Daily Burn used to be called Gymnee and has been around for a while.  The concept is a workout tracking site combined with a social network.  I enjoy this site A LOT.  The body tracking metrics, combined with a large database of user defined workouts and a pretty slick iPhone app, make it a great choice.

However, in my opinion, what really differentiates the site are the challenges.  Users can create or join a challenge where a common theme promotes a team-like support group – examples include “Lose 20lbs”, “Run 100 Miles” and “Burn 5000 Cals”.  Users receive medals for their successful challenges and can ask questions to their fellow participants.  This may sound a bit too “social networkie” for you, but trust me – it’s a great environment if you’re trying to get back into a routine.

Lance Armstrong’s site Livestrong.com has combined forces with a company called the DailyPlate to make another fun destination for your workout data and research.  It’s the Daily Plate portion of the site that does the tracking, but the Livestrong side provides so many articles and tips that it’s like that time you went through your couch in college – the stuff you can find!

One of the emphasized themes of the site is that there are many ways to stay active, a fact that can be clearly seen in the “custom” workout activities.  “Scrubbing floors”, “Laying Sod” and “Child Care” are all possible activities you can track in your day to day.

I didn’t find the exercise tracking to be as gym friendly as Daily Burn (try entering a lifting workout – it takes a while), but I still love this site.  If you do join, check out their iPhone app – it’s pretty slick.  The food tracking portion of the site is their number 1 asset, if exercise isn’t what you want to record.

As this is a technology blog, it’s worth mentioning that there is a super geeky 3rd option out there.  I’ve been using Garmin Connect off and on for almost 5 years (since it was called MotionBased).  It’s now a free service from Garmin, those guys who make all the fancy GPS devices.  To get the most out of the site, you need a Garmin device (on top of their car GPS units, they sell running watches and cycling computers).

Once you’re signed up, your exercise (cardio only) is transferred from your device to the website via either bluetooth or a cable.  This information is plotted on a map and summarized in a variety of graphs and tables. The beautiful presentation, combined with the ability to capture real-time heart rate information, running cadence, and other obscurities make this my favorite option.  Despite the hardware requirements, setup is a snap.  Most of all, I love the option of simply running in any direction that interests me and having a virtual partner tracking my every move (and putting it online for review later).  For those with privacy concerns, sharing can be disabled (or not) as you see fit.

A final killer feature of this application is the ability to search other public runs.  In a new town for the weekend and want to know where to run?  I can almost guarantee that you aren’t the first Garmin owner to set foot there.  It’s like being part of a running club without that complicated human interaction jazz.

So that about sums it up.  I hope at least one of the three is what you’re looking for and if not, I suggest googling like crazy.  There are plenty of other options.  These are just the ones that I’ve found most interesting.

Stay fit!

~ab

If you’re trying to decide between the hot new Nexus One vs. the iPhone 3Gs, here’s the skinny on what sets them apart. Both phones sport the aesthetic appeal of that sleek “wow” factor sheen, but there are a few differences you should know about which may make one a better fit for your needs than the other.

Despite its light weight compared to the iPhone 3Gs, the Nexus One picks up where the iPhone left off in the bench-press department. Its faster processor and more efficient Organic LED screen will keep your video sizzling sharp and your images pinpoint crisp while making the overall screen color reproduction more accurate (though strangely enough the orange colors on some of the YouTube videos I streamed to the Nexus One appeared a little too red for my liking).

The built in camera flash on the Nexus One is a very useful feature in low-lighting. It’s also a feature that the iPhone currently lacks, though rumor has it that Apple already put in a big order for flash devices for its next generation of iPhones. No doubt Apple will also be ramping up its camera resolution which is currently only 3-megapixels on the iPhone compared to the whopping 5-megapixel deliciousness of the Nexus One camera.

Unlike the iPhone, the Nexus One sports a full hands-free driving GPS navigation system with turn-by-turn directions functionality included right out of the box. On the iPhone, you only get the standard Google maps directions right now which is basically a little dot moving around on a 2D map…not very impressive unless you are willing to shell over the cash for a third party navigation application such as the $70 Navigon or the $80 iGo My Way.

