spend at least a little time each week on GeekTonic which had picked up quite a solid following.  As many of you know HTPC’s were a favorite topic of mine and SageTV was on its way to something really special in my opinion.  That something special needed help from the FCC aka AllVid but there was a chance this tiny little company called SageTV could be a real force in the competitive TV world.  Then Google swallowed up SageTV and in essence froze the SageTV ecosystem from growing.

I was already in over my head in terms of finding time to blog.  But this development of SageTV finally pushed me over the edge.  I gave up even trying to keep up with things – I took my attention away from the HTPC and media gadget world, stopped writing about it and put all of my remaining extra time and energy into my work and reading.  Google Plus and to a smaller degree Twitter was where I’ve shared mostly.  I fell into that trap that I said I would never go, but I did it to save myself from myself.

I’m not past that time of intense demand on my time, but I am still here.  GeekTonic will live on albeit in a smaller, less frequently updated way.  Thanks for hanging in there with me, I do have a lot more to say.  It will just come in irregular chunks of content.

PS:  I’m still keeping up the New TV content stuff for now.  Amazingly I get a LOT of eyeballs reading those weekly posts.

Please Excuse the Mess

I’ll be doing a little housekeeping here at GeekTonic this weekend.  Some minor look & feel adjustments are underway so don’t be surprised if some things are a bit out of place for a few days.  More information soon…

Tap, Tap, Is This Thing On? Back to GeekTonic

You may have noticed my absence on the GeekTonic blog over the past several months or perhaps you didn’t.  I’ve been simply buried in work and life as often happens at times and since I run this blog at break-even at best, I sometimes have to put it on hold to keep up with the rest of my life.  Enough about that, I wanted to spend my first post back doing a bit of rambling about things I’ve been doing and thinking about during this winter/spring break from my favorite GeekTonic readers.

Where Have I Been?

Why thanks for asking.  During the holiday season my family took a nice Caribbean cruise.  We had with us a little tech including the iPad, my Verizon MiFi, the iPhone 4 (gotta stay connected to work even on vacation these days), a nice Kodak PlaySport videocam (my daughters Christmas gift) that records underwater and above water pretty nicely, my Kindle and my trusty old Panasonic compact zoom camera.  I left behind the work laptop and survived on the iPad for very light work duty.  This is probably one of the smaller piles of tech I’ve carried with me even on a vacation trip like this and I can safely say I still took more than I needed.

I also spend countless hours driving (and riding) over 6,000 miles across the Midwest region of the United States during as many snowstorms as you can imagine.  This was a work trip so I had with me my work-issued Lenovo X201 (love this laptop), the iPad (and iPad2 for the last few trips), the Verizon MiFi, iPhone 4, random compact external hard drives (lots of data carried along with us), two projectors and a nice compact Panasonic RF speaker for presentations.  Most of the time I was working on this trip, but the iPad gave me a way for me to carry along some movies & TV shows converted from my SageTV as well as the perfect mobile internet device.  I used the iPhone for the usual things plus some lower-quality photo taking.  Oh and a Garmin GPS to keep us from getting lost with the added benefit of telling us when we should arrive at our next destination for the day.  I carried along tons of cords, USB drives and connectors since most of this travel was by car and weight and size of my geek gadgets wasn’t an issue.

My Favorite Tech – Still

When you’re extremely busy like I have been over the past four months or so you really learn what tech devices are important to you because those are the ones you still use/want during limited time.  Here’s the things I still used on a regular basis during my busy season:

