Zatz Not Funny!

Pre-CES Data Backup with Clickfree

Since we all know by now that I don’t have the best track record in personal data recovery, I’ve decided to kick myself into gear in 2010 and test out a few different backup technologies. First in line, the Clickfree C2. I acquired a Clickfree Transformer Cable last year at CES, and true to its word, … Read more

Ceton to Unveil CableCARD Quad-Tuner ($399)

I’ve just received word that Ceton will be unveiling a low profile, PCI Express “Quad-Tuner” card at CES. Strike that. Steve Ballmer will be unveiling the Ceton card. During Microsoft’s opening CES keynote tomorrow evening! The $399 PC accessory is expected to ship in Q1 and enables simultaneous tuning of four live channels of digital … Read more

ZNF: The Year in Stats

Following in Brent’s GeekTonic footsteps, I’d like to point out a few fun facts from 2009 ZNF blogging as we enter our 6th year rocking the suburbs.

Despite my earlier assumption, given our evolving strategy of fewer but more meaningful posts, blog traffic was actually up about 30%. We averaged 66 posts a month in 2007, 48/mo in 2008, and hit an all-time low of 42 in 2009. I’ve yet to crunch the numbers, but suspect revenue growth was flat year over year as the global economic situation negatively and significantly impacted advertising during the first half of ’09. ZNF is a largely labor of love, so we’re not really sweating it.

In terms of visitors, as you can see from the Google Analytics query up top, nearly 70% ran Windows (at least some of the time) in 2009 and were pretty evenly split between Internet Explorer and Firefox. And there’s still too many on IE 6 – 18% of total ZNF traffic to be exact. I imagine a portion of those also account for the 1.32% who visited via dialup. Dialup?! Which brings us to source referrals. Like most websites, a vast amount of our traffic comes in via search engines. Well just one in particular:

Syabas to Launch $130 Popbox

Syabas, the makers of the Popcorn Hour Media Tank, have announced their intentions to launch a lower-cost media playback device this spring. The Popbox ($130) retains much of the impressive codec and high resolution/bitrate support seen in the Popcorn Hour line, but will also emphasize web content such as Netflix (via “Popapps”) and feature a … Read more

SiliconDust to Announce CableCARD HDHomeRun

We’ve been hearing of something exciting coming from SiliconDust, the company that brought us the popular HDHomeRun network dual tuner product (a favorite of mine), and it looks like this is the week we’ll be getting the details on it. Over on the SiliconDust forums, the company revealed (screenshot above) they’ll be announcing a new … Read more

Of Lenovo Launches and Leaks

Lenovo queued up a slew of announcements for CES this year, but while the press releases were scheduled for January 4th and 5th, Lenovo news was leaked all over the Net this weekend. For the ThinkPad line, Engadget reported first on a new X100e ultraportable netbook with an 11.6″ display and an AMD processor. Then … Read more

5 Things Missing from CES 2010

The Griffin Technology folks as pictured on the CES blog Not making the trek out to Vegas this year for CES? You’re not alone. Here’s a list of five things missing from CES 2010. Cablecos and Telcos Despite the fact that we now live in a connected world, many of the providers that make our … Read more

The Technology of 2009

Now that 2009 has come to a close, it’s time for some personal tech reflection – beyond the “boxes of the year” and my entry level HD video cam recommendation. By and large, my primary 2009 gadgetry looked quite similar to what I used regularly in 2008 (never minding some model upgrades): iPhone, Macbook, Xbox, TiVo. The two notable additions to my lineup were the Sonos S5 and Sprint’s edition of the Novatel MiFi. Although, I wouldn’t have been so dependent on that MiFi had AT&T not provided me significantly worse coverage in 2009 than in 2008.

Michael Gartenberg has put together his Best Personal Tech of 2009 for Engadget which is worth a read, as I agree with many of his selections. ;) So let’s focus on a few items he and I don’t see eye to eye on. Instead of the 27″ iMac, I’d rather single out Apple’s redesigned 21.5″ model. It has a much better price/performance/features ratio and is truly a bargain by Cupertino standards. Plus, it ships without screen issues. On the software front, Gartenberg highlights both Snow Leopard and Windows 7. Which are merely evolutionary upgrades by any measure. In fact, Snow Leopard would be called a service pack from anyone else and Microsoft’s most notable Windows 7 “feature” is not being Vista. Lastly, I’m not yet sold on any of the underpowered, novelty “pico” projector devices/functionality.