Happy New Year!

For some, a new year is time to start anew. Perhaps last year was particularly rough with relationships or monetarily or perhaps there were physical or mental issues that put a damper on 2011 but with the start of a new year we can start all over and work towards a better you in 2012!

Here are 10 ways you can improve yourself and keep your New Year’s Resolutions by using Technology:

1 Habits 2012 – Reach your Goals with this highly customizable Habits app. In Habits 2012, the app offers a habits-focused set of items such as “Live a Healthy Life” that allows you to daily track the various tasks required to reach you goal. For example, have you flossed and did you sleep at least 7 hours? If you’d like to use a broader set of items like customizable, visual scales then you can move up to the developer’s Track & Share app, which comes in a Pro and Lite version. (Pricing options from Free to $0.99)

2 Toodledo – Be more productive by using this online to-do list. You can organize your tasks using folders, tags, contexts, subtasks and more as well as search and sort easily. With Toodledo’s hotlist, customizable alarms and sortable online to-do list you can become more productive and using your mobile phone, email, web browser, iPad or through several integrations (Ceptara Organizer for Outlook [$49.95] for example), your to-do list will always be handy. (Pricing options exist from Free to $14.95/yr to $29.95/yr)

3 Philips Sonicare Diamondclean Rechargeable Toothbrush – While this toothbrush won’t force you to brush, it will compel you! I received one of these as a Christmas gift and since then I really look forward to brushing my teeth! The rechargeable toothbrush has a dual charging system which includes a charger glass (induction) and a USB charging travel case… yes, USB charging travel case! The patented sonice technology drives fluid to stimulate the gums and in fact the first 25 brushes provide a ramp up time to get your teeth and gums ready for the full force. The toothbrush includes five modes to offer a custom cleaning experience including: two-minute standard mode (clean), teeth whitening mode to lift surface stains (white), teeth brightener and polisher (polish), three-minute mode to improve gingival health (gum care) and a gentle motion for sensitive teeth and gingival health (sensitive). Of course the DiamondClean includes standard features such as a smarttimer and quadpacer so you don’t have to watch the clock to know when to stop brushing.

4 Kindle – Exercise your brain in addition to your body by picking up a Kindle to read one of 800k titles available for $9.99 or less or pick up an Amazon Prime Membership to read from over 50k titles and former New York Times Bestsellers for free! ($79 – $199)

5 Health through Breath for iPad – Breathing is life and proper breathing is critical to reduce stress and for health. Unfortunately we forget how to breath properly as we get older but this app offers a structured course of customizable sessions allowing you to de-stress and increase your overall wellness through timed, conscious slow breathing aided by animated graphics and musical cues. In addition to iOS, it’s available for Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac and PC. (Free)

6 Mint.com – Mint pulls all your financial accounts into one place allowing you to set budget, track financial goals and do more with your money – for free! Imagine total visibility into your finances to see what’s happening with your checking, savings, investments and retirement while being able to pull reports of your net value as Mint also tracks assets such as cars and houses and even automatically updates your housing pricing using Zillow. Mint also has an app for visibility on the go! (Free)

7 eBay – 2012 is the year of decluttering or, at the very least, “one in – one out”. What does that mean? If you bring a possession into the house, you need to remove a possession and what better way that to easily sell through eBay? (Varies)

8 LIVESTRONG.COM App – The LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker can help you reach your diet, weight loss and fitness goals by tracking your daily calories and exercise. Lose weight easily by setting your weight goals and track your calories and progress with our comprehensive online food journal containing over 1 Million food and fitness items. Tracking works. You will lose weight like millions of other members. ($2.99)

9 Free Online Courses – Get free online courses from the world’s leading universities. This collection includes over 250 free courses in the liberal arts and sciences. Download these audio & video courses straight to your computer or mp3 player. (Free)

10 Rosetta Stone – Learn a new language in the New Year. Rosetta Stone has the best track record for helping business, government employees and individuals learn a new language through their method: learn naturally, speak confidently, immerse yourself and stay motivated through achievement.

