Getting in shape for Geeks

Most geeks usually don't care much about "getting into shape". We've got our toys, and our fingers are usually pretty "buff" from playing our games, typing or using our smartphones. Well this blogger has gotten a little angry at how his body has been responding lately (sluggishly to not at all) so I took advantage of the new year to start with some new goals.

Diet and Fitness

I've started out pretty strong this year on my diet and fitness goals. For those of you that don't know, my wife and I have been on the Carb Lovers Diet for the past 6 months or so. We slipped a little during the holidays but we are back in action this year and I've lost 3 pounds since Christmas. Carb Lovers lets you eat good carbs (whole grains, fiber rich foods etc.) and its secret is resistant starches that come from things like green bananas, beans and potatoes. Its also portion control and some calorie counting. Basically its the way you should be eating for the rest of your life.

My wife's cousin and good friend of mine for years, Jen West (@thejenwestquest) was recently featured on the Rachael Ray show talking about and showing off (in her bikini!) the benefits of Carb Lovers. She has a great blog called The Jen West Quest that follows her daily fitness writing and health goals.
Another great benefit of the Carb Lovers book is that my wife Andrea (of the blog Annie's Angle) has become somewhat of a great cook with all the gourmet and yummy recipes in the book.

I've also been bustin' out a daily arm workout almost every day for the past two weeks and I can already see some results. (ie. my Droid X is easier to pick up above my head). Next... (ugh...) RUNNING.


Best Diet and Fitness Apps

There are some great apps that you can get for your phone to help you keep track of your diet, calories, run and workout.

1. Livestrong - both Jen West and my wife love this one. Mostly a calorie counter (helpful for Weight Watchers and Carb Lovers), the Livestrong app makes it very easy to track your calories and its extensive database of more than 525,000 foods is huge! Its hard to NOT find something. (only for iPhone right now)
2. Cardio Trainer + Racing - A great app for Android that motivates you to keep doing better with voice prompts. Also tracks your run / bike route with GPS and shows you the stats and your best times so you can keep pushing yourself. Features music integration so you can play your music while using the app and Facebook updates.
3. Calorie Counter by FatSecret - Android calorie counter with a large database and features a bar code scanner to scan your groceries.

Geeky Fitness Gadgets

My friend at work (Best Buy) showed me her new Fitbit - Wireless Personal Trainer which I thought was kind of neat. This personal trainer collects data about your daily activities, such as exercise intensity levels, calories burned, sleep quality, steps and distance. The collected data is automatically uploaded to your personal Fitbit website where you can track your progress towards personal goals.

Its basically a super geeky pedometer! It even keeps track of your sleeping habits and automatically uploads to your own personal Fitbit website (which is similar to Livestrong.com) to keep track of your eating and workout habits as well.
  
The Garmin - Forerunner 405CX GPS Watch is another geeky fitness gadget that we sell at Best Buy (as well as Amazon ;-). Its an all in one type, GPS, heart rate monitor and distance and calorie computer. A little pricey but if you want a separate all in one solution that you just snap on and take off when you're done, then this gadget will work for you.


Do you guys have any awesome apps or geeky fitness gear that you use? Leave me a comment below!

iPad A Kindle Killer?

Hot off the presses today, Apple's Steve Jobs announced and showed off the new iPad tablet computing device called the iPad. For those of you that have been hiding in a cave, the iPad is an ultra thin tablet computer used over Wi-Fi and soon over 3G cellular networks. Some of the stats reveled today are:

• 9.7-inch multi-touch screen
• 1.5 pounds
• runs apps from the Apple app store
• attachable physical keyboard with stand
• iBook app store for buying books
• starts at $499 for the 16gig Wi-Fi version!
• iPad also comes in 32 and 64 gig versions
  

The atomic bomb that was dropped by Jobs was when the price for the base model was announced to be a low $499. Most rumor mills were expecting a price somewhere between $799 and $999. One of the new apps that Apple has revamped was the iBook store. The iBook app looked great and the interface blew the other eBook readers out of the water. So, when the price was announced, we all felt the same thing.

