So as my loyal reader, and follower on Twitter, know by now I am starting to run again. I want to be able to keep a training log that is easy to look back on and browse and has various pieces of information quickly accessible. I have a Nike Triax Elite HRM/SDM and a Nike+ for my iPod Nano. However for both of these getting data in the format I want is not easy. That is not to say that they don’t have cool features, but one thing doesn’t have it all.
I can use the Nike Triax Elite system to get heart rate, distance, time, and pace. It also includes a software tool with some basic tools for graphing and viewing, and a feature to export the data as a pretty understandable file. The printing is not always well formatted and there is no Mac OS X version of the software available. I can use the Nike+ & the iPod to get distance, time, and pace. However to get most of the good information one has to use iTunes and the Nike+ website. One can hack the iPod to get the data using information from Runometer. So I did that, and it is an XML file that would need to be parted and sorted. Not as easy as I would like either.
Still not quite what I am looking for, perhaps there is one out there that I haven’t found yet, but basically what I am looking for is a way to look at my runs and my health as a trend. So that I can look at my mileage as a table and also look at my heart rate. I also want to be able to see how I do the run, how much is warm up, how much is the run, do I change speeds as I waddle, how is speed to heart rate, and what is the warm down. Also I want to be able to look at other exercize that I might be doing seperate from running – cross training.
I am thinking that at some point in the near future I am simply going to create my own database that will give me what I want. Perhaps time to start working on a schema as a mind map.
I will say that it is pretty cool that when I synched my iPod to Nike+ and it automatically tweeted it for me; “ran 2.07 mi on 7/28/2009 at 7:10 PM with a pace of 16′48″/mi http://bit.ly/Ftep4” It is also a nicer graph than what the Triax software produces, but the Triax has more data.
So I am always cautious on what to share and what not to share on the blog. So I have decided that some accountability is good when trying to start a fitness regime. So today I signed up on Nike+ and started on the treadmill, again – again. Yup I am trying to get back into shape again. It has been pretty good losing the weight from the diet change, but it is not as complete as I would like. I have got the diet part somewhat under control, but not completely. I have been wandering a little off the whole food vegan diet a little, I am hoping that by starting to exercise some more I will start wanting to eat healthier.
So I did 40 minutes today on the treadmill, I don’t want to scare the neighbors with my waddling in public. I am still trying to determine what is running, what is walking, and what is waddling. For those of you who don’t get the waddling comment, it is a common thread from one of the running authors I read, John “The Penguin” Bingham. He closes his articles and posts with Waddle On, or a derivative there of.
I also will admit that my interest piqued up again after reading the Wired article The Nike Experiment: How the Shoe Giant Unleashed the Power of Personal Metrics about the impact of measuring your metrics. Basically the article says that one will continue running or what ever they are doing, if they track it more than if they don’t. I will admit that does make sense to me as I am wired to the hilt when I run. I have my Nike+ and iPod connected and logging. I also have my Nike Triax system, and the treadmill has metrics but no logging. The Triax will log heartrate, speed, distance, and time, the iPod will log speed, distance, and time. Both of these will allow one to save the data on the computer in various ways.
The iPod & Nike+ requires the connection to the Nike+ site. However this also allows one to share it easily – in theory it will also show up easily in Twitter and other locations. Here is my widget:
I am not sure I like it a whole bunch, what do you think?
To do the Triax one I have to do it manually, but it is static and doesn’t update the way I think that the widget above will
So here are the stats:
Duration: 0:40′01.29″
Distance: 2.14 mi
Average pace: 18′42″ /mi
HR average: 164
Here is the graphics results:
Click for larger
So long winded post to just put this stuff up. I am curious to see if this will keep me running…
I was originally going to call this post, “PowerPoint Challenges” but as I started to write, I realized that people would take that as me bashing Microsoft and PowerPoint. So then I wrote a sentence saying how it is not PowerPoint itself but Presentation Software in general… and from there it spirialed a little more. I then realized that the issue I am going to write about is not solely PowerPoint or Presentations; but how people use office software and tools. If tools are used incorrectly is it still a tool? Or is the person using it the tool?
I often have to present training material and other collateral material that is in PowerPoint. There is a corporate template, however people will use different templates and formats for different usages. During a tradeshow or a product launch there might be a different background and color scheme; there are also could be a different aspect ratio. Now one could simply use the presentation as it is formatted, however it can cause it to look like a garage sale as I call it. Each thing is different and random.
During a recent trip I presented a four hour seminar that covered the following:
- Networking 101
(Aspect Ratio 16:9 – Light background black serif text) - Deconstructing an Arena
(Aspect Ratio 16:9 or 4:3 – Light background black serif text) - System Architect 2.0
(Aspect Ratio 16:9 or 4:3 – Dark gradient background white san serif text) - Ethernet AVB
(Aspect Ratio 16:9 – Dark gradient background white san serif text) - Band Manager 1.0
(Aspect Ratio 4:3 – Light background black serif text) - New Products
(Aspect Ratio 16:9 – Light gradient background black san serif text) - US Stadiums and Arenas Overview
(Aspect Ration 16:9 – Full size images so no text or background)
So as you can see the look is not consistent. This does not include the items of how people capitalize and punctuate. Or the images that are being used, some is black and white line art of the product, some is color renderings, and some are color photos. So it gets inconsistent.
