Top 5 events

1. Barack Obama is elected president of the USA.
2. Mumbai terrorist attacks
3. Credit Crunch – Oil down at $35
4. Beijing Olympics
5. Phoenix lands on Mars & finds physical proof of water(ice)
While the Credit Crunch (whatever that may be) dominated the headlines, it was really the Mumbai attacks that shocked the world. Few people realise that after Iraq, it’s India which has suffered the most terrorist attacks.
 

Top 10 Hollywood movies

1. The Dark Knight
2. Kung Fu Panda
3. WALL-E
4. Iron Man
5. Slumdog Millionaire
6. The Incredible Hulk
7. National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets (released 21.12.2007)
8. The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian
9. Eagle Eye
10. The Mist
2008 was a great year with incredible movies. As I've already said it several times, The Dark Knight is one of the best movies ever. & of course there's Slumdog Millionaire which is an incredible movie about how a boy from the Mumbai slums goes on to win KBC.

Top 5 Action Movies
1. The Dark Knight
2. Iron Man
3. Wanted
4. The Bank Job
5. Quantum of Solace

Top 3 Comedy Movies
1. Kung Fu Panda
2. WALL-E
3. Madagascar 2

Top 3 Horror Movies
1. [.REC]
2. The Mist
3. Cloverfield

Top Bollywood Movies
I didn't watch enough Bollywood movies (only 6) to make a Top 5 list. But I did like Bachna Ae Haseeno, with its superb songs & locations.
 

Top 5 Bollywood Songs

1. Pehli Nazar Mein - Atif Aslam - Race
2. Khuda Jaane - KK, Shilpa Rao - Bachna Ae Haseeno.
3. Bakhuda Tumhi Ho - Atif Aslam, Alka Yagnik - Kismat Konnection
4. Ahista Ahista - Lucky Ali, Shreya Ghoshal - Bachna Ae Haseeno
5. Guzarish – Javed Ali, Sonu Nigam – Ghajini
 

Top Western songs

Instead of listing all songs, I prefer to get straight to the album I loved - Viva la Vida from Coldplay!
 

Top 5 Sporting Events

1. Bruno Julie wins Bronze for Mauritius at Beijing Olympics
2. Manchester United win the Premier League & Champions League
3. Spain win the Euro
4. Beijing Olympics
5. Lewis Hamilton wins F1 title, on the last corner just one point ahead of Felipe Massa
 

Top 5 Gadgets

1. Netbooks
2. iPhone 3G
3. Nikon D90
4. Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
5. Samsung INNOV8
Who would have thought that netbooks would be so popular. Almost every PC manufacturer apart from Apple (too cheap for them?) have embarked on the netbook bandwagon.
 

Top Web 2.0 services

1. Twitter
2. Aviary
3. New Facebook
4. New Gmail
5. CoolIris
Aviary is definitely the most ambitious Web 2.0 company with its Phoenix online image editor being as good as Photoshop! & they plan to launch a word processor, vector editor, html editor, etc…
 

Top 5 Software

1. Firefox 3
2. Vista SP1
3. x264 codec
4. Adobe CS4
5. Google Chrome
For Vista SP1, I'll explain that in an upcoming post. But why a codec? x264(h.264) is the best video codec & I'd expect Xvid to disappear by next year. Figure out how incredible x264 is if it can compress a 720p movie (The Dark Knight) to a mere 3GB.
 

Top 5 Supercars
1. Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4
2. Corvette ZR1
3. Audi R8 V10
4. Aston Martin One-77
5. Mercedes McLaren SLR Stirling Moss
The one thing common to all these cars are that they are all stunners! Frankly they all deserve top spot. But the LP560-4 is better because it was the fastest Lamborghini around the Top Gear Track. It finished 10th – into hypercar territory!

Blogging in 2008
Blog Stats till 31st Dec 2008.
Total posts: 292
Total comments: 1097
Total pageloads: 271,000
Total unique visitors: 194,500
RSS Subscribers: 95-110
Total AdSense Earnings for 2008: $430
PageRank: 0

2008 was a pretty good year for me. My target was at least 20 posts per month. On the 29th of May I had to undergo an operation which seriously affected my blogging. I began posting less & less with August being the month with the lowest posts ever - 5 posts!
Nevertheless I decided to focus more on quality posts rather than quantity - by expanding extra content on Twitter.

The only downturn was Google's inexplicable decision to "ban" my blog from Google Search - only Google Image Search worked. It happened twice this year, for 2 weeks in May & from October to November, which forced me to use a custom domain. Fortunately that move did counteract the ban, but with PR being back to 0, it seems Google wasn’t totally fooled...
With a new domain I also needed to work on a new template… being lazy I’m postponing this task for ever (I want to make my own template so I need to learn html, xhtml & css… that’s why I’m procrastinating).