Kindle is dead.

According to Apple, five of the biggest publishers have already signed up to support and contribute to the iBook catalog. The new interface on the iPad using multi-touch looks very cool and innovative. You can store your books on a virtual shelf for easy access. Of course the reader is in color so to me it was like comparing the first Nintendo Game Boy to the Sony PSP. Which one would you play? The interface is similar to the iTunes store with the added ease of the multi-touch interface and app-style speed.

Will the iPad make it easier for people to switch to eBook format? Is the iPad a Kindle killer? Leave us a comment below!

Josh Self is the editor of The Horse. He is also a photographer and blogger for Examiner.com.
Follow him on Twitter @joshself or any of the other social media sites on the right.

Riding The Next Google Wave

Last week Google previewed the next step in interactive social media communication called Google Wave. Wave will be a combination of:

• - cloud document and media sharing
• - email / threaded email (like Gmail)
  
• - instant messaging

But what Wave will add to the mix will be features like:

• Twitter / social media site search and posting collaboration
• real time media insertion into blogs and web pages
• real time typing for all those on a Wave
• "playback" feature to rewind or forward to see what changes or comments were added in the past.
• live collaboration wiki style
• drag and drop files and media into a wave
• open source API
• Wave applications like Twave (for integration with Twitter) and other apps being developed later
• real time spell and grammar checker using the context of the sentence
  

This could be the first step from just the information age to the interactive information age. It really looks like Google has combined the quasi-real time features of Twitter and Friendfeed with cloud collaboration and added the real time interactivity into it. With many individuals and even families now choosing to leave the "land line" behind and rely on cell phones and their computers for all communication, tools like Wave will become more and more useful and important as we leave old technologies behind.

Old technologies that required us to use multiple steps and to switch between a myriad of different programs are being combined into one with new platforms like Wave. For example:

The old way:

1. You want to share a picture with your friends
2. you email you picture as an attachment to your friend
3. they decide to post the picture on Facebook
4. your friend Tweets about the picture
   
5. another friend emails you asking if they can post the picture to their blog
6. you email them back telling them its fine...
7. the picture has to be manually uploaded to the blog and formatted
8. someone wants to comment on the blog picture but isn't registered with the blog
9. that someone flame spams your comments because he is the ex-boyfriend of the girl in the picture
10. etc...

The new way:

1. You decide to share a picture with your friends
2. You start a Wave with any friend that has a Google account and post the picture for everyone's approval
   
3. You add Twave, Facebook app, and the Bloggy apps to the wave.
4. people on the Wave comment, delete, or add information in real time
   
5. you post the Wave to the Internet (which gets posted to Twitter, FB and your Blog all at the same time in real time.
6. The other people on the wave can keep the wave moving on by adding more people to the Wave and encouraging more interactivity.
   

Where we had to use 4 or 5 different tools before (email client, twitter client, FB, FTP or uploader) we now just use Wave to share and collaborate with anyone on the Wave.

The only problem I see with it is that Wave will make the tsunami (pun intended) of information overload that RSS and Twitter have brought to us look a ripple in the pond. Get your surf board waxed up, its gonna be a gnarly ride dude!

Summer Movies That Are Going To Rock Your Face Off!

This summer the movie studios have pulled out all the stops in the Action - Adventure genre for the summer blockbuster season. I'm just going to go ahead and say that May is going to ROCK YOUR FACE OFF!

So you've heard about the rumors and the hopeful release dates. I've got em all right here complied for you on The Horse. It looks like there's going to be at least one AWESOME geek movie released every single Friday night in May and more coming in June and July. So I'll start you off by telling you what "Josh" is going to see and I'll link you to a trailer for each of them. (no need to thank me...)

