It’s nearly the end of 2011, so I thought it was time to review what’s been most popular on this site this year.

First of all, let’s start with the top 5 posts that were new this year…

1. Creative WP-300 Bluetooth Headphone review
2. LG E2360V monitor review
3. Creative ZiiO 7″ tablet review
4. Dell UltraSharp U2311h monitor review
5. Creative Zen Style M300 review

Yes, all 5 are reviews. The number of reviews on the site has certainly increased this year and this is a reflection of their popularity.

None-the-less the most popular posts, as viewed this year, are still older entries. So here are the top 5 posts from previous years, based on views this year…

1. Tracking internet usage on Android
2. Running Kubuntu under VirtualBox
3. Running VirtualBox from a command line
4. Adobe Acrobat Reader vs Foxit Reader (if you enjoy this, I’d also recommend Adobe Acrobat Reader Vs Foxit Reader revisited)
5. Useful Netbook software (and, again, if you enj0y this I’d also recommend More Useful Netbook Software)

If you’ve missed any of these, they’re all well worth a read

Happy New Year!

Last year I made an attempt to move from Firefox to Chrome – as much as I love Firefox, Chrome is a lot quicker in use. However, after living with Chrome for a few days, I’ve moved back to Firefox again.

There was always the issue over searching. I love having a little search box in the corner so that I can do a quick Wikipedia or IMDB lookup. The Chrome equivalent is not as convenient.

However, that would never be make-or-break.

I like the fact that Chrome, when synchronising bookmarks, now looks up the favicons and populates them (it doesn’t synchronise them as Xmarks does, though).

No, what finished off Chrome for me is the total lack of control or visibility with synchronising. Chrome has synchronisation of bookmarks, etc, built in. I therefore imported them from Firefox on one PC to allow it to transfer over to my other installations Sadly, after a number of days it had only made a vague attempt to synchronise a few bookmarks and not much else. All Google offer is a line on your profile settings page to show how many it’s synchronising. No control. Nothing else. Why weren’t my bookmarks moving across? I’ll never know. The thing is, on each machine I could have imported them from Firefox. BUT how can I trust Chrome to correctly then keep them in sync with each other after that? Simply put, I can’t.

I also don’t like the fact that Chrome has no way of displaying separators in bookmark lists.

Maybe I’ll try again later next year. Until then, Firefox remains my browser of choice.

This review is part of the 1 Pound Challenge – can you find a decent gadget in a pound shop?

The microphone built into a laptop can often be a compromise – providing a basic facility, whilst keeping it as small as possible. And if you’ve got a desktop then you may not even have a microphone.

So, can one for just £1 do the job?

The Signalex Computer Microphone, available from Poundland, doesn’t get off to a good start – get it out of the green and white packaging and you have a drab looking black microphone made of very cheap plastic. In fact the plastic wasn’t quite cut properly on mine so there was a sharp “shard” sticking out of the very top. Although it boasts that it “pivots on base” this simply means that it tilts forward. Because the base isn’t very heavy you don’t have to tilt it very far before it starts to fall over.

At full height it stands at 21cm tall and has a 1.5m captive audio cable on it. Near the top of the microphone is an “on/off” slider which cuts the sound off when in the “off” position. This switch is of very low quality and, very stiff, I couldn’t tell which position it was in most of the time.

All of this sounds bad which, to be honest, it is. Until you use it.

Here are recordings I made with an in-build laptop microphone and then with the Signalex (click on either to play)…

Summary of Signalex Computer Microphone

Poor quality plastic, falls over easily just generally looks and feels awful. But it’s a vast improvement of built-in microphones and, hence, well worth a pound. Recommended!

Reviewed by David Artiss on 28th December 2011.