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Most Popular Reviews 2009

Dean — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:48:26 +0000

As we wrap up another year, here is a look at the top 10 most popular reviews on Technical Itch. This list is compiled based on the number of people who have read each review.

We hope you’ve found these reviews useful and we’re looking forward to publishing more reviews in 2010.

Garmin Announce Nuvi 1690

Dean — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:53:45 +0000

Garmin have recently announced the new Nuvi 1690. Probably the most notable new feature is a built-in wireless module which allows you to access online information like Google search, weather and fuel prices. Garmin have dubbed this nuLink, and it is similar to the TomTom Live offering on systems like the TomTom Go 740 Live.

This is an interesting move by Garmin, who obviously liked what TomTom were doing and decided to compete with their own offering. Unlike TomTom though, who only offer their Live services free for 3 months, following which you pay a monthly subscription, Garmin is offering their nuLink content free for the first year. Once the first year is up it costs 79 Euros per year to continue using nuLink.

One of the nuLink services being offered is Flight Status which gives you the latest information on arrival and departures. Quite handy if you’re on the way to the airport.

The Nuvi 1690 will offer cityXplorer pedestrian navigation, as well as lane assist, junction view, ecoRoute and photo navigation. It comes preloaded with Western and Eastern European mapping.

The Nuvi 1690 also includes Ciao!, a social network application that links multiple social network sites so you can share your whereabouts with friends. Ciao! makes it possible to see where your friends are and you can navigate to their current location. Again this is similar to the existing TomTom Buddies functionality.

The Nuvi 1690 is expected to be available from November 15th 2009. It is available for pre-order from Amazon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Garmin Announce Ultra-Thin 5-inch Nuvi 1490T

Dean — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:35:17 +0000

Garmin announced today a new model in the Nuvi range. The Nuvi 1490T is aimed at the higher end of the Nuvi range. It will offer a 5-inch display with route planning, lane assist, lifetime traffic alerts, bluetooth hands-free calling, pedestrian navigation, photo navigation and ecoRoute.

It will also support downloading of CityXplorer content (when available). This will allow you to navigate city public transit systems for selected cities, such as bus and rail transportation.

The 1490T will come preloaded with either North American or European maps. It will be 25% slimmer than most Nuvi models already in the market. It is expected to be available in July 2009. Prices in the US are expected to be around $499, so in the UK we can expect to see prices in excess of £300.

News of the 1490T release comes hot on the heels of the Nuvi 1200 and 1300 models. We’ll be hoping to review all these models later this year.

ProBlogger offers $54,000 worth of prizes

Dean — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:13:57 +0000

ProBlogger is currently running a birthday bash where he is offering over $54,000 worth of prizes (USD)!

There are a huge array of prizes up for grabs, so if you haven’t take a look yet I recommend you do. The total value of all prizes is actually closer to $60,000, either way this is a huge amount in prize money.

These prizes are being given away over several days through a variety of different competitions. Several competitions have already closed so if you want to get in on the action on the remaining competitions then head on over to ProBlogger to find out more.

September Summary

Dean — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:49:37 +0000

September has been a busy month for this blog. The blog makeover is working well and has generated a good amount of feedback. The header and sidebar elements of this site are now getting far more clicks than with the old design. I will be publishing more on this in a later article.

Thanks to all September commentators. There was a tie for the position of top commentator:

Steven Snell from Vandelay Design
Mervandi from Geomatika for All

Thanks to all who commented. Your input is appreciated.

A special thanks goes to Swiss Mouse whose keen eye spotted some initial teething problems with the blog makeover under Internet Explorer 7. The Cheddar Blog is now 2 months old so why not check out the mouse’s home page.

Top 5 articles last month were as follows:

Reviews certainly seem to be the most popular articles on this site. Would you like to see more articles like this?

Here are a few more stats:

Unique Page Views: 20, 111
Page Views: 25, 507
Feedburner stats are pretty much stuck around the 130-140 mark. Let’s see if I can break past 150 this month

Revenue from Google AdSense is continuing to rise. I’ve seen significant increases month on month for the last quarter now:

September: +38%
August: +111%
July: +44%

Amazon Associates is also doing pretty well on this site. I had very little success with this program earlier in the year, but a couple of months ago I followed the advice of Darren Rowse about getting readers in the door at Amazon. It’s well worth a read if Amazon has not performed well on your site before.

His advice has worked well. I removed the Amazon banner ads from this site which were not performing well, and replaced them with text links at the bottom of selected product reviews. These link to a specific product on the Amazon web site. This strategy has worked well. I’ve managed to earn commission on items completely unrelated to products I’ve reviewed. It’s all about getting readers in the door. Once you’ve done that there is potential to earn good commission.

That wraps up September. As always, I welcome any feedback or comments about any aspect of this site.

O2 Sim Card Competition Winners

Dean — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:11:00 +0000

The recent competition I’ve been running to win free O2 sim cards has now ended.

Thanks to everyone who entered. I’ve sent emails to all the winners requesting your address details. Most people have now replied back. Your sim cards will be with you within 28 days. I’m waiting for a couple more replies so check your mailbox and spam folders in case you’ve missed my email.

Each sim card is worth £10. I hope you enjoy this small free gift

Technical Itch Gets A Blog Makeover

Dean — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:45:08 +0000

I recently got in touch with Nate Whitehill from Unique Blog Designs. I was impressed with how he redesigned John Chow’s web site so I asked him to give my site the makeover treatment.

