2009 was the year of many great “1st time” moments including:
- 10 of my best photos were displayed at an art gallery in Paddington, Sydney
- Sailing Sydney Harbour on an adventurer’s yacht
- Holidaying in the heart of NZ’s Mountains and Glaciers
- Writing articles for APCMAG Online, ABC Online and iTnews as a paid freelance journalist
- Recognized as independent media/journalist by many big organisations like Google/Sony/Microsoft/Tourism NSW
- Public speaking on a stage
- Finally getting accepted as a legitimate Australian news source by Google News in late December
- Best of 2009 Awards for Movies, Music, Technology etc
- 2009: Hidden Gem Rambling Thoughts Articles
- 2009: Most Popular Rambling Thoughts Articles
Best of 2009 Awards
Movies of the Year
Tie between 2 animated films sure to become classics: UP! and Coraline
DVD Series of the Year
Babylon 5 – i’d never seen or heard of this cult classic from the 1990′s but it’s the best science fiction series I’ve ever watched (yes better than Star Trek!) because of it’s examination of socio/political issues, in-depth story arc taking place over 5 seasons (110 episodes + several telemovies) and great musical score.
Music Track Of the Year
Wonders Never Cease by Morcheeba. Again not new but I first heard this song in the perfect setting – staring out a window at the snow covered peaks of New Zealand’s Southern Alps.
Best photos for 2009
These can be seen at my Road Less Travelled Blog – 2009 The Year In Photos: Butterflies, Icebergs, Sand Dunes and Lightshows
Best News Filters/Gatherers
- Peter Martin Blog – Economics, Banking, Politics, Human behaviour
- John Robb’s Global Guerrilas blog – Networked tribes, systems disruption, war, resilient communities, decentralized platforms and self-organizing futures
Technology/Gadgets of the year
It’s a tie between the HTC Dream Android Smartphone I bought early in 2009 and the TiVo 320 PVR I bought just recently.
Both win because the best technologies should enable you to do more things, become transparent during everyday use and save you time & effort.
I use my Android smartphone to locate where I am on a map, get directions so I don’t get lost, calendar for meetings & tasks synched to my desktop, taking photos and sharing them immediately, surfing the web and checking email wherever I am.
I already owned a dual tuner PVR to record digital TV but didn’t use it much because I had to manually setup timer recordings for my favourite shows.
People say there’s nothing on free to air TV but that’s because there are many great shows scattered across the 11 digital tv channels (more to come) and it’s easy to miss a show in the huge TV guide listing.
In comparison to my old PVR the TiVo lets me record shows by category (eg: Animation or Western Movie) regardless of which channel/time they’re on, by Season Pass (every episode of a particular show eg: The Simpsons) and even better over time TiVo learns which shows you like to watch and records similar shows automatically (eg: if you often record The Simpsons it might record Futurama as well).
2009: Hidden Gem Rambling Thoughts Articles
Science, Technology & the Future
- Evolution Of Mobile Phones (Presentation at Ignite Sydney 2)
- Behind the Scenes of Radio National Future Tense
- Digital Picture Photo Frames: Great Gift or Worthless Rubbish?
- CSIRAC: Australias First Computer (4th Computer in the World)
- Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War by Michael Neufeld (Book Review)
- TED Talks Videos: Ideas Worth Spreading
- Better Place Electric Cars Face Rocky Road of Obstacles
“Neerav Bhatt speaking at Ignite Sydney 2 about The Evolution of Mobile Phones″ – photo credit: JJ Halans
Publishing / Information Industry / Media
- Encyclopedia Britannica: How the Mighty Have Fallen, Lessons For Market Incumbents
- What Is A Book? How Will We Read Books In the Future?
- Media140 Sydney 2009 – Future of Journalism in the Social Media Age
- Lesson from History: Todays Copyright Enforcer USA Was Yesterdays Biggest Pirate
- Books to Read: Business, Globalisation, Economics, Internet/Information Industry, Big Picture Lateral Thinking
- Catchup With Weeks Political Events with Insiders (ABC TV)
Finance/Money
- How Ive Paid No Bank ATM Fees Zero Dollars $0 For Years
- Is First Home Buyers Grant Really A Sellers Grant?
- Is Property Investment Really As Safe As Houses?
Other Interesting Topics
- Too Much Stuff: Consumption Is Not A Way of Life
- Achieving Your Potential
- What Its Like Working As A Remote Area Pharmacist in Outback Australia
- Inside the Mind of a Marathon Runner
- Bitter Sweet Chocolate For Child Workers in Cocoa Industry
- Preventing Identity Theft 101: Dont List Birthday on Facebook
2009: Most Popular Rambling Thoughts Articles
- It’s no secret that Australians love sport and despite claims of it’s death millions of people watch Free to Air TV so I wasn’t surprised that the 3 most popular new articles published in 2009 were about Sport on TV: Ten Network’s new ONE HD Digital TV Sports Channel, ONEHD TV Coverage of Formula 1 (F1) Racing and SBS TV Coverage of the Ashes Cricket series
- Top Gear fans continued their stream of negative comments about Top Gear Australia’s second series on SBS TV, pushing the number of comments to 581 in total!
- The most popular movie review of the year was the Star Trek world premiere at the Sydney Opera House and the related article If You Were a Star Trek Character: Who Would You Be?
- The most viewed book review was The Barefoot Investor: 5 Steps to Financial Freedom reflecting the world’s focus on finance and money matters in 2009.
- As always thousands of people viewed Tips for City 2 Surf Fun Run Sydney to Bondi Beach in the days before the event.
- Travel is one of Australian people’s favourite leisure activities so I was glad to see my review of the Wizard Clear Advantage Creditcard helped many people pay no bank foreign exchange or
ATM fees while on holidays overseas.
- The Australian Digital Radio launch in August didn’t get much attention in the mainstream TV/newspaper media so I took advantage and wrote an indepth introduction which was quite popular with readers.
- Interestingly my review of the Kogan DAB+ Digital Radio: WiFi, iPod Dock, USB Slot in July was the most popular technology review written during 2009 even though it had to compete with technology reviews published much earlier in the year.
Kogan Netbook Pro review and Samsung Galaxy Android Mobile Smartphone review picked up the 2nd and 3rd spots for most popular technology reviews.
- In October 2009 I was shocked to hear that Billy Birmingham aka The 12th Man was finally retiring from the game bringing his remarkable innings to a close. This sad news drove a lot of viewers to my 12th Man CD reviews
