Jake’s Life

If you are crazy for tags then check out Litepost. From the Litepost web site:

Instead of burying the user in features they’ll never use, the Litepost webmail experience is simple and straightforward. Nothing in the interface is out of place, nor is any detail too small. Using webmail is suddenly a quick and intuitive workflow, rather than a chore. Browse, sort, read, manage, and send with ease.

Thanks to Jay and Ste–and their online gay agenda–I have been a Google Reader convert for the past week now. I started using RSS Bandit but found it to be bloated, then moved to Snarfer where I was happy. My only gripe was that I read feeds from my home and from my T-Mobile Wing. I would read feeds when I am bored at work, then come home and have the same ones to sort through again from my laptop. I decided to try out Google Reader and found the mobile version to be awesome: It loads fast, since it’s Google you can tag anything, and it helps keep things fresh.

I opened a Box.net account months ago but never really used it. I always have my web hosting server to store files on so never really thought I needed a typical web storage service. I also have a 350 GB external firewire drive so that was even less of a reason for me. Well, with this recent failing of the hard drive fiasco I have learned my lesson. What’s nice is that Box.net has a great customizable widget for posting on your web site to share certain files as well as a great mobile version. Also a great way to transfer files between devices if you do not have the proper cables or Bluetooth connections.

I wouldn’t say that I’m a “die hard” RPG fan, but I do enjoy a good game that I can engross myself in for a bit. Often those are RPG’s because they actually take some thought. Since I do a lot on Windows Mobile now I looked for one for a while. When I had my T-Mobile Dash, it was nearly impossibly to find one. They just don’t seem to make solid RPG’s for Windows Mobile Standard, but Professional edition has a few goodies. Undercroft is the best I’ve found so far. It has good graphics, gameplay, leveling system (although a bit slow, especially for Priests and Assassins), and plenty of areas to explore. There are only five major areas of the game, but each area has quite a lot of space in it to perform the multiple quests you’re given if you activate them.

UNDERCROFT

Great looking program for Windows Mobile devices.

SketchArtist — Vito Technology

If you are an Outlook 2007 user you know what I’m talking about. I rarely open Outlook on my laptop (most of my e-mails are sent from Outlook Mobile simply due to the fact that I rarely get e-mail that I need to respond to, and when I do it’s pretty short). If it was quicker I may just be tempted to though. I tried the following tip from PimpYourWork.com and it works great so far. I noticed the speed immediately improve.

Finally a real tip to speed up Outlook 2007!

Well after that whole car fiasco I needed something to make me feel better.

Okay, well I have a bit more self direction than that, but that’s just what I say.

I picked up the new T-Mobile Wing yesterday and decided that if I don’t like it or get that awful buyer’s remorse I would take it back. I do, after all, love my Dash. Before I got it I placed a Craigslist ad for my Dash to help pick up some of the cost of the Wing, and found an almost immediate buyer. I met with him in the early hours of the morning at a Shell station and we found his old Voicestream SIM card wasn’t working. He went and got a new one this morning, so that was sold, and now I paid about 60% of my Wing’s price off with my Dash. This doesn’t mean I had buyer’s remorse…it could have been letting-go-of-my-Dash remorse though.

So far I like the Pocket PC version of Windows Mobile 6 a lot. It’s more involved, obviously, and one thing I miss about the Dash is one handed messaging. The Wing has a set of keys on the left side, as well as the right. On the right (thumb area while holding it like a normal phone) is Voice Command and Messaging. Left side is the volume slider and camera app. The front has the usual keys: Send, End, left soft, right soft, and a navigation wheel with center key. It also has a Windows key and an OK key. It sounds crowded, but it doesn’t really feel like it.

So far I’ve installed the following:

Resco Explorer 2007: replacement for the file explorer and has several useful plugins such as registry editor, etc.

Spb Finance: financial tracking app which can sync with Money/Quicken/QFX files from your bank.

Spb Insight: RSS reader.

Spb Mobile Shell: This is a shell replacement which many PPC users preach about. Still trying it out.

Also, my car reached my birth year! I know, Sandro says I’m a geek too.