• iPad – This could be any tablet I guess, but the iPad is the one I chose (twice actually) and I use it more today than I did in the first several months of owning it.  It turns on instantly, has replaced my newspaper, laptop for web browsing and even video watching.  It’s far from perfect and yes, it’s still more of a consumption device for me not to mention a want – not a need.  But I love it and use it daily.
• iPhone – Again, I’m on the Apple thing but I’d probably be just as happy with an Android phone.  But the smartphone has become a business necessity as well as very convenient thing to have with me at all times.
• SageTV – My Home Theater PC software/hardware of choice continues to be SageTV.  I still think Windows MediaCenter is nice and CableCard keeps it in the game, but I want more – and thankfully the Hauppauge HD-PVR and more recently Hauppauge Colossus along with SilicondDust HDHR tuning devices take care of the digital cable thing for me.  And more importantly to me, SageTV gives me all the digital media things I want in the way I want them.  Throw in the fact that SageTV has THE best extender solution on the market and you see where I’m coming from.  That being said, I fear SageTV is taking too long in several areas and is slipping – not behind Microsoft, but behind even CableCompanies and in other ways if they don’t hurry up.  More on that soon.
• Sonos – My gosh I think I love Sonos more than any other device.  That may sound silly to you, but this wireless networked music system is something MrsGeekTonic and I use all the time.  Since we use Sirius & Pandora with it so much we play the music we want when we want it througout the house.  It’s a crazy-simple solution that just works and we both love it!

What Else Has Been Going On at the GeekTonic Home?

I have had some time for messing around outside of work and travel.

• I installed a new SDD Drive, the Intel X25-M SSD as my SageTV HTPC OS drive.  The improvement has been significant for reboots, program startups and even UI snappiness for SageTV.  Really happy with my choice on the Intel too.
• I sold my iPad 1 for about $20 less than I had paid for it and purchased a new iPad 2.  WiFi only was for me as I didn’t care about the 3G (have that via Verizon MiFi & iPhone already) and don’t care much about the GPS not being inside the WiFi only versions.  I was pleasantly surprised by the thinner & slightly lighter form factor of the new iPad.
• My DIY Digital Photo Frame died.  I haven’t had time to investigate, but sadly my awesome DIY Digital Photo Frame just stopped working.  I suspect it’s a hard drive gone bad, but haven’t had time to investigate.
• Watched some 3D TV on my Panasonic TV.  I watched Avatar and other 3D movies on the Pany in 3D and while I didn’t purchase the TV for that 3D capability it is kinda nice.  Avatar was beautiful on the TV at home.
• Netflix – Throughout most of this time I kept up the Netflix subscription.  This wasn’t the smartest of decisions as I definitely didn’t get my monies worth.  I’m still scratching my head on why I didn’t put that on a long vacation.
• TheDaily on the iPad along with the WSJ on the iPad kept me updated on the news.  I check out my continually weakening local newspaper – the Kansas City Star on their website (again using the iPad) and throw in some Atlantic, NYT and other publications as well since I’m kind of a news junkie.
• I transcoded a bunch of Blu-ray’s from my SageTV to my iPad and watched them while travelling.  Even when I connected to my hotel TV using the Apple HD connector the picture quality was surprising pretty good – much better than the stupid hotel TV feed.

Whats Next for the GeekTonic Blog?

As you have already figured out, I do this blog for my enjoyment – because I enjoy tech gadgets and I love to share.  If it were about being the first to publish an article or about making money, I wouldn’t be typing this today cause… well because I don’t have the time or energy to keep that up.  But I do plan to continue sharing what I know and learn about technology – things like Home Theater PC, Mobile Media Gadgets, TV and Movies and even some new stuff like fitness tech.  But I’m still on the fence on whether I’ll keep up the What’s on TV stuff as that has been pretty time consuming and I’m not convinced it’s loved by readers as much as I first thought.

I would still LOVE to have some guest posts from readers like you.  Something like this excellent article written by one of my favorite readers – Clift.  Better yet, I’m open to having a co-author of GeekTonic who would sign on for more regular writing if they have the time.  The money is really bad (like zero) but I do throw in some perks for writers once in a while and it gives you an outlet to write something that roughly 1,000 – 7,000 eyeballs a day (sometimes more) will see – not to shabby exposure if you ask me.  If you’re interested and willing to stick to the topics GeekTonic focuses on send me a note.