• May 1: X-Men Origins: Wolverine: (trailer here) staring Hugh Jackman (duh) and Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth. We see the start of Wolverine and his early story of the military conversion of mutants into killing machines and evolution into his X-Men character. Other characters we will finally see are: Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins), William Stryker (Danny Huston). Directed by Gavin Hood. News flash rumor mill! Apparently the unfinished movie has been leaked onto bit torrent sites already and was rumored to be one of the causes leading to the arrest interrogation of the owners of the Swedish The Pirate Bay warez and pirate peer to peer site last week. I chose to "not participate" and watch it in the theaters.
• May 8: Star Trek: (trailer here)Probably the most anticipated movie of the summer. JJ Abrams (Lost, Fringe, Cloverfield) directs in this prequel staring Chris Pine (Smokin' Aces) as James T. Kirk and Zachery Quinto ("Sylar" on Heroes) as Spock. Fans have been waiting for this prequel for a long time. This is going to be huge!
• May 15th: Angels and Demons: (trailer here)Adaptation of Dan Brown's earlier (and better in my opinion) book and follow up to Ron Howard's adaptation of The Da Vinci Code. Howard returns to direct Tom Hanks (returning as Robert Langdon), Ewan McGregor and Stellen Skarsgård in this historical thriller about a murder and time bomb in the Vatican and the ever ellusive Illuminati. I'm a huge fan of this book and I've been waiting for this ever since I heard the rumor last year and posted an early review trailer at the time in this post.
  
  
  
• May 21st: Terminator Salvation (T4): (trailer here) The latest in the Terminator franchise. Christian Bale stars as the grown up John Conner and according to Entertainment Weekly, this one is set in the future with a grown up John battling Skynet after Judgment day. Much of the plot and characters are being kept secret by the studio and with good reason after the semi-bomb of T3. But, Christian Bale is definitely proving himself as one of the coolest actors in Hollywood after The Dark Knight. This one doesn't look too bad. I've been a huge fan of the the Terminator movies since day 1 so, naturally I will go see this one.
• May 29th: Drag Me To Hell: (trailer here) I loved the trailer for this! And Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider Man) is the man. I learned almost everything I know about low budget film making from his movies and Bruce Campbell's books. It looks creepy and sounds like a good story. "A loan officer ordered to evict an old woman from her home finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse, which turns her life into a living hell. Desperate, she turns to a seer to try and save her soul, while evil forces work to push her to a breaking point."(from IMDB). Staring Justin Long, Alison Lohman and Lorna Raver as Mrs. Ganush
• June 24th: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: (trailer here) The much anticipated sequel to Michael Bay's rendition of the super popular toy and cartoon franchise. Shaia LaBeouf and Megan Fox return for this next thrilling chapter in the Transformers saga. I'm in geek heaven!

Also in July comes Public Enemies (with Johnny Depp), the new Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, and ... hold your breath... G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra! Because "knowing is half the battle..."

Seeya at the theater all next month!

Finding Your New Netbook And Why Dell Is Winning

So, probably by now you've heard about the "netbook" revolution going on right now. Netbooks are sub-mini laptops ranging in size from 8-12 inches and usually under 1 inch width. Most Netbooks weigh in at around 2-3 pounds and fit in the palm of your hand. Most of them run on Intel's new Atom processor designed for small size and low power consumption:

Newly designed from the ground up, 45nm Intel® Atom™ processors pack an astounding 47 million transistors on a single chip measuring less than 26mm², making them Intel's smallest and lowest power processors.¹ All this while delivering the power and performance you need for full Internet capabilities.
(from Intel's website)

So, I finally took the dive and ordered the new Dell Mini 9 last week. It should be arriving next week and I'll have a full review and pictures here on The Horse for your enjoyment. In the meantime I'll give you guys some of my top contenders that were around $300 that I was looking at before I decided on the Dell Mini 9.

• Asus Eee PC 1008HA (Shell)
• MSI Wind U123
• Acer Aspire One
• HPMini 1000
  

In the end I decided on the Dell Mini 9 because my experience with Dell has always been great and they continue to put out great cutting edge gear and delivering top notch customer service. I felt confident that I could easily get a hold of Dell and get easy support if needed. The other reason I decided to go with Dell was that they took the chance on open source technology, mainly pre-installing Ubuntu Linux on most of their new Mini line of netbooks instead of continuing to feed Microsoft more money. I appreciate that option as I've been moving toward more and more open source software recently. (ie. OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird). It also didn't hurt that Dell had a discount day and I got my Dell Mini 9 for $199 (plus some minor upgrades ;-).

