Havnt updated in forever! im contracting in afghanistan for the next year. which will either mean boredome and more posing, or busyness and even less posting… well see.

anyway here is the photo album where i’m uploading all the pics i’m taking here, i’m uploading more almost every day. Enjoy!

Afghanistan 2011

I have been trying to get fitter, and being the geek i am i have been trying out different android apps. Sofar ive checked out Run Keeper, Cardio Trainer, and Runtastic.

Runkeeper is pretty great app! It does everything i was looking for, and connects to a website where you can look over your workouts. Most of the stats are useful, the mapping is excellent (but it does have some GPS lock on issues that can get pretty tiresome) . Its an overall good solution for workout tracking. doesn’t really stand out, but it does its job. Here is an example of a runkeeper workout.

Cardio trainer is much more social, has ALOT more options, and integrates with Google health. It has alot of little fun apps where you can “train your droid” and have it compete with your friends droid (crappy facebook game), a live wallpaper where snacks disappear as you burn their equivalent in calories. I stopped using it because it required you to install a facebook app to post your activity. its a general pain in the ass to share with others. But the google health integration is pretty great if you are using it, and don’t already have a fitbit.

Runtastic is what im currently using. It has everything runkeeper does and a bit more. Much more workout details available on the site. It seems like someone took runkeeper, fixed the GPS issues, and added alittle more details to the workout stats.  the website looks like it was designed by a recently fired apple employee who had a very limited color pallet at his disposal. And the app has a tendency of crapping out in the middle of a workout (at least on android)  Here’s an example of a Runtastic workout.

Overall I recommend Runkeeper. But I’ve only tried those three apps. if you have any recommendations please let me know!

I followed these steps from theunlockr.com and they worked perfectly! Instead of copying their content ill just post links. Follow these steps in order:

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Enjoy! and when it comes time to choose a Rom i recommended Cyanogen!

Had some minor hiccups with my hosting provider, but I’m back online! so theres that..

ill hopefully be updating more frequently, ive got some awesome traveling coming up!

So i finally got my Fitbit in Monday after pre-ordering it a year and 2 months ago. and its well worth the wait! If your not familiar with the fitbit its a tiny device that helps you track your fitness, here’s how they describe it:

The Fitbit accurately tracks your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled and sleep quality. The Fitbit contains a 3D motion sensor like the one found in the Nintendo Wii. The Fitbit tracks your motion in three dimensions and converts this into useful information about your daily activities.

Basically its a hella accurate and awesome pedometer. the hardware is cool, but the software is where the fitbit really justifies its pricetag. the steps, calories burned, and miles traveled is Very accurate, like data from it, compared with data from my GPS were almost mirrors asfar as distance traveled. steps were easily determined to be accurate aswell. that’s all well and good, and will help people track their fitness and whatnot. An unusual but awesome part of it is the sleep tracking. your body behaves and moves in different ways when your in different stages of sleep. and how often you wake up at night and all that, so fitbit can measure your sleep patters by measuring the way you move when your asleep. it uploads this all to their website so you can track your sleep! its hella awesome, and id like to mention, i am a kick ass sleeper!

That brings me to the next selling point for the fitbit, which is their website! all the data collected by your fitbit is auto uploaded to their site every time you pass near your docking station, and translated into cool graphs and whatnot of your steps taken, calories burned, distance traveled and other spiffy things, so you can track your daily activity. You can also use the site to track your intentional workouts, like weight lifting, swimming, or other things the fitbit by its nature cannot track. It will calculate calories burned during those activities somehow using your BMI and all. so it can supposedly get a pretty accurate count of calories burned!

Ive only had the fitbit for 2 days, and haven’t been biking or swimming, but just wearing it and having it track my steps has made a pretty spiffy graph of my daily calorie burn.

You can also track your diet which is pretty awesome, put in what you eat and it will tell you how many calories it was and if your a net positive or negative for the day/week. Great way to keep on a reasonable diet and find out how your workouts/diet are paying off. you can do some other things like track weight and whatnot, but I’m not going to post screenshots of that, at least not till i get in better shape

So in short, the fitbit is awesome, i love it after only 2 days use. defiantly recommend it for anyone trying to get in shape. Especially recommend it to anyone trying to loose weight that had an affinity for spiffy gadgets. More pictures of the web interface after the break.

Just discovered a whole new world of happy today with Google Chrome Extensions!!! i was still hanging onto Firefox for some tasks because chrome didn’t yet allow stumble-upon or anything yet. but its a brand new browser today! To play with any of these awesome new toys the first thing you will need to do is upgrade to the newest version of the Chrome Beta. after your upgraded just click here for a list of awesome extensions. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Chrome Milk – Remember the milk for Chrome
• Number One – Gmail, Google Voice, Google Wave and Google reader notifier
• Chromed bird – For all your twitter needs
• Chrome Reload – reload page every X seconds
• Stumble-Upon – Its stumble upon for chrome!!!!
• Ad-Thwart – An ad-blocker for chrome! Finally!!!

Love it!!

So ive been growing this beard for just over a year. Its been an enjoyable process, and i do love having a beard but i think its time for a trim. that is to say, i think its time to trim it off. I still want a beard, but im thinking more of a Riker rather than a Hezbollah. I thought id turn over the decision to the will of my readers.

If you didnt know, this is the beard currently.

Update: Looks like regular readers and friends have voted for a neat trim! so a neat trim it is. ill trim it tomorrow (friday) and post pictures of the change. But just got lols, im going to stumble this post and see what a wider community thinks

Post trimming picture: