The Eric Wroolie Blog

Overpass Experiences

RunKeeper vs. Nike+

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A couple of years ago (in 2006), I started using the Nike+ iPod sensor while running. I’ve written several posts about it here.  I’ve written about how to attach the sensor to your shoe without buying Nikes special shoes with pockets in the souls and I’ve written an api to retrieve the data from the Nike+ site with C# to use in other apps.  I love the little device and it works perfectly with my iPod nano—it gives me music and a measurement of how far I’ve run (roughly).

But there are some things I really hate about the iPod Nike+ sensor.

First, it’s not as accurate as it could be.  The transmitter is attached to my left shoe, so it works like a pedometer.  I’m not a treadmill runner, so my self-pacing is terrible.  My stride is based on the terrain or my mood.  It’s not consistent—but it’s close enough.  It’s cheaper than shelling out for a Garmin Forerunner.

Second, it’s wasteful.  The transmitter in the shoe has a battery that can’t be replaced or recharged.  You have to buy a new one when it dies.  I’ve been through two of them now.  Last week I found that my standard three-mile run was registering as two and a half miles.  The battery in my shoe transmitter was running low again.  I really didn’t want to throw this into a landfill somewhere and buy a new one for £20.

Third, I can’t get to my data easily.  Nike has a website that stores all your run data.  It’s possible to get a feed of the data, but not officially.  Some people out there have found ways to tap into this data (Running Tracker, Ear-fung.us, and myself) —but they do this using an unofficial api into the Nike services (which sometimes changes).  Nike wants to build their own running community (we need another community?).

So, I started looking for an alternative.  A few months ago, a friend at work told me about an iPhone app which uses GPS.  I looked into it and started using RunKeeper, an iPhone app with an online service.  I’ve used it on a few runs, and I will never use Nike+ again.runKeeper

RunKeeper is better than Nike+ for the following reasons:

  • It uses GPS instead of a pedometer sensor
  • It maps your runs for you on Google maps and Google earth after the run.
  • I don’t have to buy a transmitter every twelve months.
  • I can track bike rides as well as runs.
  • I can still listen to music while running.

There are some things I would like to see in the application.  I still can’t get to my data except through their interface (that I know of) so an open API would be nice.  I need to turn off wifi before the run—which is not difficult, but the only awkward step (this is due to the way an iPhone works).  And, I’m not too crazy about the idea of taking my expensive phone out on runs with me.  But aside from this, the application works great.

If you are a Nike+ user, and you have an iPhone too.  Try this app.  You won’t go back.

Spotify online music service is pretty good

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I like to listen to music while coding.  I always have.  Sometimes I’ve worked at jobs where they allow this (media companies like BBC never mind developers with headphones) and some that don’t (investment banks never allow this).  So it’s nice when I get to do some coding at home on my own pc with my own set-up (Visual Studio 2008, twin monitors, etc) and my own music.  So when I’m at the desktop PC, I usually have iTunes open in another window.

So I have a pretty big music collection—not tied to a specific genre.  I’m hardly a connoisseur of music and would be out of place in any conversation about music, but I know what I like.

Yesterday I heard about Spotify from a friend who raved about it.  I downloaded the app and gave it a try.  I think I found my new background-music application for writing code.image

Spotify is a desktop application which streams music to the desktop. You can chose any song they have in their library (I have found most that I’ve looked for) and listen to whole albums, etc.  When I heard about it, I thought is sounded a lot like Last.fm, which is an okay personalised-radio station service application.  But Spotify seems to have no lag or buffering.  It seems to download the tracks as needed in one go, without streaming.  Not sure how the technology works underneath, but by watching the network usage on task manager, I see the network usage spikes only when a new track starts to play.

My only concerned with listening to music on the internet is that Orange broadband is already complaining about how much bandwidth I’m using in the evenings (since I spend a lot of time watching mlb.com, iplayer, and youtube videos).

I’ve found some articles online that refer to Spotify as an iTunes-killer.  I hardly think that’s the case.  If I was tied to this desk and never listened to music on my iPod in the car or while running, that would be the case, but you don’t keep the music, you just listen.  You can listen to albums or tracks and set up playlists.

Spotify is also being referred to as a legal alternative to piracy.  I can see that.

I’ve only started using it a few days ago, but am very pleased with it.  I’m using the free account (ad-supported), but they have pro accounts for £10 a month.  There are some adds inserted between the tracks, but I’ve listed by about 5 hours now and have only heard one.

It’s a nice service available in the UK now if you have a chance to take it out.

Fast Food while Dairy Intolerant

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Some members of my family are dairy intolerant.  This is usually fine when cooking at home (there are plenty of substitutes for milk products), but very difficult when going out.  During the Summer, I take my kids out on day trips around England and it is not always possible to prepare food in advance.  And, I love the junk food.  So, we’ll go to a fast food place.

The problem with dairy intolerance is that so many foods have milk (lactose, whey, or just “milk proteins”) in their ingredients.  Common sense doesn’t work when trying identify what has milk in it.  Most types of hot dogs, for example, include milk protein (but not all of them).  The tomato sauce on Pizza Hut pizzas include milk.  The BBQ ribs at TGI Fridays contain milk.  It has taken me a while to learn what to look out for.

If you have children that have (or you yourself has) an intolerance or allergy, you know how difficult this can be.  Last week, for instance, I stopped into a Subway and asked the store manager if their rib sandwich contained any dairy products.  He looked annoyed and told me that he had to read the ingredients on the box back in the freezer.  I asked him if he could do that.  He disappeared for a minute and returned with a giant white box which he read the side of.  “No, no milk,” he said.  But I couldn’t be sure if he was looking for the term “lactose” or “whey” or anything else which might include it.

Most fast-food chains make nutritional literature available online (although never usually available in the store).  I’ve printed out the documents for all the major chains which exists in the UK and pasted them all together.   I’ve found that printing all of the documents out (two pages to a sheet–double sided) and highlighting all the milk products makes going out for fast food a bit easier.  It’s easy to keep this print-out in the car so we have it if we need it.

Here is a set of links of the big chains ingredient documents.  These are all American chains, but the links are to the UK sites (not sure if they vary in the UK).  If you have children with food intolerance, I hope you find this useful.

McDonalds

http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/static/pdf/food/OurFood-Booklet.pdf (pages 8-27 have ingredients listed)

Burger King

http://www.burgerking.co.uk/files/documents/ingredients.pdf

KFC

http://www.kfc.com/nutrition/pdf/kfc_allergens_april09.pdf

Pizza Hut

http://www.pizzahut.co.uk/media/77466/ingredients_list_starters_&_sides-0609.pdf

Dominos

http://www.takeafreshlook.co.uk/downloads/PizzaBasesToppingsIngredients.pdf