Aside from these extra perks included with the Nexus One, the main point of difference I encountered between the two phones was their dependence upon wireless connectivity. iPhone applications run as smoothly when you are out of wireless range as they do when you are in range because your data is largely saved to the phone and is re-synched when your phone reception returns. This approach keeps your most of your data on your physical phone device, at risk of being lost along with the device if that data has not been synchronized and backed up first.  The Nexus One takes the opposite approach. It seems geared toward storing as much of your personal data as possible on Google’s computer clouds rather than on your phone’s memory. Unfortunately, while it does mean that your data is theoretically safer, it also means that you have to have a strong wireless connection for many of your applications to be useful. This is particularly true if you’re looking to leverage some of the coolest features Google provides such as voice recognition (see below).

The included Android Calendar application is a perfect example of why storing data on the cloud isn’t always the best solution. The included Calendar application is barely functional without a direct link to the internet, and it will not operate unless you have first assigned it to a preexisting Google Calendar account. While these limitations may not be an issue for someone who already uses Google Calendar and who has frequent internet access, I found it an unnecessary burden, and wasn’t thrilled about being forced to use a the Google Calendar which was only recently endowed with integrated Task features.

There are a few other ‘gotchas’ you should be aware of before you buy, such as the not-so-multi-touch feature of the Nexus One’s touch screen. The iPhone’s multi-touch feature is more than just fancy hand-waving; it allows you to use more than one finger at a time to interact with your mobile phone screen. This makes the phone easier to operate and cuts down on the number of buttons that would otherwise clutter its interface. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Nexus One. Though the Android interface itself has been given an appealing facelift, (with live animated backgrounds and the like), it is currently limited to single touch functionality. [Note: You can enable multi-touch yourself if you are brave enough to attempt a ROM hack on your Nexus One].

Another iPhone feature I missed in the Nexus One was a simple notepad. You may be able to download one from the Android Market, but not having one pre-installed is inconvenient, and it makes taking notes or jotting down ideas difficult when no pen and paper are handy. If you’re creative, you could record videos of yourself talking and then sync them with Evernote, but if you’re looking for more direct digital copies of you paper masterpieces, check out the Scan2PDF Mobile application which instantly converts phone photos of your notes into fully searchable PDFs.

As any personal trainer will tell you, you won’t see your best results until you’ve put in the necessary hard work and preparation. In the same way, the Nexus One really starts to shine brightest once you start using one of its most underappreciated yet most awesome features, its voice recognition technology. Leveraging the technology it has long been toiling over for its Google Voice telephone service, Google’s Nexus One makes searching as easy as pressing a button and telling your phone what you want it to find. Seriously, it’s that simple! After a few tries, the phone will train itself to recognize your voice patterns and will identify pretty much any word you throw at it. And since every search you do is logged with Google, I’m guessing that your subsequent search patterns will be used to teach the software so that it continually gets better at recognizing which of your verbal commands it interpreted successfully.

Even more useful, and novel by comparison to what the iPhone offers, is the voice-to-text feature which magically transcribes whatever you say to your phone into an email or text message. This voice recognition feature, in particular, turned out to be a big time saver for me, just like using voice recognition in the built-in GPS navigation made hands-free navigation that much easier and safer while driving.

If you currently have an iPhone and are looking for those extra features that will squirt a few more ounces of productivity into your life, you may want to wait until the next iPhone iteration comes out. The additional benefits the Nexus One offers are mostly under the hood, and while they do add up, the margin of difference they make depends upon how ambitious you are about tackling the learning curve burn cycle, especially if you’re already acclimated to the iPhone interface. On the other hand, if you aren’t in love with the iPhone or if you are upgrading from a previous non-iPhone model and are looking for a top of the line phone with tremendous long-term potential, the Nexus One is probably your best bet.

