Many of you may know about my obsession with Twitter recently. It’s not really about twitter. It’s about the protocol it produced and the huge amount of development that is integrating with the Twitter API.
These are a group of sites that can help analyze your tweets. A site like TweetBurner tracks click through from links you post, while TweetStats analyzes you or your competitors tweeting habits. These sites are popping up like crazy.
http://tweetburner.com/
Tweetburner lets you track what happens with the links you share on Twitter.
http://tweeterboard.com/
Tweeterboard is a way of looking at who is influential on Twitter based on their conversations with other Twitter users. There are other services, like Twitterposter, that base influence on how many followers you have. Tweeterboard looks at who talks to you.
http://twitterposter.com/
TwitterPoster is a mashup created from Twitter, the microblogging service owned by Obvious LCC (Blogger Xanga, Odeo). Inspired by ‘The Million Dollar Homepage’ and the populars tagclouds, the service generates a mosaic with the images of users who have a greater number of followers in Twitter. Each poster have 5 photos of 72×72 pixels showing at 5 users with more followers, 10 images of 48×48 pixels for those between the positions 6 and 15 (both inclusive) and XXX images of 24×24 pixels for those who are on the position 16 to 538.
http://twitterholic.com/
Our twittastic robots scan the Twitter public timeline for new users to watch. A few times a day, we calculate individual statistics for each user in our database.
I’ve had an iPhone for about two months and I love everything about it. Well, almost everything. I left AT&T for Verizon about 5 years ago and after using the CDMA network for the last half decade, I forgot how much I hate GSM.
The thing I hate worse with GSM is that it drives all my electrical equipment nuts. I can’t walk by the baby’s monitor or sit at my desk near the computer speakers or listen to the stereo in my car or be on a conference call at work without the device causing audio interference, loud buzzing and annoying clicking. WTF.
I was happy that I finally could get one of those cool Bose, JBL, or other iPod stereo’s with the iPhone. Well, unless I put the phone in airplane mode, it will just buzz and make annoying sounds.
For “Apple’s Best iPod”, I am disappointed with what with device does to every other piece of audio equipment I own. This issue wasn’t on any review I read on the phone. Though I would have still bought the phone, I wish there some sort of shield on the phone.
I know everyone was worried, but no need to fret. The blog is back up. Some corruption happened to the WP-Cache plug-in and I had to delete it and reinstall it. Any way, it is back.
I took off this week from work to get a little more organized at home. OK I admit, a lot more organized. Over the last 6 months or so, my office, garage, shed, and car became a complete unorganized mess. I have no real excuse. I have just been a slob. So this week away from work is going to add up to being even more work.
This last Saturday and Sunday I was in construction mode. I build a ton of shelving in both my garage and shed. I got everything off the ground and into a proper storage place. I spent 12 hours both days organizing. Everything came out great. I am happy with my work. I got to use the Miter saw and Circular saw for the first time in ages. Ah, felt good to do some carpentry.
Coming up the rest of the week is organizing the basement, cleaning my car, mulching my flowerbeds with 10yards of mulch, and throwing down some grass seed. I have my hands full these next few days, but it is well worth it.
It’s that time of year again when I start planning out my garden, lawn maintenance, and spring projects. I tend to buy Scotts products because the local Home Depot and Lowes carry’s both their organic and standard products at a decent price.
While browsing their new site I realized that Scotts has gone social. They are creating communities, offering blogs, photo sharing, forums, and more. They are calling it “Connect” off of their navigation. It’s a good example of a niche commercial social network. It speaks highly of the brand and it’s perception by providing expert advice in the form of interactive blogs. Customers get the answers they need while Scotts gets to recommend the proper Scotts product to help the customers achieve their dream gardens.
Anyone who knows me from my late teens and early 20’s can remember a time when I was full of energy, constantly active, and pretty fit. Somewhere around age 23-25, I started putting on the pounds. This was due to several environmental changes. Instead of working outside as a contractor or in retail chains where I was always on my feet, I moved into web development and worked behind a desk for 8-10 hours a day. Since I was new in this field, I would go home and placed more hours behind the screen(some things never change). To make things worse, I worked next to an all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffet. My once active body started bulking up.
It wasn’t just the buffet. I was single and going out a lot. I would throw back some brews almost nightly and by some, I mean many. When you’re 25, you think to yourself, “I can lose these pounds easy, just a couple weeks of hitting the basketball court or playing some sport will whip me into shape”. To make things worse, I was a cigarette smoker too. I know, what a combo right? My cardiovascular health deteriorated rapidly. When I would attempt to play some of the sports I once loved, I would be one of the first to raise my hand for a substitute. This was not me. As I grew older, there were less opportunities to join that pick-up game I one could have. Not only is your schedule tight with family and work, but so are your friends.
Then the excuses and denial pile on to make things worse. I sometimes think that I am still that 20-year-old athletic guy, but I am no-where near. I look in the mirror and say things like, “I think my face looks better a little rounder”. “These pants must have shrunk in the wash” and “man it is hot in here. Is anyone else hot?” are sayings I have been using way to long. Things need to change.