I may not be around every day, but I’m not going anywhere – so stay tuned!

Happy 2011 – I’m Back

I’ve been away from the blog thing for long enough I thought I’d take a moment to check in and provide a little status update.  First off, I’m still here but have been extremely busy with life including the holidays, long vacation, heavy work schedule demands.  Add to that a bit of burnout just before CES and well to be honest I was weighing my blogging life options.

After a fairly long, satisfying break I’ve decided to jump right back in and try to start back where I left off.  As longtime readers know I have times where I write often and many times where I’m just to darn busy to keep up with it all.  But long-term I’ll keep doing this GeekTonic gig because I like sharing with all of you.  My focus will continue to include SageTV and HTPC stuff but don’t be surprised if I just throw in a few other fun tech & media things that interest me.  Finally I want to say Happy 2011 and thanks for hanging in there with me!!

PS:  I’d love to have one or two bloggers join in on the fun and write an article on occasion.  Even if you already have your own blog this could be a great way to get experience and exposure.  And there just might be a nice perk or two thrown in also if you stick with me.

Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas

As regular readers may have noticed, it has been pretty quiet around GeekTonic this month. Don't worry, all is well here and your favorite gadget, HTPC, and TV stories will be back soon enough. Things have just been extremely busy leading up to a few days of R&R through the holidays.

I will be posting a little in the meantime, but it will be light on the pretty pictures and other typical fare as I'm working without a laptop for the first time in many, many years.

I wish you and yours a very Happy Holiday season!!!

Welcome to GeekTonic

You've arrived at GeekTonic – the go-to place for Media Gadgets, HTPC’s and Tech Talk – Tonic for your Inner Geek

Featured Recent Stories

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The Great GeekTonic T-Shirt Giveaway

About a year ago I began exploring changes to the GeekTonic website logo.  Since I’m no artist I was fortunate enough to get the help of Dan Sidler of DangerousPromotions.net who created the logo for GeekTonic and even made a few requested tweaks to it to fit my needs.  Then sometime early 2010 I took the logo live without much fanfare.

In the meantime, MrsGeekTonic went the extra mile and had a decent number of official GeekTonic T-Shirts – again with the help of Dan Sidler of DangerousPromotions.net.  The T-shirts have been a hit around the family, but it’s time for a long overdue T-Shirt Giveaway!

Now I know you are dying to get one of these awesome-looking T-Shirts so you can be in style as you visit Microcenter, Best Buy, the Apple Store, the Microsoft Store or wherever.  I’ll have a couple of giveaways for these over the next few months but I’m doing them in small bunches so I don’t break the bank on shipping. 

Here’s how to enter to win your very own GeekTonic T-Shirt

Step 1. Take a photo of your Computer Monitor showing the GeekTonic Logo (from www.GeekTonic.com or for double votes a photo of a store computer showing the GeekTonic Logo.

As an example, below is a photo I took of my iPad at an Apple Store.  To get the extra “vote” though you’ll need to somehow show you are in a store (and not your house) in the photo.

Step 2.  Post a comment (use a valid e-mail so I can contact you when you win) to this post with a link to the photo.  As long as you have a link to the photo location such as flickr, twitpic or wherever you put your online photos the comments system should show the photo once posted.

The Fine Print

• I’ll announce 5 winners (chosen at random) of the first batch next week.
• I ship anywhere in the U.S. for free.  Anything beyond that I might ask for help on the shipping depending on the cost.
• Family is not eligible to win this contest.  If you are family & want a T-Shirt and don’t have one yet, please beg or bribe me.
• GeekTonic reserves the right to change the rules, and details of this contest at any time.  I don’t plan on it, but I’ve spent too much time with lawyers this past year not to say that ;)

 

About The GeekTonic Logo (and T-Shirt Design)

This logo was created by Dan Sidler of DangerousPromotions.net - much thanks to Dan for that by the way!  Dan does great work so if you're interested in business cards, logos, flyers or other design, check out his site and send him a note.  Dan is a GeekTonic reader and submitted this entry into the GeekTonic Media Gadget Showcase.  I have to give credit to MrsGeekTonic for the T-Shirt and the extra modifications required to make the Logo and design work on the T-Shirt.  They really did turn out nice!