And in case you’re still deliberating over the technical details behind the gloss, I recommend checking out Gizmodo’s definitive smartphone comparison chart for a great side-by-side comparison of these top two contenders.

~jp

Justin Palmen is a recovering technoholic with a passion for everything fast, mobile, and cloud enabled.  When not working in cyberspace, he enjoys traveling to exotic locations and would love to travel in real space some day.  He’d also love to receive your questions or comments at jp@justanasterisk.com

Apart from this “call” functionality, this object is nothing more than a paper weight – or something for braining your next burglar.  My point, that is perilously close to drowning in my sarcasm, is that the object has one function.  It’s a telephone.  That’s what it does and even in 1896, it did it pretty well (although Rikstelefon is no longer in business in Sweden).

A few days ago, a friend of mine was complaining that his GPS running application on his Iphone didn’t work perfectly – he wasn’t getting absolutely accurate readings while jogging… (cough) His phone was not giving him accurate GPS readings while jogging? This wasn’t even a complaint about the GPS while calling.

The Iphone is a very, very impressive device.  In a way, even calling it a phone first is misleading.  For example, here is an outdated list of 100 things that an Iphone can do.  The applications make the possibilities limitless and we find ourselves wondering “well if it can do that, then why can’t it do this?”  What is even more amazing is that often someone figures out how to do that (“that” being whatever you wanted to do with the Iphone in the first place).

I do have a teeeeeeeeeny little gripe with this idea of packing devices until they are feature heavy (which technology readers know as “bloat”), to the point that the fundamental use of the product is compromised.

In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence – The Peter Principle

My friend Michael gets full credit for this analogy, but it’s so delicious that I had to write it out.  The Peter Principle above is used in management – an employee who is promoted each time they perform well at their own level, will continue to be promoted until they achieve a level where they fail.  Your best employee might not be cutout to be your best manager.

Now back to the Iphone.

The GPS receiver in the Iphone is miniscule compared to that in your new car.  One review from Autoblog.com said:

Compared to a dedicated navigation unit, the iPhone just can’t compete with systems offering turn-by-turn directions and on-the-fly re-routing. However, its small size and ease of use would make it a competent companion for navigating through a city on foot. So aside from a few intermittent errors on both the phone’s part and our own, it’s safe to say that the 3G works as advertised: under-promising and only slightly delivering.

In a way, this is what we would expect right?  The Iphone is a phone, not an IGPS.  That said, to be able to use GPS on your phone, even crappy GPS, is great.  Shouldn’t we just be happy that it’s even possible?

The same could be argued for the Iphone’s digital camera.  Another review from a photography blog:

From a photographers perspective the iPhone 3G S is everything I wanted the iPhone to be when I first stood in line to buy one in 2006 2007… The iPhone is undeniably a great mobile phone and I can now say, finally, that the camera lives up to the rest of the phone.

Sounds positive right?  In the end, the reviewer is saying that he’s thankful the camera caught up to the quality of the phone.

Here is my theory in two parts:

1.  We want the camera and GPS receivers to stink when a cell phone is first released.  We want the company to have poured their development budget into the reason we’re buying a new phone – which I’m hoping everyone is thinking is to make phone calls.  Once the product is a great phone then we can think about upgrading the camera, as Apple seems to have done.  GPS is new, it’s going to take a while to siphon off enough budget to make it awesome.  Until then, chill out my friends.

2. We should want our good devices to stop adding features.  Does the Iphone need a missile guidance system?  My thinking is that although it would be really cool, I wouldn’t want it to take money from improving the call quality of the phone or improving the email functions or upgrading the GPS or upgrading the camera again or…  Adding missile guidance might just Peter Principle our phone, as we’d expect it to perform well…

In the end, I think my love of technology also causes some angst – I’m so excited to watch the world march forward that I despair when we waste momentum by proceeding in the wrong direction.  Feature bloat = wrong direction.

Not sent from an Iphone

~ab

UPDATE: I can’t even make this stuff up – Your Iphone can now be a stethoscope too!