Step comparison

As I've started my 100 day challenge, I thought I'd do a quick comparison of the data from my pedometer and from my activity monitor. I use a Polar A360. I've posted some stuff about it before, so I won't go into too much detail here.

The A360 takes all your activity and converts it into "equivalent steps". I'm guessing it uses some sort of algorithm to do this. So, when I play tennis for example, it will show a higher step count than when I go for a walk, not because I've necessarily taken more steps but because of the way it converts movement into steps. This shows up in the statistics. Interestingly, one day the A360 under-recorded steps compared to the pedometer rather than over-recording (although over and under recording aren't exactly the best way to describe what it does!).

Anyway, using the 14 days from August, here's what the comparative data looks like:

Pedometer:

Total Steps: 192525
Average per day: 13751
Highest: 24750
Lowest: 10458

A360:

Total Steps: 233407
Average per day: 16672
Highest: 28693
Lowest: 10686

Interestingly, the day the A360 recorded fewer steps than the pedometer was the day I intentionally went for a walk and set my wristband to monitor that activity (i.e. to log the walk as a training event). It's also partly why I'm undecided about how best to monitor myself during the 100 days. At the moment I simply use my pedometer and make sure it hits 10k each day.

I guess in the end the data just underlines that you need to decide what you want to measure and then choose the appropriate method and equipment to do that job.

A quick comparison of Runkeeper and Polar A360 data

I've recently done a bit of interval training/walking again, and I've remembered to set Runkeeper going to record my efforts. I also have my trusty Polar A360 activity monitor strapped to my wrist. Perhaps I should have stuck my old pedometer in my pocket too, just for completeness!

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to compare the data from both the A360 and Runkeeper. Here's the raw data:

The top screenshot is from Runkeeper, the lower one from the A360. There's clearly a discrepancy between the two, but there's also an obvious explanation. Runkeeper uses the GPS facility in my iPhone to map the route, the A360 does not have GPS capability. Consequently it has to use some form of algorithm to calculate distance which in turn impacts the calorie estimate and pace data too.

The point is simple. If you're going to buy an activity monitor then make sure you get something that suits the main type of exercise you do. If you're a runner or walker, then you really ought to consider something that has GPS if accurate distance is important. If like me, most of your activity takes place in a confined space like a tennis court, then GPS is irrelevant. I don't do enough running/walking to warrant a GPS enabled watch. It's all possible that if I activated the app on my phone form Polar (Polar Beat) it might se the GPS and compensate for the difference. I don't know, but it might be worth investigating. 

Activity monitors are simply that-monitors of activity. Some allow you to set the type of activity, the A360 has various sport/training modes that you can set, but generally speaking it's all about trends and making sure you get up and active on a daily basis. My Polar Flow did that and the A360 just gives me a bit more flexibility and a little more data (heart rate mostly).

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting to see the difference and be reminded that nothing is perfect and the data out is only every going to be as good as the data in.

Polar A360

Having had my Polar Loop for a year, I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to a more sophisticated activity monitor. I did a bit of research and in the end decided to stay with Polar and get the A360.

Now, if you're a runner or triathlete you will undoubtedly want something more sophisticated, but if you're just interested in getting some data about how much activity you're doing, then the A360 looks like a good choice.

The Loop was useful, but the A360 gives you more options. The basic settings for what constitutes your active day stays the same, but now you have access to heart rate data courtesy to the wrist based heart rate monitor. For a more accurate heart rate you have the option to pair, via Bluetooth, the  device to a chest strap. The Loop also did that, but I never actually tried it.

Where the A360 scores over the Loop is the ability to choose a training type and capture the associated data. The display will show you heart rate, training zone, calorie burn etc. From my point of view, the training types are limited. I have to choose "other indoor" or "other outdoor" and then change it afterwards via the 'phone app to tennis or swimming. On the plus side, it can make me look like I sprint 10K on a regular basis!

One of the other positives for me is that the screen is easier to see in bright sunlight when compared to the Loop. This means it's easy to use as a watch when I'm coaching or just wanting to know what time it is. The adjustable strap is also a plus. I can wear it a little loose and tighten it up when I want heart rate monitoring. The clasp, two t-profile stubs that simply press into the holes in the strap, can come unclipped if you catch it on something, but it hasn't come off completely yet, so I'm not overly concerned by it.