2009 in Review – The Top GeekTonic Content for 2009

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!

Ask The Readers – What To Spend My Gift Card Cash On?

This Christmas the Amazon.com Gift Card was a popular gift – a gift I gave and one I received as well.  So I thought rather than do an impulse purchase I’d ask everyone what they think we should spend our Amazon dollars on so they will stop burning a hole in our virtual pocket.

 

What do you think?  Tell me what you’d purchase for yourself or what you think I should purchase for myself.

A Look Back at Last Year’s Media Gadget Predictions

With one of my first posts of 2009 I took a wild stab at my top 10 Media Gadget Predictions for 2009 with some long-shots and a few I though were very possible in the wild world of Media Gadgets.  I thought I’d use this last week of 2009 to see how I did.

Photo by “circulating” cc license

Eating a Lot of Crow – but a few were Closer Than Expected:

I think it’s probably wise to start with the predictions I really missed on first and then move down the list towards those that were close or actually accurate predictions:

 

• The first HTPC extender with a Blu-Ray drive arrives (or would that be Blu-Ray drive with HTPC extender) – possibly as soon as CES

Yes I really did predict this and I was really wrong.  Matter of fact we saw very few new extenders in the tiny HTPC market and definitely none with a blu-ray drive.  Although there was a media player that has Blu-ray capability with the PopcornHour

• Two of the freeware HTPC software programs will die and be abandoned.  The free-ware HTPC market will consolidate to two or three major forces (already has begun in 2008.)  I have my thoughts on which of those will die out in 2009, but will leave the names to your imagination…

This is one I think could still happen in the coming year.  I”m surprised that some of the smaller, freeware names still do any updates as names like XBMC and Boxee take up the little air that remains i this space.

• Apple re-enters the living room (yeah they’ve basically abandoned it at the moment with the current AppleTV) with a new version of the AppleTV and calls it AppleMedia.  AppleMedia will bring 1080p, more online video and HD-PVR capability becoming a major force in the HTPC world in one fell swoop.

I personally think Apple is still moving this way.  Even recently we’ve heard about Apple working with some TV networks on agreements to carry their content on some Apple product.  But so far it hasn’t happened and that reflects how difficult this market is with the many entanglements that come along with todays TV licensing deals.

• Microsoft cuts the budget for Media Center as HTPC interest wanes.  While Windows 7 is popular with current VMC users, number of consumers using Media Center stays relatively the same as with VMC.  Focus continues to shift towards the custom installers and highest-end customers.

I was wrong here – very wrong.  I say that even though I’m betting the actual budget for HTPC at Microsoft did not get increased and quite possibly decreased.  But I think Microsoft still values the HTPC/Media market and their improvements in Windows 7 demonstrates that.

• Apple will push the touch-screen platform further by releasing a iPod Touch mini (or nano) as well as a iMac Touch micro computer.

I was a year early on much of this one really.  But the not-yet-here Apple Tablet will do this in early 2010.

• Media companies continue the fight to eliminate analog outputs from all devices to remove their fear of the “analog hole”.  They fail in 2009, but make inroads to their goal.

This happened and continues to happen today.  Media Companies are working diligently to move away from analog ports and will eventually win this battle.  I just think it will take the better part of five years instead of one.

• TV Networks begin to abandon the old “local TV station” model and push further to online delivery.  Hulu and other online video sites skyrocket in use and profitability as advertisers strive to find the consumer anywhere they can.

