The Eric Wroolie Blog

Overpass Experiences

Nike+ Sensor for the Ipod Nano

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When I left BNP Paribas, my wonderful colleagues bought me an IPOD Nano. This is something I never would have bought for myself, so it was perfect. I love it and run with it all the time.

This week, I tried out the new Nike+ Ipod sensor this week. This cool little gadget tracks your runs and allows you to listen to music at the same time.

A couple of months ago, Apple and Nike teamed up to produce the Nike+ running music system. This includes the IPOD Nano (which is perfect for running since it uses flash memory instead of a hard drive), a special receiver which attaches to the base of the Ipod and a small sensor which sits in the sole of a special Nike+ shoe.

ImageThe sensor in the shoe is picked up by the receiver in the Ipod and tracks your distance, calories burned, current speed, etc. By touching the centre button of the Ipod while running, you get a male of female voice give you a status report (ie. “Twenty-three minutes. Distance: 2.43 miles. Current Speed: 7:13 minutes per mile.” When you sync up your Ipod with iTunes at the end of your run, your workout details are uploaded to a secure page on the Nike website which tracks your running history, speed, etc. You can also, they say, challenge someone else to a distance race on the other side of the world.

This technology has been around for about a month or so. The sensor kit itself only costs about £20, which is not too steep if you already have the Nano. The real cost is the special Nike+ shoe that is “required” to use the kit. This little gadget ensures you are stuck with Ipod and Nike for the rest of your life.

However, after doing some web research, I found articles detailing how to use the sensor with Non-Nike+ shoes. It involves putting some Velcro on the tongue of your shoe and the the sensor and placing it under your laces. I’ve done that to my Nike (but non-Nike+) shoes. It worked great. The distance reported was very accurate and I found it alarming how slow my running speed was at times. For the base sensor kit, I got all the bells and whistles without the expensive shoes.

If you’ve found this post because you want to know if the velcro method of attaching the sensor works or not, I can attest that it does. It works very well. Now, I’m listening to music or audio books and keeping track of my miles accumulated.

I highly recommend the Nike+ Ipod sensor (but not the shoes).

You can buy the sensor from Apple Store. http://store.apple.com

Chat Etiquette

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I don’t know very much about chat etiquette. I can hold a normal conversation just fine. Email is easy enough. But the chat, that’s something all new to me.

Instant messaging is a great tool. It serves as a nice half-way point between email and phone call. I use it a lot for Overpass business. If I need to send you a message to say something like “Feel like going to lunch?” or “Are you watching the news right now?” then text chats are great. I don’t want to interrupt you with a phone call if your busy, but I don’t want to wait for you to check your email when it’s too late.

But when someone starts a chat message through Skype, MSN, or Yahoo and talks forever–I want to ask them for a voice conversation. I don’t like typing something and watching the “So-and-So is typing reply . . .” in the status bar. I start to get overly critical of their typing speed.

I often answer questions while they are typing new questions, which gets confusing.

There also seems to be no clear way to end a chat.

Otherperson: I’d better get going.

Me: Me too. See ya.

(I think it should end here, right? Close the chat window, but it pops up again)

Otherperson: Bye

Me: Bye

Otherperson: Have a good weekend.

Me: You too.

Otherperson: See you later.

Me (exasperated): Okay. Goodbye!

You see what I mean? It just goes on and on. I’ve spent twenty minutes in a chat conversation where my mind starts to wander and I surf while waiting for the other person to type a message before seeing “Otherperson: Are you still there?”

The needs to be chat rules. Anyone know of any?

MSDN Evenings in Reading

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A few years ago, I used to attend loads of MSDN evening event held at Microsoft Campus in Reading in the UK. They are basically a little lecture on a developer-centric topic with a small intermission and dinner. I’ve been to events about Asp.net, Biztalk server, Office XP, etc.

I just got back from my first Microsoft event for about three years.

Tonight’s topic: Windows Vista for Developer Features Beyond .Net.

The presentation was given by Daniel Moth and I was very impressed with the presentation.

One of the reason’s I haven’t been to many events recently is that I figured “well, I can just watch a webcast anytime I want.” But, I’m starting to realise some of the flaws with that theory. There is a big difference between watching a webcast and attending an event live.

Watching a webcast does not demand your full attention. Usually, the speaker, without an audience to feed off of, speaks in a monotonous voice and literally reads of power point slides. I often find it difficult to pay close attention and will start shifting through papers on my desk, etc. In a webcast, you can’t hear the reactions of the audience. With Microsoft products, it is not uncommon to hear developers groan at some of the claims made of the product. It’s always nicer to do this collectively.

Now, I don’t think all webcasts are bad. The DNRTV screencasts are very interesting with more code than slides and you get to witness Carl Franklin’s sense of humour when talking about otherwise dry subjects. I also find Rory Blythes screencasts on Channel9 to be very entertaining. But usually, booooring.

Tonight’s MSDN presentation by Daniel Moth was very good. No one looked bored, everyone enjoyed the stealth jokes, and I didn’t once feel like I was being fed marketing information on how great Vista would be. He was very objective with how things should work.

Another nice thing about attending a live event is hearing other people’s concerns and questions that had not occurred to me yet. I also get to hear the usual developer cynicism. While some, like myself, obviously thought incorporating RSS feeds into our applications would be a great idea, others claimed they couldn’t see the reason for it.

When we were looking at the new Vista Sidebar, someone asked why anyone would use it when they had Google Sidebar. A collective groan filled the room.

Attending a live event also gives you the opportunity to chat with other like-minded developers. Great.

If you like in the UK near Reading or London, I highly recommend attending a Microsoft event.