The year 2011 is behind us and as a short summary of the past year's tech trends, it could be said that the year belonged to mobile and tablets. Console and PC technology seem to have approached certain level of maturity and major product launches that would've changed the industry just didn't happen. And meanwhile, mobile technology seems to be in middle of a breathtaking evolution process, where market shares, technologies and even company names seem to change completely, from one financial quarter to another.

For us, year 2011 was a year during which we focused on improving our site's backend and usability. For regular users, this meant that major, visible changes didn't occur, but hopefully the site is faster and easier to use than it was a year ago. For 2012, we plan to further improve our site's usability, make some changes to variety of site sections to make them easier to use and navigate. But major layout changes are unlikely to happen during the next year.

Now, I want to thank all of our users, employees, moderators and partners for the past year and wish everybody a happy new year 2012.

-Petteri Pyyny
AfterDawn.com

Damn, somehow it seems that it was only yesterday when we launched our site, but in fact, it has been 12 years since that day. Twelve years is a long time, but in "Internet time", it feels like an eternity -- Facebook, for example, wasn't born until 2004 (and made its breakthrough years later), Google became the most popular search engine 2-3 years after our site's launch, etc.

Of course, our site has gone through tons of changes during all these years, too, but the basic set up is still the same; we aim to provide good quality tech news, along with tech forums and tons of other stuff that should help the average Joe to get a grasp of things like video editing, console technology and more.

The past year has been quite unusual for us, as our site hasn't gone through any dramatic changes recently. Instead, we've focused on making the site more robust, to improve usability, etc. Biggest changes for our company have actually involved "non-English-and-non-Finnish" properties of ours. In February, our Dutch site went properly live, when Plankje joined our ranks and started working for the service. Furthermore, we launched a localized version (courtesy of our licensing deal with Bestofmedia) of Tom's Hardware in Finland.

Read more...

Today we celebrate our discussion forums' 10th birthday.

It was exactly ten years ago today when the first public post was made to our forums. Since that post, more than 3.6 million messages have been posted to our forums -- and an additional 1.4 million posts to our Finnish language forums.

To celebrate the moment, here's our "Top 10 all-time" forum poster chart (excluding moderators and admins):

1. sammorris
2. sc0user
3. larrylje
4. steimy
5. sly_61019
6. attar
7. arniebear
8. Rotary
9. gwendolin
10. NoLimit04

I'd like to thank all of our users, no matter what your post count or forum "title" is, for keeping our forums alive and kicking for more than a decade. Thank you!

-Petteri Pyyny, webmaster
AfterDawn.com

P.S. We're running small "clearance of our storage room" project and as a result of that, we'll send out AfterDawn branded stuff, like towels, to a randomly picked forum poster every day during the next 14 days.

Read more...

AfterDawn is looking to expand it's services in the Nordic countries. We already have a strong presence in our home country, Finland, but we also have localized sites available in Swedish and Norwegian, with a Danish version under construction as well. AfterDawn.com launched Tom's Hardware Finland in August, 2010, and other Nordic countries will follow during the Spring 2011.

We are now looking for people interested in joining our team at AfterDawn.com, and working with translations and content for both AfterDawn and Tom's Hardware in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

Your work will include:

• translating English content (in-depth technology articles that can be 5-40 pages long) to your own native language
• writing news (i.e. not just translating from source material) in your native language on a regular / daily basis
• communicating with other members of the staff for coordination (via email, instant messengers and IRC)

What we are looking for in you:

• you’re a native speaker of one of the languages mentioned (no, good Google Translation skills don’t count :-)
• a person with good English language skills (English is the communication language between different AfterDawn teams -- and your news sources, translation materials, etc will all be in English -- but you don't need to produce content in English)
• a strong grasp on PC technology (and related terminology), including motherboards, graphics cards, CPUs and GPUs, mass storage etc.
• ability to write fluently and grammatically correct in the target language
• commitment to agreed deadlines, NDAs, content targets etc.
• ability to work remotely, using ICQ and email as primary means for communicating with other members of the staff
• basic HTML and image editing knowledge (nothing dramatic here, just the understanding of basic tags, image resizing, etc)
• prior experience with content management systems is a bonus, but not required (we use a custom CMS anyway)

What will you get in return:

• an opportunity to work with a launch of one of the leading technology sites in the world - in your native language
• flexibility in arranging your working hours and holidays -- this is not a nine-to-five-job
• .. and of course a salary based on your content output and an opportunity to a bonus, based on the performance of the site

That's it really. Questions? Contact us via our feedback form or comment on this article.