The A360 will also vibrate to let you know you have an incoming call or text message or other notification on your 'phone.

There have been some negative reviews of the A360. People have experienced issues with synchronising data and with the unit and strap separating. There have also been some issues with the USB port cover. I've only had mine for a few weeks and so far I've not experienced any problems at all. Whether the syncing issues arise from the device itself or the 'phone or tablet being used isn't clear. My iPhone 5S seems to work fine.

Overall I'm quite pleased with my new activity monitor. The watch looks smart and fits neatly on my wrist. It's comfortable to wear and easy to use. At around £140 it's neither cheap nor expensive when compared to other similar devices.

Me and my Kindle

I was very lucky to get a Kindle for Christmas. As you know, I already own an iPad, so why you might wonder would I want a Kindle? Well, I have to say that I asked the same question for a long time. The iPad is great. It has a bright screen that is easy to read and a larger screen size than the Kindle. The Kindle is a dedicated reader, whereas the iPad can do so much more. So why carry two devices around with you when one would do the job, right?

Wrong!

The Kindle is brilliant. It is light, much lighter than the iPad. It renders the pages in a way that makes it feel book-like in a way that's just a little hard to explain. The text is clear, navigation is easy enough and the battery lasts a long time. Yes, it's a dedicated reader, but it's so good at being that, and that is exactly what I want from this kind of device.

I currently have a number of books on my Kindle. I'm half-way through The Long Walk, the story of a group of prisoners escaping from a Siberian work camp in the 1940's. I also have a book about nutrition on there and a couple of other fiction titles to dip into at some point. Yesterday I downloaded a sample chapter from a book I might get. Now that's a great way to explore new books and ideas without having to clog the bookshelves.

So I have to say that I'm impressed with my Kindle and I have a feeling we're going to have a long and enjoyable working relationship. Will I stop buying paper based books? Probably not. Actually I'd love to have the option of buying both paper and digital for some books, rather like triple-play Blue Ray, DVD and digital media.

Poor Mobile signal at home?

The one downside of the iPhone is its inability to work with a poor mobile signal. My Nokia 6085 worked fine at home, even though the signal isn't great. Not so the iPhone. Why it should have such a poor antenna I don't know, but it's not just an issue with the iPhone, Ally's Nokia often suffers too.

So I started to look into the whole Femtocell thing. For those who don't know, a femtocell uses your broadband connection to provide a better signal for GSM mobile 'phone use. At the moment Vodafone is the only network providing femtocell technology. All the others are lagging well and truly behind. Of course the best solution would be to have a choice of suppliers who could provide a non-network specific device. Enter HSL, a company based in Scotland that is seeking to do just that.

In order to achieve their goal, they need as many people as possible to express an interest so that they have some leverage with the cellular companies to get the necessary access to make the system work. You're not committing yourself to buy the product, but you can register an interest that will help the cause.

You can go to this website and register and read the FAQ's.

Finally I succumbed

Yes it's true, finally I gave in to temptation. After a whole year or more of thinking about it and wondering and moaning about the tariffs, I finally gave in and upgraded to an iphone.

I'm not really a Mac junkie (who said that's not true?!), but it seems to make sense to me that if I'm going to integrate my contacts and diary with my phone, then this is probably just about the best way to do it. That is of course until the ipad comes on sale in April! But then again, you can't really have too many Apple products, can you?

I'm not about to fill up my new gadget with all sorts of games. I'm not really much of a game player, and they are too much of a distraction anyway. So I'm going to be business-like about my apps, honest!

At the moment I have Omnifocus, The Guardian, Daily tasks (a free to-do list app that's quite nice and compliments the more complex Omnifocus for quick lists) iThoughts (mindmapping), Echofon for Twitter and the free version of 1Password for the iphone.

I wouldn't say this is my essential collection, in fact I don't have an essential collection. I guess not I'm permanently connected to the internet I might find a few other things that are useful!

Update to isync script

Back in February I delved into the shallow waters of Apple Script in an attempt to automate the process of synching my Nokia 'phone with iCal and Address Book.

Well this week I refined the script a little more having discovered how to quit a programme (tell "application" to quit, not exactly rocket science), and how to delay it so that it didn't generate an error by trying to quit before synchronisation was complete.