If you’re anything like me you read a lot from your mobile device. While Pocket IE is a great browser to read on the go, often web sites and their designers do not take into account the fact that images, Flash content, and those million rotating ads won’t load very quickly. I personally love it when designers aim for quick loading times.

Today I installed WP-PDA, a Wordpress plugin which renders the web site in a very friendly view for mobile devices. It doesn’t redirect the browser to a mobile version of the site, it just uses a modified mobile-friendly CSS style. It allows searching posts, category browsing, protected post access, and commenting.

This is how it looks on my T-Mobile Dash running Windows Mobile 6.

Of course, most of the blogs I read also have RSS feeds that I read through Newsbreak.

So this is pretty much the first post I’ve made about my fitness goals. Which, yeah, is slow going. I used to work at a gym, so I know a lot about the logistics and science of fitness, nutrition, and supplementation, but here is one thing I never learned: motivation. It should be simple. Just looking at myself in the mirror should make me want to work towards this change…looking at others should do it too. And believe me, it does, but wanting in one hand and shitting in the other always produces the same results. It’s been a personal battle for me and it’s something I am beginning again, so hopefully getting my feelings out about it will help me reach my goals, and maybe even get some support for it.

The kind of person I am, I keep track of everything. I use OneNote for school, preparing my assignments, keep track of classnotes, correspondence between myself and other students/professors. I use Outlook to plan meetings, outings with friends (that category is bare, lemme tell ya), appointments, and other plans. I store chat logs. So why not apply that to fitness tracking? It may help marginally with motivation in the sense that I can see results.

EvenFit is something I found a few months ago that may help (obviously the install file has been sitting in my downloads folder for a while). It’s organized in a very Outlook-esque way, with a calendar, notes section, fitness tracker, even a “Wellness Journal.” The calendar works in a pretty standard fashion, using it to enter workout plans or actual workouts and view previous and next months. The Workout section allows you to see all of the preset workouts, categories (Weight Training, Cardio, Running, Swimming, and Biking), organized by muscle groups, tools used, etc. You can even add new ones to fit your plan. One feature I really like about this (here comes the motivational part) is that it includes a Wellness Journal section that lets you track the noticeable details. Creating a new entry, you can enter your weight, BFI, caloric intake, hours of sleep, general notes, and set a photo. The great thing is you can choose a photo for side-by-side comparison. This is what will help make it real for me, I think, seeing my progress as I go. One reason I have not continued may be that I haven’t seen hard results, but looking down is different than head on, if that makes sense. Oh yeah, and Even Fit is free.

I’ve also come upon some interesting blogs and web sites lately having to do with fitness (Google: fitness+motivation+tactics):

• ShapeFit: Apparently a pretty comprehensive, albeit commercial site that gives a lot of benefits to even unpaid visitors.
• In Pursuit of Fitness: From the blog: “This blog was originally established by fitness trainer Jeremy Likness. Nowadays it’s the personal fitness journal of Jim Foster.”
• BeebleBlog: From the blog: “Hello I’m Beeble, for those of you who don’t recognise me I am that little voice inside your head that tells you when you should be exercising or when perhaps that extra piece of pie was not such a good idea. Well I don’t feel like, for all my trying that any of you are listening to me. But you are going to have to because I have my own blog now.”
• MuscleBlogs.net: This looks to be the infantile MySpace of body building and weight training. It doesn’t appear to have taken off quite yet though…

I know that gaining the respect of others just for having a nicer body is only a small portion of workout results (sarcasm), but do you think that it’s ridiculous someone has to go to all this trouble to “just work out?”

This morning I met up with someone for quasi-breakfast at Starbucks. We both work nights and were chatting on the evil entity known as Gay.com beforehand. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment type thing, definitely not planned. He seems like a cool guy, definitely seems well adjusted for our age, very similar views on certain things that I hold near and dear to my life. We know a few people in common, but nothing that can’t be worked through (j/k).

I updated Wordpress to 2.1, and I’ve started using Windows Live Writer for my blog. I used to use w. Bloggar to post from Windows. For a Microsoft program it’s pretty feature rich, although one thing I would love to see is a way to use password protection through Wordpress (currently I have to either write it through the Wordpress dashboard or publish it in WLW then change it). I’ve also started using Box.net, an online file storage service.

Well, I’m back at work tonight, so off to bed I go.