This one seems to be slowly moving the way I expected.  Hulu pushed around those trying to use their content (like Boxee for example).  Comcast’s XfinityTV is another example of the experimenting the media companies are doing.  While I personally am very against the online, streamed TV content as a primary source of TV and movies, I admit this is probably where media will go some day.

• SageTV announces two new hardware devices.  One is an extender/player, the other is a complete hardware-based Server/Player solution

How could I be so right on one hand, but so wrong on the other?  SageTV did release a very nice SageTV HD Theater (HD200) that is even better today than it was when it was first announced in January 2009.  So on that hand I was right.  But there still today is no hardware-based Server/Player solution and I’m not sure if we’ll see one even in the next six months.  Still I consider the SageTV HD200 one of the best media gadget devices I’ve ever purchased – and that’s saying a lot.

• Blu-ray becomes the de facto standard as prices of players drop as low as $70 and Blu-Ray Media prices drop to $15 by years end.

While some may disagree with me, Blu-ray is the standard now.  Blu-ray player prices have dropped to incredible lows over this past holiday season even though the regular prices for low-end models still over just below $99 instead of $70.  Many now have them and want their movies on Blu-ray – even if they are renting them.  The bestseller Blu-ray discs on Amazonrun anywhere from $14.99 for The Dark Knight to $39.99 for the Planet Earth Series.  And people who have no surround sound system at home are still renting and buying Blu-ray discs in the stores these days.  DVDs will linger on like VHS did, but they are now considered “old tech” by even the “regular folk.”

• A Leading for-profit HTPC software company ends new sales of their HTPC software leaving the market to two or at most three viable HTPC software companies and a bunch of free-ware HTPC programs.

There were a few possible companies I had in mind here, but the primary one was Snapstream.  Not because I thought Snapstream was failing, but because I saw their enterprise DVR/Search product offering so much and filling the perfect niche for a small company.  Somewhat as I expected, Snapstream announced they were “scaling back” their focus away from the consumer-based BeyondTV HTPC software and publicly admitting that their number one focus is for their Enterprise product.  It makes a lot of sense to me and while I’m sort of disappointed to see BeyondTV get left behind in the HTPC world as it was one of the best software PVRs available.

 

I proved one thing this past year – I’m not all that good at predicting the future.  But I do at least have a feel for the general direction of things.  I’ve asked my twitter followers what HTPC predictions they have for 2010 and I’m listening for your Media Gadget predictions too – let me know in the comments and I’ll provide a new list of 2010 predictions later this week.

2009 GeekTonic Guest Posts

Earlier this month I reminded readers that they can share their media-gadget story on GeekTonic.  I also mentioned a possible reward to the guest bloggers on GeekTonic this past year.

The winner of the SageTV HD Theater Player/Extender is ZetaVu.  He was chosen by random drawing, but it probably didn’t hurt that he had the most contributions this year – and therefore the most entries.  Congrats to Zetavu – The HD Theater should arrive on Christmas Eve!

For nearly all of the others who contributed guest posts this year a small gift was e-mailed to you last night.  Check your e-mails for a little gift certificate from Amazon if you contributed.

For everyone else, I encourage you to check out the guest posts from this past year – there were some extremely good ones.  And consider sharing your story or a summary of your media-gadget setup with everyone here on GeekTonic!

If you’re curious on contributing:  Write an Article for GeekTonic! Looking for Guest-Submitted Articles at GeekTonic

 

Guest Posts on GeekTonic in 2009:

The Non-GeekTonic Review of the Nook – From the Recreational Readers Perspective by Mrs GeekTonic