I also discovered along the way that you could tell your mac to inform you that the task was complete using one of the voices.

The finished script is as follows:

tell application "iSync"

if last sync is less than ((current date) - 3600) then

synchronize

repeat while (syncing is true)

delay 5

end repeat

end if

end tell

tell application "iSync" to quit

say "synchronisation is now complete. Have a good day" using "Zarvox"

You can add a line that hides isync if you want, but it's not that important.

Spring Harvest, Butlins and wi-fi

Without wanting to sound like a truly grumpy old man, it has to be said that Butlins has once again disappointed me in the area of wireless connectivity. I checked the websites and once again a free wi-fi connection was there the see, but alas nothing of a working nature seems to be available. There is something, but the signal in the two places I've tried so far is so poor that nothing works.

Still at least I have my trusty modem and that means some connection can be made. 

It's not that I need desperately to be connected constantly to the outside world, it's just frustrating when it's supposed to be here but can't be found!

Never mind. Maybe I just haven't found the right place yet. I'll try the Front Room Coffee shop next.

SMS from the Dashboard

Because I came to Mac after the launch of Leopard, I was never aware of Tiger's useful ability to send SMS messages from Address Book. But when I was told about this, I thought it was worth seeing if anyone had produced a plug-in or widget that would give me that option in OS X.

Of course there was. We are, after all, talking Macs here!

Enter emitSMS. EmitSMS is a dashboard widget that does exactly what I wanted. Either by choosing a contact from your address book or by typing in the number directly, you can send short or long messages via your mobile 'phone using the Bluetooth connection. And the cost of the message is just the standard network cost.

I have a Nokia 6085 and it works fine. Although of  course I had to create the original phone plug-in for iSync which may or may not be relevant. Perhaps, because it's only the Bluetooth connection, it might work with any phone, but there are no promises. It was originally developed for the developers own Nokia mobile.

There is an application available from Novamind called phoneplugins that probably supports more 'phones and offers more options and only costs about €12.

Swurl becomes history?

It looks like Swurl is no more:

Hello Swurlers,

We built Swurl as two guys doing something we love in our spare time.
Unfortunately, due to the pressures of our day jobs and other
distractions, we can no longer support or maintain the service at the
level that we think our users deserve.

Building Swurl has been a great experience for us. We want to thank
all of the folks that used Swurl as a way to document their lives
online and share with their friends and families. Thanks a bunch to
those users that gave us lots of valuable feedback and encouragement.

Oh well, it was a really good idea and better than other things I played with. Perhaps someone will take up the idea and it will reappear somewhere.

Podcasts are us, or rather me!

I've had a horrible, nasty cold for a couple of days and haven't really felt like doing much at all other than sleep, something that seemed to escape me last night as I coughed my way through the early hours of the morning. 

I'm not given to so-called "man-flu" having had the real thing when I was 17. Believe me, if I can get up and walk around at all, I don't call it flu. My 1975/76 encounter with the flu virus left me weak, 30 pounds lighter, and unable to drink coffee ever again! My Grandmother thought I'd seen my last Christmas, she was a cheery soul!

Anyway, this head-cold made concentrating difficult so I've been playing with Garageband and iWeb just to see how easy or otherwise it is to create podcasts.

The answer is pretty easy. Neither programme is particular difficult to use at what I guess is a really basic level. Once you get the concept of dragging and dropping media files where you want them, it's all pretty straightforward. Actually Garageband even exports the finished podcast to iWeb and it's a few simple editorial changes and a few click to publish it to the web. Having a MobileMe account probably helps, but I guess it's not that much more complicated if you use another server somewhere.

Anyway, I've podcasted three sermons, two from our recent series on 1 Corinthians and one from three years ago just to see how it works. They are live recordings and sometimes the quality is not so good, but that's not an issue with either bits of software.

Here's the link to my podcasts if you want to listen, or in fact even if you don't want to listen! You can of course follow the outlines on the church blog as you listen to see how closely they reflect what is said!

Music to my ears, wherever I go!

So, one of my Premium bonds came up. For those who are not familiar with these things, Premium Bonds were introduced by the UK government in the 1950's as a way to promote savings, although I can't quite see how that worked because yo are only ever guaranteed that your bond will be worth exactly what you paid for it when you bought it.