Read more...

This is typically a time for my personal roundup of past year's most interesting news from our extensive news archive and also a time to wrap up of the events that have happened here at AfterDawn.

iPad and tablets

Now, the year's most hyped event was definitely the launch of Apple's iPad tablet computer. While the device itself didn't offer anything new with its specs, in typical-to-Apple fashion, the user experience, the design and the pre-launch hype of the product basically re-invented the entire "tablet PC" genre.

The success of iPad created a massive halo effect that will probably outlive the iPad itself. Previously, tablet PC market was a small, specialized niche with extremely expensive Windows-based devices. By the end of the year 2010, tens of manufacturers had entered the tablet computer market and most of them opting for Android based solutions. Now, when the price range of such devices is closer to $200 than to $400 with most new devices, it is quite fair to say that tablet PCs actually managed to destroy the netbook market, that seemed to be extremely strong only a year ago.

Playstation Move & Kinect

When the current-generation consoles were about to be launched, Nintendo's odds with outdated hardware and DVD as its distribution media seemed very thin. However, as everyone knows, wii's unorthodox controllers changed the game, entirely, and made Wii the unlikely winner of the first couple of years of console wars.

Read more...

Nordic satellite pay-TV operator Canal Digital announced today that it has signed a deal with TiVo to bring TiVo's PVR devices available to its customers in four Nordic countries, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

TiVo's PVR solutions aren't that much different from any standard DVB-S / DVB-S2 PVR devices (which is a standardized platform where any manufacturer can build compatible set-top boxes), but the main differences between "traditional" DVB-S set-top PVRs and TiVo are the GUI and backend logic solutions -- and the fact that TiVo's devices will also integrate into video material available on the Internet. As Canal Digital already offers on-demand services online, those services will most likely become integrated into Canal Digital's TiVo solutions.

TiVo's devices in Nordic will use the standardized Conax encryption mechanism, meaning that the devices -- theoretically -- should also work with any other Conax / DVB-S compatible TV channel, but it is more than likely that at least all the advanced features are restricted to Canal Digital only.

Read more...

AfterDawn, has signed a licensing deal with French Bestofmedia Group for publishing localized editions of Tom's Hardware in Nordic countries. Today, the first of the localized sites went online when Tom's Hardware Finland was launched.

Tom's Hardware, founded in 1996 (and owned by Bestofmedia since 2007), is one of the best-known online technology publications gathering more than 30 million worldwide visitors each month. With Tom's Hardware focusing on PC technology and hardware and AfterDawn.com focusing on digital entertainment technologies, we believe we can effectively cross-promote both properties in Nordic countries, delivering our readers a more complete take on latest technology news and reviews.

As both companies are advocates of localized online content, the match was quite logical for both of us. Tom's Hardware wanted to expand their global reach to new countries and AfterDawn wanted to have a strong PC technology presence in the Nordic region. AfterDawn is Finland's largest technology website, with more than 5% of entire online population visiting the site on weekly basis and our ambition is to grow our traffic significantly also in Sweden, Norway and Denmark -- and now we have also another strong technology brand to support that goal.

Read more...

Here writing my annual AfterDawn birthday post - and I'm feeling old. Can't believe it was eleven years ago we launched this site/obsession/hobby of ours, AfterDawn.com.. Wow. Anyway, today is our site's 11th birthday -- in an online world, that equals to something like 75,000 years in "real world" time. You know, 11 years ago, the dominant search engine was still Alta Vista and "social media" meant something like "going to a movie theater with your friends" :-) Times change..

Anyway, another year has passed and lots of things have changed. First and foremost, we finally launched a new version of our site back in March. The new design is accompanied with a completely new, language-independent backend. That has helped us with our localization projects and during the past 6 months, we have launched Spanish, Norwegian and Dutch beta versions of our site.

Despite the fact that AfterDawn has been around since the last millennium, our intention is to continue to improve our site's content and technology. We expect to launch several new language versions of our site during the next year or so, and also plan to go our site's sections through, one by one, trying to find ways on how to improve each section's usability.