Windows 7 MCE + DVBLink for HDPVR = HD Happiness by David

The Perfect HTPC Graphics Card by Ganesh

Smart Sports Recording with Sage Recording Extender by Wayner

Video with MythTV by GadgetWisdom

The Second Digital Transition by Scott

DIY HDMI and USB Over Ethernet – An Extender Alternative by Clift

Placeshifting With The SageTV HD Theater by Dave

Control Your HTPC With EventGhost by ZetaVu

BeyondTV Plus MediaPortal vs SageTV – Redux Part 1 by ZetaVu

BeyondTV Plus MediaPortal vs SageTV – Redux Part 2 by ZetaVu

Keeping the Analog Hole Open by JarkHD

When Socialism is a Good Thing - a Revolutionary Idea in Commercial Skipping by Ray (GhostLobster)

The Non-GeekTonic Review of the Kindle 2 - From the Recreational Readers Perspective by Mrs GeekTonic

Video Editing Power Tools by ZetaVu

iPod Without iTunes by ZetaVu

Testing The MediaPortal Waters - Experiencing New HTPC Software by Ray (GhostLobster) NOTE:  actually written in December of last year.

 

Media Gadget Showcase – Home Theaters and HTPC Setups

What Did We Do Without HTPC’s by Jamie

MythTV, VMC, GB-PVR and SageTV Oh My! by Clift

Blaze818's Home Theater and HTPC by Blaze818

Home Theater PC Setup by Damian

Suresh's Home Theater and HTPC by Suresh

HTPC Setup by Wayner

Home Theater PC Setup by ZetaVu

Home Theater Setup by Dennis

HTPC Build by Sodarkangel

 

If I missed anyone (or any article) from the many guest posts at GeekTonic in 2009 please let me know.  Thanks to all who contributed – I appreciate it!

Want to Share? Guest Blog at GeekTonic To Enter Media Player Giveaway

While I do have a lot of ideas and thoughts to share with all of you on GeekTonic, it’s always nice to hear from others to get a little different perspective, knowledge or experiences.  That’s where you come in.  Read on for some ways you can join in with the GeekTonic community and even for some ways to be rewarded (read below for info) for participating and making GeekTonic better.

Make a Comment – Follow on Twitter

The easiest way to share is to comment on the posts here at GeekTonic.  I use the Disqus commenting system which has been working very well for the most part and hopefully makes commenting painless.  I like all constructive comments that contribute to the topic at hand – pretty much anything as long as it isn’t “spammy.”

GeekTonic also hangs out on Twitter so follow me there.  I don’t tweet every post, but I will link to the big ones on occasion as well as share other stuff on occasion.

Send Me a Note

Do you have an idea for an article?  A question I might be able to help with, a tip on a story or deal?  Complete the “contact me” form and I’ll receive an e-mail.  As long as I know it’s not from a “spammer” I’ll respond to your e-mail of course.

Write a Guest Post – be a Guest Blogger of GeekTonic

For guidelines on writing a guest post at GeekTonic read this.  It has all of the details you need – it talks about the types of topics, how to send it in etc.  For examples of guest posts, click here to check out a bunch of guest posts from this past year.

What do you get out of it?

Regular Readers of GeekTonic Know:

If you’ve been hanging out around GeekTonic long enough you know I give away free stuff.  Not engraved pencils or silly stuff, but very valuable electronics and useful items for your media setup.  Usually these giveaways are related to a review I’ve written (from free items I received for a review) although there have been other items I’ve given away as well and all that is usually required to win is to comment here on GeekTonic or on twitter.

Those Who Have Published Guest Posts this year (1/1/09 – 12/11/09) could win a Media Player

Writing a guest post has its own rewards – like knowing that thousands of people are reading and enjoying your writing for instance or just knowing you were able to share with others with like interests.  But I wanted to give back more to you this year…

The GeekTonic blog has been blessed with many great guest posts this year and I’ve been thinking about how I could thank all of you who have contributed with your writing.  Well, I won’t be able to directly reward all of the guest bloggers, but I have a special gift for one and even a couple of smaller ones for a few others.

One lightly used (but in great condition) SageTV HD200 Media Player/Extender will go to one guest blogger from this year. 