This is the result! Welcome to the new look for Technical Itch.

The header and footer have been completely redesigned. The header has a new logo and brings to the fold the most popular articles written on this site. The footer displays top commentators, a MyBlogLog widget and a newsletter signup. Moving this information into the footer will free up my sidebar for other stuff later. The blog also sports a new color scheme.

Regular readers will know that I’ve been unhappy with the design of this site for some time. I’ve spent countless hours trying to tweak the layout, time which I often thought could have been better spent blogging!

I’ve tried working on the sidebar and getting other bloggers to help review the site. Even so I lacked the design skills necessary to give this blog the lift it needed.

What do you think of the new look? I hope you like it.

David Airey $4,000 Blog Prize Draw

Dean — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:41:16 +0000

David Airey, a logo designer and design consultant is holding an anniversary prize giveaway on his web site worth more than $4,000!

This is one of the best giveaways I’ve ever seen on a web site. There are some fantastic items up for grabs. Whether you’re looking for a redesign of your blog, free advertising or some cool gadgets, there is something for everyone.

I’ve listed the prizes on offer below to whet your appetite!

Gold award

The ultimate business blog package:

Logo design from David Airey.

Custom WordPress theme design from Nate Whitehill of Nate Whitehill dot Com.

Personal marketing / advertising plan from Maki of Dosh Dosh.

One year hosting and blog setup from John Boardley of I Love Typography.

Signed copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress.

Silver award

Logo design from Tara Roskell of Graphic Design Blog.

Website critique from Randa Clay of Randa Clay Design.

One hour SEO consultation with Lyndon Antcliff of Cornwall SEO.

$60 of books from Amazon courtesy of Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.

Bronze award

Logo / blog header design from Jonathan-C. Phillips of Smart Wealthy Rich.

Revolution Premium WordPress theme package (personal package) from Brian Gardner, WordPress designer and consultant.

Blog review and email interview published on Make It Great! with Phil Gerbyshak.

Bonus prizes

Bonus prizes to be drawn individually.

Podcasting kit

Behringer Podcastudio USB Podcasting Kit, kindly donated by Fraser’s Affiliate Marketing Blog.

Free money

$25 via PayPal courtesy of Gayla McCord of Mom Gadget.

USB storage keys

2GB USB storage key x 3 courtesy of Jamie Clague at Terinea Weblog.

Blog reviews and design help

Full blog review with deep links and images published on Blog-Op with Chris Lodge.

Blog review from Aaron Russell of miLienzo.

Expert WordPress blog help from Lakshmi Mareddy of Chilligavva.

Blog review from Hock Ng of Marketing Tools Review.

Blog makeover from Charles Jordan of The Queer Chef.

Telephone and Skype consultations

Blog writing consultation with Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog.

Two 45 minute coaching consultations with Mark McGuinness of Wishful Thinking.

4 hour business growth consultation with Rebecca Caroe, via telephone / Skype, or face-to-face in London / Cambridge.

Tele-Coaching with Tammy Lenski. A one-hour, private telephone consult with professional mediator and conflict coach Tammy Lenski.

One hour product launch consultation with Design Translator (DT) of Design Sojourn.

Blog improvement or monetization advice with Easton Ellsworth of Business Blogwire.

Art and literature

Two premium quality books designed and produced by David Hyde of david the designer.

Copy of Brand Aid by Brad VanAuken of The Blake Project.

Watercolour print from Ed Roach Watercolours.

Online advertising

728px by 90px banner ad for 30 days above the fold on The Blog Experiment, courtesy of Sara.

125px by 125px image ad for 30 days on Smart Wealthy Rich.

Ad icon located site-wide in the top left of Blog-Op, courtesy of Chris Lodge.

30 day text link ad shown site-wide on Contest Blogger.

125px by 125px image ad for 30 days on Freelance Folder.

Forum membership

Lifetime membership to the paid membership site that Andy Beard, WordPress SEO and Niche Marketer, will launch on Andybeard.eu (eta and value yet to be determined).

Free O2 Sim Cards Up For Grabs

Dean — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:00:11 +0000

I have a limited number of O2 mobile phone sim cards that I am giving away free to my readers.

These sim cards use the O2 Pay As You Go Favourite Place tariff. They come with 500 free UK minutes to O2 mobiles and standard UK landlines from your chosen postcode. Simply activate the sim card, select your chosen postcode, and top-up a minimum of £10. You will then receive your 500 free minutes.

These 500 free minutes are restricted to whatever postcode you select. If you make a lot of phone calls in one location, such as at home or in the office then you will get good use out of these sim cards. If you make any calls outside your postcode you will be charged the normal rate. I use this tariff myself and it works well.

Each month that you top-up £10 or more you will receive a further free 500 minutes. Each sim card is worth £9.99 and must be activated by April 2008. This offer is only available to residents of the United Kingdom.

If you’re interested then leave a comment at the end of this article, making sure you leave your email address. I will draw names at random on Friday 21st September. If you’re lucky enough to win I will contact you by email to arrange postage. Good luck!

Is Google Trying Video AdSense?

Dean — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:18:44 +0000

I came across this interesting Google Ad on my web site. It looks like a video. I didn’t click on the advert but I thought it was a clever idea. It certainly catches your eye more than the traditional text link ads.

Here is a screenshot I took. Anyone else seen these types of ad recently and what happens when you click on them?