What are some of your resolutions?

Not sure if Anonymous is at it again, but someone hacked Santa and stole the Naughty List.

Enjoy!

December is finally upon us, the Thanksgiving turkey is all gone and the festive shopping season is in full swing. This Christmas, you probably have quite a few gadgets on your wish list, and your family, friends and kids will have lots of ideas about what they’d like to find under the tree.

Looking for a few different options to fill their stockings? Here are a few less common choices to mention to Santa before the big day rolls around.

Hanss Acoustics T-30 Turntable

Digital downloads undoubtedly rule the roost, but there are still plenty of audiophiles who buy vinyl, and many of them wouldn’t dream of listening to music on anything but. Unlike the VCR, the humble record player hasn’t yet been left in the dark ages. The Hanss T-30 features a 10kg (yes, 10 kilogram) magnetic platter which floats above the base for friction-free, smooth playback, and the six silicone belts sit on opposite sides and wrap around the platter for stability.

The T-30 also has fittings for two tone arms of your choice, and the feet are magnetically cushioned to prevent vibration. This modern take on the humble Dansette will set you back a cool $4,600: that’s enough to buy a pro stereo set up. If you’re serious about sound, you may well think it’s worth the money.

Lomography Lomokino Movie Camera

Camcorder manufacturers may be eager to push us into the realms of 3D and HD this Christmas, but Lomography see the market from a different angle. Their new Lomokino movie camera is as revolutionary as it is retro. The camera uses a full roll of 35mm film to record silent movies that hark back to the golden age of 8mm home video. Processing your film isn’t exactly cheap, but as hobbyist movie-making goes, this is one camera that doesn’t require several thousand dollars to get started. The camera itself will only set you back $79, and the optional Kinoscope viewer clocks in at an additional $99.

UP Plus 3D Printer

No time to shop at Christmas? Soon you may not have to. 3D printing technology is slowly becoming more affordable – although realistically we’re still a few years away from 3D printing in the home. An entry-level 3D printer like the UP Plus will set you back around $2,500 and will print monotone ABS plastic only. For a new way to cook Christmas dinner, consider an Essential Dynamics 3D food printer, complete with multi-coloured, multi-flavoured gel ink – it’s a snip at just $1,000. Printers that create working circuit boards are already gaining pace, so it may not be too long before we’re printing upgrades for our smartphones.

Raspberry Pi Computer

Photo courtesy of Paul Downey / Wikipedia

The Raspberry PI is a $25 computer designed to hook kids into programming – a skill which many no longer have any reason to learn. The idea is to fill a skills gap, get kids into computer science and prepare them for programming jobs in later life. The computer features a 700MHz processor, 128MB of RAM and runs Linux from an SD card. Of course, your rugrats may prefer to play with the box.

Asus Transformer Prime Tablet

Wait – what? Where’s the iPad 2? There’s no denying that Apple’s premium gadget still holds the top spot in many Christmas wish lists, but the lack of a physical keyboard is always going to be a problem for anything more than media consumption. And once you’ve tried to move the cursor in a document by clumsily jabbing the screen with your fingers, you’ll have two reasons not to take it into the office. Alternatives include the EEE Pad Slider, which has a slinky keyboard tucked away in the base, or the ASUS Transformer Prime.

The specs are impressive: the Transformer Prime packs a quad-core processor, Android 4.0, an 8 megapixel camera and 12 hours of battery life, all wrapped up in a slinky case topped off with Gorilla Glass – plus that all-important physical keyboard. If you’re already set on owning an iOS device, or you don’t have any desire to use Android, it’s likely a keyboard and trackpad won’t be enough to sway you because the Asus Transformer Prime certainly isn’t cheap. But if you’re looking for something versatile to replace your laptop, this could well be the tablet for you.

The Geeks wanted to send out a Happy Fourth of July to our American readers!

Additionally, we wanted to thank all our loyal readers for sticking with us since we opened our blogging beta doors on July 5th, 2004… 7 years ago. Thank you!