Read more...

After years of planning and months of coding, we're happy to announce the launch of Spanish AfterDawn. Spanish version is the fifth localized version of AfterDawn - and second one for this year.

As with the other locales, the Spanish version differs from its big sisters (namely, English and Finnish sites that have been up and running for more than a decade) in a way that only selected site areas have been translated. Spanish version launches with:

• Software section
  • Selection of appx. 500 software items with translated descriptions and another 2000 with download links (but no descriptions yet)
• Discussion forums
  • Obviously still very, very empty. But help us out to get the Spanish forums up and running by posting there too.
• Tech support
  • Same as with forums -- empty, waiting for you guys to get the ball rolling with this one.

We wont be launching Spanish news section or guide section for the time being, but if the site gathers enough interest, we're more than happy to start publishing Spanish language content as well.

Read more...

After almost a year's worth of development, we're happy to reveal the new version of our site, dubbed as "v4". Many things have changed since the previous version - most notably the layout itself, but also the code behind the site has went through some major changes.

From now on, all of our various language versions will use the same codebase and same site structure, making further development much, much easier than in the past. Furthermore, launching new language editions of the site will become a breeze compared to the old system where each site was basically a clone of its siblings, but maintained independently.

As always with major upgrades, we are expecting to see weird problems to pop up -- and hope that you'll let us know if you encounter a bug or weird behaviour while browsing through the site. You can contact us by either posting a comment to this news article or by using our feedback form.

Now, let us know your comments about the new design.

-Team AfterDawn

After nearly a year's worth of work, the new version of AfterDawn's backend and layout is almost ready for the prime time. Still some minor bugs need to be fixed, a few mysterious issues need to be addressed, etc. but it is almost ready (we'd say 99% done) and you can test it now.

So, please visit AfterDawn "v4" at:

http://www.v4.afterdawn.com/

or click here to view this news article in the new layout.

Let us know your thoughts. Post your comments to this news article or use our feedback form to contact us directly. I must also mention that the site wont function properly if you're using IE6, Netscape 3.x, Mosaic or any other browser that is almost a decade old. Furthermore, many sections of the site utilize -- to very small degree, I must say -- JavaScript, so it is recommended to have it turned on in your browser's settings.

Read more...

The number of flags we have in the top-right corner of our site grew by one today with the launch of AfterDawn Norway, a new localized version of AfterDawn.com. The Norwegian site will focus on software downloads and discussion forums for now, but it will eventually expand to news, guides and other content, hopefully within a year or so.

The Norwegian version of AfterDawn is the fourth language version of AfterDawn -- our site was originally published in English and Finnish back in 1999, followed by the Swedish version launched in 2008. The Norwegian version is also using the new site structure and layout (something we call "v4") - the look and feel that the English version of the site will eventually use, once we get all the bits and pieces together.

The entire site has been translated by one guy and one guy alone -- impressive feat, I might add -- slaybay. He is the guy you should thank for making this locale a reality -- and if you find any bugs within the site, I'm the one you should blame :-). Thank you, slaybay!

The Norwegian site is still in its infancy: there are couple of pages here and there that haven't been entirely translated yet and you can be certain that there are occasional bugs and hiccups on various pages/sections. If you find anything weird that needs to be fixed, please let let us know (use the feedback form). Furthermore, if you happen to speak fluent Norwegian and would like to help us to translate more content, the contact us or subscribe directly to our translation project mailinglist and let us know that you're available.

Read more...

Wow, I can't believe that the Noughties are about to end in couple of hours time. It is quite mind-boggling to think that our site, AfterDawn, has existed through this whole decade - and then some (as our regulars remember, we celebrated our site's 10th anniversary in June). I could write once again, my "traditional" New Year's summary of the past year's events, but I wont do that this time. Instead, just want to chitchat to you about this past decade.

First of all, 10 years ago, we already had a site, AfterDawn.com, that we began building in March, 1999 and that went eventually live on June, 1999. All of us, the founders of the site, were in our early twenties. I had just moved from Helsinki to New York, with my partner and our baby girl. I was witnessing the golden age of the "dotcom boom", working on one of the "dotcom darlings" of that era in Silicon Valley. It seemed that anything you'd create on the Internet would turn into gold, eventually. You could understand easily how we had the energy to first go through a normal working day in our "real life jobs" and then spend 6-8 hours in the evening to write news articles, code, design and plan for AfterDawn's future.