The thing is that unlike a lottery, where you buy a ticket in the hope of wining but lose your "stake", a Premium Bond can be cashed in any time. But while you have it, there's a monthly draw. A typical prize is £50 and if you have enough bonds you can generate a return similar to that of a Building Society account but without the tax liability. 

Anyway, one of my bonds came up and it was a nice surprise when the the envelope landed on the mat this morning. 

I decide to invest my winnings in an Airport Express for the lounge. This wonderful little gadget extends the range of my wireless network and allows me to plug my stereo (yes I still have one of those) into my iTunes library.

After a few minutes setting up, we now have a random selection of music playing in the lounge straight from the iMac on my desk. Brilliant!

It was always my intention eventually to put all my music on a hard drive and then to do this Express manoeuvre. What's more I can use another Express to boost the wireless network upstairs, and even to add the printer/copier in the dining room (there's nowhere else for it to sit).

It has to be said, Apple have some really neat solutions to problems you never thought you had until you saw the solution!

Dipping wary toes in the water of Applescript

Actually, this has turned out to be slightly less scary than I thought. Here's the project.

I like my paper diary, but it doesn't have alarms, so if I'm not careful about looking in my diary at regular intervals during the day, I'm likely to forget or a miss an appointment. I've long since given up on trying to carry all the data around in my head, so a diary is essential. 

The problems of alarms is solved by making sure my Mac diary is up-to-date with my paper diary and then synchronised to my 'phone. I have a Nokia 6085 that I've made compatible with iSync. So far so good. The only thing is that I have to remember to perform the sync regularly.

So I got to thinking. It's a Bluetooth 'phone and there must be a way of automating the process. My daughter Ally has shown me how to use Automator to do things like this, but I also thought it should be possible to use the Bluetooth connectivity to trigger the event. A quick search found a little utility called Proximity.

Proximity detects Bluetooth devices when they come into range of your computer and will run scripts when it does so. It can also run scripts when they go out of range too, so you could use your Bluetooth 'phone to lock your Mac when you leave the office my running an appropriate script.

Next I needed some help with the script. Knowing nothing about Applescript I searched for some help. I found exactly what I wanted here. And used the following bit of script to fire up iSync:

tell application "iSync"
if last sync is less than ((current date) - 900) then
synchronize
end if
end tell

Essentially this performs a sync every 15 minutes, which I think I'll change to an hour, and I need to modify it to do two things if possible. First I want it to quit iSync when it's finished. I'm sure that's just the addition of a simple line of code,. I just need to find the code!

 Secondly, I'd like, if possible, to figure out how to sync my Palm PDA  automatically (I use that as a diary and address book backup device) without having to press the button or just to ignore the PDA and do that manually as and when.

So there's work to be done, but it seems to be functioning okay at the moment. I'll be going out soon, so we'll see what happens when I come back in range!

Music maestro please!

I neve thought I'd ever see the day when a mobile 'phone became a musical instrument!

DAB Radio

We've entered the world of DAB radio with this Pure Chronos II triangular shaped radio alarm.

Set up was very easy: switch it on, let it autotune, listen to the radio. Setting alarms was easy too. The nice thing is that there are four alarms that can all be set individually. At the moment we have one for weekdays, one for Saturday and one for Sunday. They can be set to different radio stations too, which means we can wake up to Five-live during the week, Radio 4 on Saturday and Planet Rock Sunday morning if we really want to do that!

You can set the clock manually or leave it to pick up the time from the DAB signal. The tone is much better than our old analogue clock radio as you'd expect. And there's a nice sleep function too. Overall it's a nice enough radio and suits us fine.

There's one drawback that's not serious. You can't tell what the volume level is when you're listening. Not a big problem, you just adjust it so it's okay. But when you set an alarm, it asks you to set the level which starts off at '10' without giving you any indication of how loud that might be. In the end it's not too bad, but I did wonder if we were going to get blown out of bed the first time it came on!

I got ours from Amazon at only £39 reduced from £70, a bit of a bargain in my opinion. now all I need to do is wait for lots more stations to come online. A little mellow jazz would be good on a Saturday morning.