Group coupon startups beware… be careful who you partner with when releasing coupons. In Groupon’s first major misstep (leaving aside the horrible Super Bowl ad), Groupon partnered with the nationwide FTP florist to provide $40 worth of flowers for $20. Once shoppers clicked through the deal, the shoppers found out the prices offered through the Groupon deal were more than if you went to the site not through the deal.

FTD blamed the problem with the Groupon on the fact that the Groupon’s were for non-discounted items. In the flower world, Valentine’s Day is equal to a toy store’s Christmas season so FTD’s site was filled with discounts. In an attempt to save face, FTD credited the difference between the retail price and the sale price to the accounts of people who bought the sale items through Groupon while Groupon updated the deal to reflect lower prices.

In this Geek’s humble opinion, the Groupon did not feel right so I did not buy. Why? There were red flags posted saying you must click through Groupon’s link to the FTD site. Additionally, the Groupon was for retail prices which is another trick I’ve seen from the likes of Michael’s employ with their coupons (50% off any 1 items not currently on sale, but every item in the store is already on sale!). It sure felt like FTD was trying to pull one over here and got caught having to do what they should have done in the first place.

Valentine’s Day may be a hotly contested “Hallmark” holiday around your house, but if you did not come to an agreement with your significant other prior to today… you should pick up some flowers, a gift and attempt to make a reservation at a nice restaurant. Otherwise, prepare to sleep on the couch for a month or until your next good deed.

Don’t fret! The Geeks are here to help you and all it will take is about 15 minutes.

First, the flowers… at this point, you can’t order flowers so you need to pick up flowers on the way home. The most common place to pick up flowers is a grocery store. If you want to skip that crowd, look for a street vendor selling roses or actually go to a flower shop and pick up some flowers there.

Second, depending on your significant other, a gift might be a requirement. You can always get the heart shaped box of candy’s but that’s a bit cliche. For the partner that loves music, you could always spring for an iTunes gift certificate for the new Gaga song or Beatle’s LOVE. If you guys watched the Grammy’s last night and enjoyed it, you could grab a gift certificate for the Grammy performances.

If music isn’t your partner’s thing… maybe they’re a Geek and would love a gift certificate from ThinkGeek to pick out that perfect Bazinga! Babydoll T.

Finally, you could go with the universal love for movies with a Netflix subscription or go even more generic with an Amazon gift certificate.

Now that you have flowers and a gift, go over to Opentable and see if you can find a table for two somewhere in your city tonight. This may be your most difficult task today.

In 4 minutes, Hans Rosling charts the progress of 200 countries over the past 200 years trending both wealth and health in this video. Overall, the trend is towards a bright future so… bring on 2011!

Here’s wishing all of you, our fantastic readers, a very happy holiday season and a gadgety new year!

Image courtesy of Mupsu

Here’s a last-minute geeky deal for the season.

ThinkGeek’s is giving $10 off $50 or more. On $50, that’s 20% off! Just use code CJHOLIDAY and this lasts until the end of the year 12/31/2010.

For those of you who like travelling, you should check out Trip Journal by iQapps for what is seen as the ultimate journey tracking and sharing app for mobile phones available today.

It even recently won Google’s most innovative travel app award, bagging them a $100,000 prize. Trip Journal allows you to fully record the journeys you take and share them instantly online. The app is compatible with iPhone, Android and Symbian (touch screen only).

When you’re wandering around, the app is constantly monitoring what you’re doing so you can review your route later. The designers claim that the use of a proprietary GPS algorithm means that it is the most accurate route-recording device available to this day.

All photos and videos taken are geo-tagged, as standard, on either Google Maps or Open Maps. Sharing is easy too, at the touch of a button your video can be on YouTube or your photos on Facebook, Flickr, and Picasa. You can also make use of GPS Tweeting.

A new version has recently been launched and Trip-Journal is being updated on a daily basis so it’s definitely worth investing in if you’re looking for a trip away – who needs those bulky photo albums any more?

Buy now! (iPhone)
More info from the manufacturer
Price: approx. $2.99 (iPhone)
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)