I’ll be selecting the winner based on all guest blog entries submitted to me (including those already published this year) by the end of day, December 11th – it doesn’t necessarily have to be published by then, but at least received by me.  Shipping will be paid for by GeekTonic within the U.S.  Anything beyond the U.S. we can work out the details on.

The winner will be announced the following week and will receive the media player by Christmas!  There will be a few other, much smaller prizes as well which will be announced soon.  Disclaimer:  Not all who guest blog will win

Don’t think we’re making tons of money with GeekTonic or anything – far from it.  It’s just that I like to put most (if not all) of what is earned at GeekTonic back into the blog and back to you, the reader. 

One last thing - remember that your online shopping done via clicks through GeekTonic affiliates or GeekTonicDeals affiliates all provide the cash to make these giveaways possible and pay for the costs of running the site and are always appreciated.

Happy Thanksgiving From GeekTonic

I call it “the turkeyness.”  Today, I’m spending the day with family & friends, enjoying some turkey & other good food, possibly some football viewing and hanging out with the family.

Happy Thanksgiving to those here in the states and thank you to all readers!

I’ll continue to update the GeekTonicDeals site today (there's already some very nice online deals highlighted along with a BlackFriday summary) and tomorrow with some of the better deals I find and a comprehensive look at the best deal day: CyberMonday

GeekTonic Policy on Reviewed Items

Given the FTC’s recent push towards better disclosure of product reviews on blogs I thought I’d reiterate the process GeekTonic takes with all reviews – the same policy I’ve followed from day one.

GeekTonic reviews products in a way that is as unbiased and objective as possible.  Items that are reviewed fall under two categories:

1. Products provided for review to GeekTonic – after the review is complete, these products are either returned to the vendor or given away through GeekTonic contests.  They are never kept to be used by the writer/s of this blog unless the item is purchased.  Thus far I’ve either returned all products OR run a giveaway to give the product away to one lucky reader.  Reviewed software provided by vendors is disclosed as such and uninstalled or purchased after publication.  Examples of this include the review of the SageTV HD200, the Vidabox Keyboard among many others.

2. Products purchased to use that are also reviewed – These are items I’ve purchased for my own use or items other writers have purchased for their use.  These products are reviewed and of course kept as they were purchased and not provided for free.  An example of this is the Kindle 2 which was reviewed earlier this year and is still used and loved by my wife and I – we paid for that one and it was noted in the review.

One of the two categories have been followed for every review written thus far except for a couple of products that are being held to giveaway at the end of this year (so stay tuned).  Any exception from this policy will be specifically noted in the review.  Reviews on this blog are the opinion of the reviewer only and open to interpretation, but every effort is made to keep the review as objective as possible.

Feel free to read about all GeekTonic policies here

2 Million Hits

Today GeekTonic passed the 2 Million pageviews milestone since the blog began three years ago.

I remember how excited I was to hit 100,000 just under two years ago and things have been going strong since.

As I said back then, thanks for frequenting GeekTonic!

Month in Review – August 2009

We’re heading into the Labor Day weekend and I thought I’d give you a quick run-down of the top posts of August. 

GeekTonic continues on a steady diet of HTPC and media-tech goodness.  Thanks to you, the readers for reading - I will continue working hard to bring you the content you came here for!

To wrap of August 2009 I wanted to share the most popular posts (as measured by Google Analytics) of the month:

 

• Ultimate Fall 2009 TV Premiere Schedule – I just updated this listing this past Sunday with a by TV Show Name and by Date PDF Download.  The #1 post for August.

• Keeping the Analog Hole Open – An excellent guest post by JarkHD about using an innovative device that takes HDMI and passes through the analog content unprotected.  An alternative if the powers that be ever try to “close the analog hole.”

• Preview of an Awesome Looking XBMC Skin Called Surface – A cool skin being developed for XBMC is demo’d in this video preview.