As I was struggling to tie my shoes the other day (because I am not as flexible as I was and my stomach is getting in the way), I decided it is time to really lose the weight and get as close to the Jeff in the past as I can. I’m not looking to be 130lbs again, but it would be nice to fit back into my 32-33 pants sizes. One thing about men’s pants sizes. Size 38 pants are made for people who are like 6’5”. When you are 5’5”, you have to hem or fold every pair of pants, unless you special order. No one makes 38”width and 29” heights.
So today is the first day in a serious attempt to recapture my health. I quit smoking over 6 years ago. That was hard and took a while, but I finally did it. I know this will be the same. I think losing the weight may not be as hard as keeping it off. However, I have a plan and it is simple. Eat healthier and smaller portions, exercise every morning, and track my caloric intake vs. my calories burned. I have some tools to help me accomplish this.
I just bought the Mac OSX version of the CalorieKings Nutrition and Exercise Manager. This is a great program for tracking what you eat and how many calories you burn off with exercise. It was only $45 and I feel it is money well spent to track my progress. The program even charts your progress out for you.
Another tool is my Elliptical. I bought this in an earlier attempt to shed the pounds, but I never gave it a shot. This is great in the wintertime, but once the spring comes around, I will probably hit the pavement and take in some fresh air while jogging. I used to love riding my bike long distances too. Right now, I am nowhere near the condition I need for this adventure. I hope to be there soon and when I am, I will be treating myself to a new bike.
I have some hefty goal. I plan to lose 40lbs in 4 months. I want to be 160lbs by July. At weigh in this morning, I was a little more than I thought. I was estimating I was around 200lbs, but came in at 208lbs. At 5’5”, I am considered obese and I feel like it. It will be tough to accomplish. I know I should start with small obtainable goals, but I don’t want to kid myself. I need to do this for my health and for sanity.
I will be publicly placing my weekly weigh-ins and progress on this site every Monday. I will also keep a running tab on the sidebar. I may take a before picture tonight, just for reference, then post a comparison every month to show my progress.
Wish me luck and any encouragement would certainly help.
Today was supposed to be a great day. I took the wife out for an early Valentines Day dinner. We ate at a nice little Italian restaurant and drank a little bit of wine. As a Valentines Day present to my wife, I bought us both Apple iPhones. I bought the 16gb phone and couldn’t wait to set it up a get it running. I only have 7 days left in my contract, so I figured I would get it all going, then cancel Verizon Wireless next week. Boy, I was in for a surprise.
The man in the AT&T store notified me that if I activate my iPhone and port over the phone number of my old phone, I would be hit with an early termination fee from Verizon. Since I only had 7 days left on the contract, I figured Verizon’s pro-rated early termination fee would be pretty low. I found out that since I am a long time Verizon Wireless subscriber, the prorated early termination fee does not pertain to me. It’s only for newer customers from midyear 2006 on. Since I resigned my contract on an updated phone in February 2006, I am screwed. The fee is $175 for 7 days more of service. If I were under this new prorated system, I would have paid less than $10. I offered to pay out my contract, no dice.
If I get a new number, I will be ok. But I want to keep my number. I don’t want to have to switch it. Why can’t I just pay out my contract? It’s not about money or time. Verizon is just being difficult.
I think for the next 7 days, I will rant once a day about why I am leaving Verizon Wireless. Not that it will help my situation, but it will sure help me get some things off my chest. So enjoy the angry side of me. Once I get the iPhone activated, I will be a much happier camper. Some may say ecstatic.
I have had FiOS for a month or so and I am finally getting used to things. I had some frustrations with the guide, but overall I like the service. When I got home last night and flipped on the TV, everything changed.
Verizon must have been hard at work at updating the guide to their FiOS tv. There has been some major rethinking in the UI and Design of the system. The guide is now full of information. It may be a little overwhelming at first, but I think I might get used to it fairly quick. In the center of the guide, there is a magnified listing of the current channel. While moving up and down the channel listings, the next or previous channel will become magnified. See the screen shot below as an example.
Another big addition to the guide is the ability to page up and down. I know, every other cable box in the world does that, but for some reason FiOS never did. This was a real pain in the ass.
The FiOS main menu has changed too. The menu sections are now represented by icons and are clearly labeled. The menu just seems to flow a little better. Below is a screen shot of the main menu.
Another major change is in the Video On Demand section. This section has more of an Apple Front Row or Windows Media album view feel. FiOS now displays the cover of the DVD for browsing. This is much more intriguing the just having the name of the movies in a list. Below is a screen shot of the On Demand menu.
Verizon FiOS just stepped up their game, so what are you going to do now Comcast? I want some heated competition in this space. Now that Apple is attacking the On Demand space with iTunes Movies and Apple TV, there is going to be some fun soon. If only the shows on TV got better, then we would be talking.
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