So, now I'm making the jump to Linux. Ubuntu 8 more specifically. I'm going to introduce you guys to Ubuntu and show you some cool features of this new OS here on The Horse starting later next month. Maybe I'll even do some simple tutorials and show you some of the cool things that Linux can do that Windowz can't.

(photo by Jeff Coleman on Flickr)

The Killers, Death Cab, and new music that I like

So, I started playing around on the iTunes Store last night trying to find all this great new music I've been hearing lately.
For those of you who don't know, I'm also a musician, been in 4 bands, played guitar for 15 years, bass for 10, piano / keys, etc... but I've been out of the music scene for a while when I got interested in film and photography. But I still have a longing and ear for good music when it comes along. So, here's what I've been groovin' on lately:


The Killers - Day and Age
I've loved The Killers since Hot Fuss came out in 2004. I used to listen to that album all the way through every time. So I was very happy with Day and Age when I heard it a few months ago. I'm really digging their single Human. The lyrics are reportedly based on a quote from Hunter S. Thompson where he commented that America is nowadays raising a "generation of dancers".

I'm a child of the 80's so I love that vintage synth sound and it sounds great with some modern rock guitar added. The production was done by Stuart Price who did a remix of "Mr Brightside" from Hot Fuss.

If you like The Killers, then you should check out 2 other great bands that have new albums:
Franz Ferdinand and Glasvegas. You've probably heard of Franz Ferdinand, but Glasvegas is a little more dark and dirty (ala B.R.M.C.) but still atmospheric and shoegazy.


Jakob Dylan - Seeing Things
I bought the first Wallflowers album the day it came out and went crazy for the lyrics, basing alot of my personal songwriting on their style. So, I was overjoyed when I heard that Jakob was putting out this album. His songwriting has actually improved (if that is possible) and Rick Ruben has done an amazing job of stripping the songs down to the basics and letting Jakob's vocals shine. Favorite tracks: "Evil Is Alive and Well", "Something Good This Way Comes", "This End of the Telescope"

Singles:

New Morrissey! - "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" from his new album Years of Refusal due out this month. I don't know why, but I've always found his voice interesting even though he's whiny and strange...


The Ting Tings - "That's Not My Name"
OK, this is my fun, guilty pleasure song right now... it makes me move... never mind, I'm sorry I brought this up... moving on to something more manly...


Killswitch Engage - "My Curse"
Melodic metal has always rocked my socks off. I admire metal bands that can actually sing (as well as scream! ie. Def Tones)


The Avitt Brothers - pretty much all of their early stuff from The Gleam and The Second Gleam. Great old school southern songwriting and lyrics with an Iron and Wine / Sam Beam vibe. Favorite tracks: "Murder In The City", "Bella Donna", "The Ballad of Love and Hate". They just came out with a new album called "Emotionalism" a few months ago that's worth checking out as well.
If you like Iron and Wine or the Avett Bros., you should check out Bon Iver, he has a new EP entitled Blood Bank that's really interesting and atmospheric.


Death Cab For Cutie - I've been pretty much obsessed with Ben Gibbard and his little bands (Death Cab and The Postal Service) for the past 2 or 3 years. One of the best lyric writers of all time. The new album Narrow Stairs is pretty decent, but in my opinion, not as mind blowing as Plans or Transatlanticism. (I didn't really mean to give it a bad review... just being honest)

Random pick that I just decided to check out and liked:

Company of Thieves - Ordinary Riches
Light and fun alternative rock. Strong female vocalist with a chugging rock backup. This new effort by Wind-Up Records (who brought us Creed, Evenescence and Seether) could be a nice fit into the indie female vocal sound that's so popular right now.

Well, I hope that wasn't an overload for you guys. I'm just trying to get you to try out some new music! Rock on with your bad selves until next time...