Me and my camera

I've always enjoyed taking pictures, ever since I was given a Box Brownie and a roll of 120 film to play with on holiday in Wales one year. A couple of years later I got my hands on a Kodak Instamatic and colour film, which I think came in a cassette. I'd be about 12 and I took it on holiday to my Aunt and Uncles in Dorset. 

I set about taking photographs rather than just holiday pictures as I told my sister, and talked about framing the shot and looking for light and shade. I don't think I really had a clue what I was talking about, but some of the resultant pictures turned out okay as I recall. 

The cost of a good camera was way out of reach, so it wasn't until I got to University that I had the money to buy my first 35mm camera, a Zorki 4K range-finder. I quickly learnt to use a light meter and make adjustments for the idiosyncrasies of the camera. The shutter speeds never quite matched the numbers, but then again every camera is different.

My next move was to a 35mm SLR with a built-in light meter. This time it was a Practica with a 50mm thread mount for the lenses if I'm remembering correctly. I had several prime lenses and a telephoto. What I do remember was the weight of the thing. But it performed really well and I had many years service from it until it was stolen in a burglary. 

I replaced it with a Miranda. The name had just been bought by Dixons and the cameras were manufactured under licence somewhere. This was semi-automatic, with a full manual mode. The single point metering meant that you could choose your light source so-to-speak and the manual focus was simple and straightforward. I used this camera for a long time until I just drifted out of taking photographs for a while.

Then, one half-term, I took Ally out with the camera and let her try her hand. She really enjoyed it so we bought a pair of Minolotas. A Dynax 4 for Ally and a 5 for me. With a shared long lens we had a lot of fun exploring photography together.

Eventually we bought a Nikon D50 to try digital and this became Ally's camera more than mine although we always saw it as a shared camera. Wanting to make use of my nice Sigma 105mm macro lens I always dreamed of getting the Minolta Dynax 5D until the stopped making them when Minolta withdrew form camera manufacturing a few years ago.

So that brings me to the present day and my recent purchase of a Sony Alpha 300. The 300 is a special edition version of the 350. Same camera but with a 10 mega-pixel sensor rather than a 14.2 mega-pixel sensor. Given that pixel count is not the be all and end all of digital photography and the 10MP version has some better reviews, I took the plunge and bought the camera.

The Barcelona trip was my first opportunity to give it whirl and whirl away I did. 205 times in fact. That's a lot of pictures and would have involved at least 6 rolls of film. The nice thing of course about digital is that you can check your picture there and then and don't need to take two or three extra ones just in case you missed something the first time around.

The Alpha has all the usual features as far as I can tell of a typical DSLR, but with a few interesting quirks. It has a button on the top to tun the live view screen on and off, I don't remember that on the D50, but I haven't used it that much. But the most novel feature is the fold out screen function. The, quite large, LCD screen has a hinged bracket and it can be folded out to give you a horizontal screen. This means you can hold the camera at waist height and view the image on the screen. Very neat. The camera also has built in camera shake correction and a nifty tele-converter, although this only works in live view.

Overall, my first impressions is that this is a very nice camera and I look forward to discovering more of its abilities.

Tumblr

So, Ally got me using Twitter, mainly I think so that she can keep an eye on me while away at University. And I always thought it was me as her father that would want to keep tabs on my daughter!

Anyway, it's been fun tweeting and it made me think about how interactive can, and ultimately should, we be via the internet. I've resisted the urge to sign up for Facebook or Myspace or the over fifties version run by Saga. However that's a debate for another day.

The thing with Twitter is that it isn't really a route to use for quick thoughts and quotes etc. Jeff put me onto Swurl and I've set up a homepage there to collate various streams (blogs, music, Twitter, wish lists). 

And because Swurl does the job of putting everything you want to put in one place in... well one place actually, there's no need to spend all day updating a whole range of social sites with duplicate information. It also means that if, like me, you write more than one blog, then you can pull all of them into one place for anyone interested to read all your musing but who doesn't use RSS or similar to aggregate blogs. But that still doesn't solve the problem of posting a quick thought without logging in and creating new posts.

So, to complete the picture so far, I've added Tumblr to my streams. It's a simple, quick thoughts kind of approach to blogging. Using my Blog title "the view from here" I now have a Tumblr homepage, but all the things I post there will automatically appear on the Swurl page. I'm also working on how to add my Tumblr blog to the sidebar of my main blog but I'm having a few problems getting the size right.