• Silicondust releases Gold Version of HDHomeRun Tuner Software – The maker of the popular HDHR dual QAM network tuner releases a new Gold Version of their software

• WDTV Version 2 Photos Leaked – Western Digital is coming out with a new WDTV media player.

• Should Windows Media Center Be Separated from the Windows OS? – I say yes.  But there really isn’t a clear-cut answer.

• Windows Media Center SDK RTM Released 

 

Other Content from past months on the Most Popular List include:

• SageTV Ultimate Guide
• Popcornhour New Version C200 Announced – A lot more about this exciting new device is coming soon on GeekTonic.  Stay tuned
• Hauppauge HD-PVR on Media Center Arrives – I’ve noticed an uptick in the interest in this “hack” method to use the HD-PVR with Media Center as people become less optimistic that a native solution is coming soon.  That along with the DishTV Tuner disappointment seems to have led some Media Center users to try this solution out.
• KindleTips - Ultimate Kindle 2 Shortcuts and Tricks
• SageTV HD200 HD Theater GeekTonic Review

More coming soon.  Reviews, giveaways, some pretty exciting news all planned for the coming month.  Stay tuned.

GeekTonic on Entertainment 2.0 Podcast

Quick Programming Note:  Be sure and check out the Entertainment 2.0 Podcast with Adam, Josh, Andy VanTil, creator of DVR-MS Toolbox and myself.  We had a great discussion on the topic of HTPC’s and Why they Aren’t Mainstream

Listen to the Podcast Here: Entertainment 2.0 Episode 43: Why Aren’t HTPCs Mainstream?

GeekTonic Back From Vacation

Some may not have even noticed that I was out of the "office" for the past week or so, but others might have noticed my slow response to e-mails and comments was even slower last week.  So I thought I'd shed a little light sun on the story for you.

About 11 days ago I left with my wife to vacation in Florida and catch a short (read much-less-expensive) cruise.

While the goal was to get away from it all, I still managed to stay sort-of connected.  I did some pre-cruise blogging over the weekend (all blog posts last week were auto-posted in advance) from our deck and the B&B's beach at Key Largo.

Keen eyes will notice the laptop still has XP powering it.  Looking forward to our work moving to Windows 7 at some point next year.

 

Next it was time to board the ship, but the timing just happened to be when the Apple WWDC keynote was going on so I checked my ubertwitter (for blackberry) app religiously to keep updated on the Apple WDC news - of which I was mostly disappointed in other than the nice price-drop on the old iPhones. 

After heading out to sea I chose to not pay the premium for WiFi access on the ship and instead just enjoy being disconnected from the internets. 

So during the Cruise we mostly relied on our iPod's (Shelly has the iPod Classic and I have the iPod Touch) and Shelly's Kindle 2 for our technology needs.  You'll note in the photo below, Shelly has become very comfortable with bringing the Kindle 2 with her - even to the beach.  A simple plastic baggie is a nice protector for the moments you might be worried about the elements, but the Kindle 2 performed admirably in and out of the sun just like the traditional paperback.

(Yes that's our cruise ship off in the distance - and Shelly's gadgets on her beach chair)

 

When the ship stopped at Key West I had one more chance to catch up on some e-mails and real news during the trip.  Unfortunately though my Blackberry was so full of e-mails it seriously buzzed with new notifications for over an hour (yes I was too lazy to shut off the notifications) until it ran out of battery before the day was over.

On the way back we had plenty (more than we really wanted really) time in the airport so rather then deal with the poor WiFi service in the two airports I was in I used my trusty AT&T USB 3G along with the laptop to begin catching up on the techie news I follow.

We also both carried compact cameras - mine is a Panasonic TZ5 which I dearly love and Shelly's is a small Sony.  I left the handheld GPS at home this time as our ports weren't anything too exciting and Shelly always gives me a very hard time about the "bag-o-gadgets-and-wires" I always carry with me.  Since returning home I've been working hard to get caught up on the goings on for GeekTonic and at work.