The Posts
If you’ve been a regular RSS Reader, then you can skip this.
January started off with a Click report of the ICT sector of Mauritius. We got to drool at the gadgets on display at CES. I got my first AdSense cheque! The rumours of a new Macbook turned out to be that of the Macbook Air. Jan was also the time of the Detroit Auto Show where the Audi V12 TDI concept was revealed. I also wrote about Why the World’s Cheapest Car… is a disaster in making! Finally I took some time out to explain Why Internet in Mauritius is doomed!

February - in What’s in my Box I listed all those apps & software that was lying on my previous hard disk – I was still on XP at that time. While the Microsoft & Yahoo merger never happened, it was fun carrying out a What If analysis! You want to download YouTube & embedded videos? Check out my guide! Btw I need to edit it coz I’ve found something called Replay Media Player which captures everything – better than Orbit Downloader! 5 ways to identify scams! Eurgh, not really. In Feb, we saw the official release of two NSeries – the DVB-H N96 iPhone-Slayer & the N78, plus a first look at S60 Touch UI.

March began with me posting a very popular (but now obsolete) guide on How to rip a DVD to 700MB DivX & Xvid. The best car of 2008 was officially unveiled – the Lamborghini LP560-4. The 12th March being one of the most important days for all Mauritians, I added my little contribution to the Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Independence. Top Garden Ground Gear FTW!!! The Mist – one of the best horror films I’ve seen. Best of all… I got a look at the teaser trailer of The Dark Knight. I could have never imagined that this was going to end up as a masterpiece…

April. Ermmm… Just check below for the Orange Saga. A screamer for an April fool joke! MTML’s Azu didn’t really turn out to be our saviour. Beetles (Porsches) came to Mauritius! & finally my battle against a fraktard splog!

May – I wish I could go back in time & erase the 29th of May. Anyway, my blog celebrated its first year of existence in May. What more Man Utd won the Premier League & the Champions League completing a historic double! The final was really an incredible heart-wrenching match. After National Treasure (2004), I reviewed National Treasure: Book of Secrets. The very first spoilers of Season 11 of Top Gear + that massive Bugatti threesome!

June - Back from hospital. The most horrible days of my life. I still have nightmares…
Pissed off at MBC showing only 8 matches of the Euro (w/o England). Having ran out of posts, I did stupid updates of each round. Unbeaten Spain won a well-deserved Euro. Only good thing in June was that Firefox 3 was released & more tidbits of Top Gear S11 were revealed.

In July I wondered what can be done to improve Blogger. Luckily I’m the last Google will hear. In tech we got the 8MP Samsung INNOV8 – a S60 device. Spyshots of the Tube & the Nokia 7610 Supernova – namesake of my mobile.

August was disaster – only 5 posts! The Beijing Olympics turned out to be a historic one for Mauritius - Bruno Julie won Mauritius's first Olympic medal! There was also the incredible performance of Michael Phelps who won a record 8 gold medals to become the greatest Olympic athlete. After a long bed-ridden holiday I was back at UOM – which didn’t stop sucking. I got a new hard disk, installed Vista & forgot to post its review – instead I went for Windows Live Messenger Beta. The N85 with its awesome AMOLED screen was announced – which I still consider to be the best Nokia device until the arrival of the N97.

September – Battle of the betas Google Chrome vs Internet Explorer 8. Going down memory lane to commemorate 10 years of PCing – 10 years ago I got my first PC & I was 10 year old.

October - Why So Serious? The Dark Knight. Best. Movie. Ever. Period.
Top Gear Australia – worst Top Gear ever! Top Gear Russia? Worstest thing in the universe! We finally got a look at what is the cheapest touchscreen smartphone – the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic! October was also the month of the Festival of Light & yummy cakes. HP 635 Photosmart – crappest camera ever in the history of crappiness

November. Top Gear is back with Season 12 – EP1 & EP2! I had to solve the problem I had with my My.T livebox, so I came up with How to reset your Network Adapter (NIC/LAN). November’s scandal was the leaking of HSC Papers & then there was the terrible terrorist attacks of Mumbai where a fake Mauritian ID was found on one of the terrorists.
Thanks to Google I had to switch to a custom domain www.themediaguru.co.cc to get back all my traffic. Bad bad Google. :(

December landed with a bombshell – the super duper Nokia N97 Touchscreen QWERTY Tilt Slider. I had a look at Puppy Linux & Windows Live Essentials suite with a new revamped UI. Downloaded The Dark Knight 720p & reviewed The Incredible Hulk + Death Race + Quantum of Solace + Wanted + Eagle Eye. The legendary Audi R8 came to Mauritius & I posted Exclusive Photos from the Audi Zentrum. 2008 ended on the best possible post (excluding this one) – Top Gear Vietnam Special.