Being a Mac user I've also found a dashboard widget, or rather two dashboard widgets for Tumblr. 

The first is available from the Tumblr site, the second from the Apple downloads site. I prefer the second one because it has some automatic formatting built in for posting regular text or pictures or quotes. 

Both are free, so you just choose your preferred style I guess.

Drawbacks at Swurl

So, I've signed up for Swurl and I've been playing with it for a day and I've found out why some things work and some don't.

I added my blog, Last.fm, Twitter, Amazon wish-list and Picasa but nothing shows up for these. The reason seems to be that it doesn't handle none ".com" locations for the likes of Amazon. Last.fm only adds "loved" tracks, a feature I don't use.

So at the moment Swurl just brings my blog posts and Tweets together.

Hopefully, with time, the features will improve, but it's not as useful as it first looked. However, lots of encouragement is due to the guys that have developed this idea and I look forward to more features being added and supported.

Swurl

Some time ago Jeff sent me an email about Swurl. At the time I didn't have the time to look at it and I put it to the back of my mind. anyway, now I Twitter, thanks to Ally, and use Picasa and Lastfm, Swurl looks like an interesting way to bring it all together in one place. So I've plunged in and created an account.

You can visit my Swurl homepage here.

Plumbing

Today was a plumbing day. I don't mind plumbing, but it can be quite stressful. The object today was to add some long needed control to the heating system in the manse. I've talked to various folk about it before, and I hope the deacons don't mind, but the impending increases in gas prices has been a strong encouragement to get this done.

It's been over 20 years since I was actively involved in heating system control. it was part of my job as a research scientist with British Gas to know my way around a wiring diagram and more. So today's task, whilst not straightforward, was familiar ground to a certain degree.

It was actually Anne's idea to get cracking and do the job, so I enlisted her help as we set out to shop for the component parts for the job.

We went to Screwfix for most bits, Plumb Center for one part and Focus Do it All for some 6 amp cable. We needed a 28mm 2-port zone valve for the hot water circuit and Plumb Center was the easiest place to go for this. It's 28mm because the system in gravity fed. This means that there is no pump for the hot water part of the heating system. The radiators are pumped and the boiler is an uncomplicated bit of machinery.

The other parts we needed were a cylinder thermostat and a room thermostat. We chose a simple cylinder stat, but, because of the problems with running wires around the house, we went for a remote control room stat. This uses an RF signal to transmit information between the thermostat and the boiler controls. Very posh.

The first job we tackled was draining the system down ready to do the bit of plumbing to install the zone valve. A zone valve simply controls where the water from the boiler goes. In our case the pump acts as a valve on the heating circuit so all we needed was a valve on the hot water side of things.

Whilst the system was draining down, we set to work installing the new programmer and the cylinder and room stats. I have to confess that the wiring was a little more of a challenge on this system than I imagined, but eventually we got it all working. And in truth, had I paid more attention to the wiring diagrams in the zone valve pack, I'd have got in working much sooner than I did.

So we now have the ability to set different programmes for the week and weekend, or we can switch to different programmes for each day. We have a very flash room stat that we can programme and move around the house to find the best position in which to use it.

The big plus is that the hot water no longer has to be heated to the same temperature as the boiler. I don't know how much that was costing us, but it will be interesting to see how much less gas we use this winter compared to previous years.

All in all a successful day and the stress has turned to delight as we tested the new controls and checked for leaks. Doing this sort of job just takes a little time and knowledge of how heating controls are meant to work. You also need to know how to empty and refill a system too and some basic plumbing skills. Actually the job is more about wiring than it is about plumbing. Permanent lives, switched lives, auxiliary switches etc, are all simple things if you know what you are doing. 

 Total cost was about £200 for all the controls, but that includes £40 for the remote room stat and £70 for the 28mm zone valve. I'm hoping that we'll knock that off the gas bill pretty quickly. I'm guessing, but I think on hot water cycles alone the boiler will now be off for 60-80% of the timed cycle. I think we'll get better heating output too when the hot water circuit shuts down and all the boiler output goes into the radiator circuit.

And to think , some people might have been tempted to suggest that I'd wasted my time at British Gas.