Read more...

About a year ago we asked you guys to help us to translate our site to your own language. The whole translation process has evolved quite a lot during the past year and several new translation projects are currently on-going. However, two language versions are approaching the point where they could go finally go live.

Now, if you happen to speak a fluent speaker of either Spanish or Dutch and also understand English (well enough to be able to translate from English to your own language) -- and want to see AfterDawn available in your own language, contact us using our feedback form. We unfortunately can't pay for your efforts, but can send various AfterDawn merchandise to the most active volunteers as a thank you (and can write you a letter telling that you've helped with this project, if you want one).

The workload that there is left is relatively small -- just by spending couple of hours on it would help us dramatically to get these translations launched.

Help us out here :-)

P.S. We welcome other translation volunteers too -- we have on-going translation projects currently in Norwegian, Danish, German, (Brazilian) Portuguese and French. Just contact us if you'd like to participate. Read more...

I rarely endorse any product wholeheartedly, but I must confess that Spotify has really, really made a difference to my music listening habits during the past 6 months or so. Spotify, for those of you who don't know the product yet -- or live in a country, like U.S., where it isn't available yet -- is essentially a free, ad-supported music streaming service that has massive music library (with good audio quality; -q6 Vorbis for users of the free version and -q9 Vorbis for users of the premium version) with dead-easy user interface.

I've argued for years that once music industry (applies to movie industry as well) can create a product that beats the illegal alternatives in usability and has the correct pricing model, they can actually tackle piracy effectively. Spotify comes close. Very close. Once their S60 client finally ships and I can use the service also with my N97, I'm quite certain that I'll abandon MP3s for most of the time.

So, I thought I'd create my own -- arguably quite small -- wishlist for Spotify's further development..

1. The above-mentioned S60 client is a must-have for European markets where Nokia single-handedly dominates the smart phone market
2. Ability to add local MP3s to playlists.
   • After all, Spotify doesn't have contracts in place with all the labels and copyright holders in the world, which means that you're bóund to have MP3s on your HDD that can't be found from Spotify. Currently you can't mix these tracks with Spotify's playlists.
   • And when Spotify finally adds this feature, I'd love to see the artist/biography/album data applied automatically also to the locally stored MP3s, just like Spotify does for streamed tracks
3. Recommendation mechanism, like Last.fm or Pandora
   • Sure, Spotify has a built-in ability to connect itself to your Last.fm account, but why would I have to use two services instead of one?
4. Importing standard playlists
   • After all, .m3u and .pls have been around for more than decade now, so an ability to support standard playlists would be really, really nice addition. Sure enough, it would need either the ability to play local MP3s or an ability to scan them through for artist/album/track info in order to find the correct tracks.
5. Support for audio and video podcasts
   • Apple has done many, many things right with their iPod/iTunes world domination and the just-click-and-it-works support for podcasts is one of them. I follow several audio and video podcasts and hate the idea that I need to change the client every time I decide to take a break from music listening and want to listen a podcast instead.
6. Open up the API
   • If you take a lesson from Twitter and Facebook, you can easily see that any service nowadays is strongly dependant on its ability to build a community of third party developers to support the environment. (use of Twitter, for example, via its web site is pretty horrible experience -- but when you use a 3rd party client for the service, the whole experience changes completely)
   • Sure enough, the way Spotify makes money from free users is via its advertising model, so locking down the API to premium users is a must, but even then, it could spark wide variety of extremely interesting concepts built around Spotify's technology -- and each user of such third party clients would also have to be a premium user, thus boosting the sales of Spotify.
   • Clients on alternative platforms -- like Despotify for Linux -- already do this, by allowing premium users to use Spotify on a platform not officially supported by Spotify. But as this type of clients are essentially hacks, how many Linux users are actually willing to a pay for a service that can go offline any given day, without advance warning. By opening the official API, Spotify would ensure that the users of alternative platforms would also be willing to pay for the service.

How about you guys, any ideas on how to improve Spotify further -- or ideas for an alternative/competing service that would make legal music listening experience even better?