I can deal with some of these issues quickly and easily; through the use of proper formatting and application of templates. I had created the Networking 101 and Deconstructing an Arena using the template features of PowerPoint. As a result even though I created the presentation in 4:3 it was very easy and quick to move over to 16:9 – simply select the other ratio. However the fact that the other presentations were not created using a template, there was no easy way to address the issue. I could either go in and adjust each slide individually of each presentation or show the presentations as they were.
This situation is not just happening on presentations, it also happens on documents, webpages, spreadsheets, and other electronic forms. Rather than use some of the tools that are included in the software, styles, templates, macros, charts, transitions, themes… etc. people will create their own. What happens is that people don’t like the look of what is existing; that is understandable. So rather than redefine the styles, templates … etc. they simply go in and make the adjustments themselves; often by brute force. By brute force I mean that the images as backgrounds are actually pasted onto the background. Rather than using the two column layout the person actually adds a second text box.
Now when I say that this issue is systemic I mean that one is not using some of the features built into the word processing applications as well. If one wants to place extra spaces between paragraphs, I understand the speed of using the return key twice rather than using spacing before and after paragraph. However when one is writing a letter on the corporate template that has the styles predefined, so that the font is consistent, the margins are the same… etc from user to user people still go in and once again use brute force. Change the font, change the margins etc. So if one gets a letter from me, it might not look the same as the letter from my boss.
Now while this all seems like small issues, the amalgamated result of this issue can add up. Here are the ones I came up with off the top of my head:
- Inconsistent message
- Looks hurried together when there is not a consistent look
- Surprises in the way a presentation will look on a different computer
- Time wasted reformatting, reformatting, and reformatting
Just to give an idea of how powerful these tools can be and why I try to use them; I can tell stories about how quickly I was able to resize a presentation to fit a new screen and put it on a new background but that is talk. Check out the idea in action at the website css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design. This website is an example how simply changing the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) can dramatically change the look of a page. Without a change to anything other than the style sheet, which can be attached and updated easily, the look and feel vary greatly.
So now with how easily that can be done, why do I need to spend hours reformatting things?
So in a previous post I commented on how I was not sure that Electronic Books might not be perfect. Well Amazon did something that I had not thought of: they took back a purchase. Basically they deleted George Orwell’s books 1984 and Animal Farm from users’ Kindles due to rights issues. The complete stories are listed below…
- http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/some-e-books-are-more-equal-than-others/
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html
Oh and I could not find anything on Amazon’s site about it…
Back to recovering from the Rally and commute back home
First let me say that this is somewhat stream of “thoughts” rather than a more formallized blog as I landed literally 90 minutes ago after 13 hours on a plane. I will come back and create more entries from these snippets.
I left the hotel at 10:00PM Dubai Time, which is 2:00PM EDT. I then arrived at IAD at 6:00AM EDT. I boarded the plane at about 3:30PM EDT and remained in Seat 21J except for one trip to the facilities until 6:00AM the next day. So that is about 14.5 hours.
I was able to get some sleep thanks to the wonders of modern medicine 
Probably about 8 hours but not great sleep. There are times I can get good sleep on a plane, seat 21J was not one of them. The seat was not very comfortable, while it had tons of leg room as the “crew sleep seats” were in front of me, the seat itself was not comfortable. I ended up putting the pillow under my but to help.
I slept through dinner and breakfast was not very Brad Diet friendly. Good thing Mr. Budge took me out for a big dinner before I left. I am not very happy with the traveler profile and meal situation.
We got in early which was nice, but I think it might have not actually gotten me through any quicker as there was a stack up at passport control with everyone arriving at 6AM. I think that when flights are scheduled there is some thought to staggering through choke points like passport control. As I said on my Twitter post (yes, you have to sign up to get the info) the process of passing through passport control was faster for me in Dubai than in Washington DC.
I was somewhat down periscope while I was in Dubai due to time changes and also do to the Internet usage situation. When I arrived my Blackberry was a doorstop. It was not turned on. That got sorted midday Monday Dubai Time. Trying to call AT&T from Dubai was not very succesful. Once work opened I was able to get it sorted out in about 15 minutes. Apparently saying I want International Calling meant I could make international calls. Whoops.
The other thing was that there were some sites that I could not get to through the Internet.
Click for larger image
Now before everyone starts chuckling and assuming that I was trying to get to “entertainment sites” I got this message on some pretty benign sites:
- Skype
- SmugMug
- iChat
- Amazon.com
So I was able to use the work laptop and its VPN connection to get to some things – but then I had corporate policy making things tough. For example I could not upload photos to my SmugMug account or get Skype to work. On my personal laptop I was able to get inbound Skype video chats, but not outbound phone calls.
Also the time change made life quite interesting as I would end up working long days as a result of getting back from dinner and it being midday back at the office. This would result in me being engaged and working until about 1AM Dubai Time at which point it would take me a little while to wind down to go to sleep.
I am sure that more things will be coming in upcoming Blog posts, but figured I should at least put this one up… Next flight leaves in about an hour. I think that this will only be 22 hours of travel.