Mauritius in 2008

Atif Aslam in Mauritius

What can be possibly better news that this – one of the most popular Bollywood singer & my personal favourite artist was coming to Mauritius for a concert on the 12th of March – also his birthday! With the album Race & the megahit song Pehli Nazar Mein having just been released, it was with great impatience all Mauritian were awaiting his arrival – the official programme revealed it was going to be an enormous show! & then he came, he sang & he conquered – photos & videos of Atif Aslam LIVE in Mauritius!!!
& guess what? He was back again in October for yet another concert!

The Orange Saga

Oh dear… if there was one thing that grabbed all my attention this year… that must have been Orange… ;)
It all started with a spoof post announcing the arrival of Orange in Mauritius – Boycott Orange Mauritius. Little did I know what would happen next… I expanded on the previous post with the new stuffs Orange brought along. People were pretty excited about the Orange TV Ad as well…
Then… disaster!!! Orange ADSL’s Fair Usage Policy - the stab in the back! Orange were capping our previously unlimited connection without saying anything about the limits! It went worst - Orange Mauritius BLOCKING Rapidshare.com – a block that lasted only for a day. Finally with some dumb explanation of slow fast vehicles & traffic jams Orange set out the limits – too little for heavy downloaders. Orange stepped up its FUP campaign by mailing users - Fair Usage Policy for more reliable broadband services. But all of this was just TALK. No one has been capped by FUP.

The iPhone 3G Soap

If there was another event I’ve been constantly reporting – then that’s the iPhone 3G. It was Orange in fact that leaked out the news that the iPhone was going to come to Mauritius back in May before the iPhone 3G was revealed. & when the iPhone 3G was demoed by Steve Jobs it was confirmed that it was indeed coming to Mauritius. As I stated in my review iPhone 3G 1.0 wasn’t a great Swiss Knife device but was a great media player.
The iPhone was supposed to come in September but it was nearly 6 months after its release that Orange updated its iPhone page with pre-order options.
& now that it was here, it just plainly… sucked! Way too expensive, stupid contract offers & limited Internet caps – it was a flop. Did I forget to say iTunes Mauritius doesn’t exist…

Bruno Julie

If there was one man that rocked the entire island – then that’s Bruno Julie who won Mauritius’ first Olympic Medal. Hats off again!

Internet Stuffs
- Jan – Why Internet in Mauritius is doomed?
- April – Azu – MTML’s Wireless Broadband service
- April – Orange ADSL getting cheaper?
- May – Emtel Fibre Network?
- September – Akamai caching websites in Mauritius!
- September – 5x Fibre connectivity for Mauritius!
- October – ADSL Prices at –20%???
- December – Mini-budget 2008 – ICT Sector
The bad news first: Azu sucked. Emtel’s broadband network for home users was supposed to start in Dec but nothing has been heard of. EASSY was has been postponed till 2010. & those repeated Internet price decreases turned out to be only rumourss.
The good news: Many popular sites & content can be downloaded at a local speed of 2Mbps for My.T users. & finally 2009 starts with some positive stuff – SAFE resale price has really reduce by 35% – so Internet price decrease is imminent.

2008 for me

Hospital stay
That was the worst thing that can ever happen to anyone. I’d prefer not to talk about it.

My.T

2007 was the year I moved from the Middle Ages to the 60s, i.e. dial-up to 128k "broadband."
In 2008, I jumped to the 80s & subscribed to My.T 256k with a glimpse of 21st Century - 2Mbps thanks to Akamai. I even downloaded Adobe CS4! Hopefully next year, I'll get to the 90s...

Twitter

If there was one thing that profoundly changed my Internet experience, that is undoubtedly Twitter (@carrotmadman6). Twitter opened up new horizons of information flow, where you didn't need to have a Facebook account to know someone, where only the best of RSS feeds gets propagated, where your questions can be answered & most importantly where you can express yourself in a few words.
Twitter is the best micro-blogging tool, a complement to your blog. Twitter has allowed me to avoid writing posts for things I could just share via tweet.

But the best thing about Twitter is that it's the premier source of breaking news. Not totally reliable but if anything happens anywhere in the world, you'd know it first Twitter. It was incredibly effective during the Mumbai attacks.

That’s it. This concludes my Best of 2008. I could have gone on & on – I’m a perfectionist – but let’s put a stop to this here.

Happy New Year 2009!

Before leaving check this – Boston’s Pictures The Year 2008 in Photos.
Part1, Part 2 & Part 3. Really stunning pics!