6 Degrees Of Me

I run regularly.  I’m not very good at it but it gets the job done in keeping my overly vain obsession of not having a gut in checkcheck.  I was reading running my ass off a few months ago. It a running blog written by one of the princes of making dolo online.  She talked about how she bought the nike plus and how it helped her bang out some long ass runs on her way to preparing for a marathon.

I picked up an ipod nano and the 30 dolla nike plus a few weeks ago.  I’ve gotta say, I’m a pc-ho and have always had a strong allegiance to the PC world.  I think part of that is just the herd mentality.  Apple makes dope products. period.

The nikeplus works but insert a small plastic transmitter in your shoe (or in my case, my sock) and a radio transmitter on the end of the nano.  It tracks:

-distance

-time

-pace

-calories

it’s like having your very own treadmill display  AND music in a device that weighs about as much as nothing.  It took a bit to configure the device correctly and get it in the right spot in my sock so that it always works.  But i’ve got the system down pat and from what  I’ve heard the sucka is accurate to within feet.

two cool features:

distance: you set the distance that you want to run.  A voice lets you know when you hit certain milestones on your way to your goal……….. 1 mile…. 2 miles…. 200 metres to go…. Awesome and absolutely dangerous feature.  I’m pretty sure I died a few times mid-stride since I bought it.

new record: when you break your old distance record you get a congratulatory message from Lance Armstrong. I would have much preferred the Dalai Lama or Optimus Prime but Armstrong will do.

The total cost of everything was about 2 bones including tax. Well worth the dolo.

Popularity: 8%

I just wrote up a quick review about one of google’s older products, google sms when of course I happened upon another new feature that google has just pimped out:

How is Times Square in NYC looking these days? Click on the Pic to find out. This is google’s newest feature within Google Maps, Google Street View.

How does it work?

Navigate to Google Maps as you normally would. Type in your address and hit search. Then Click on the Street View button:

You might have to zoom your map in to get to a closer street level. Once you do you’ll see the little yellow man icon (was that racist?). Wherever Street View is available, is highlighted in blue. Drag your little dude onto one of those streets and presto…You can snoop in on husband and wife walking baby in central park:

Street View allows you to zoom in a couple of times and also allows you to spin the camera around 360 Degrees for a nice panoramic effect. There are a bunch of other features within Google Street View but I’m sure you’re already gone from here and are playing around with it.

Google’s reach is getting pretty scary. One day I can see myself doing a search for my name and getting a Street View that shows me in the shower in a compromising position. Street View. Be Careful. Big Brother is Watching.

Popularity: 3%

The title says it all. I actually found an alarm clock that manages to get its owner out of bed quicker than the bacon frying one. Ingenious idea. Create a clock that donates your money whenever you snooze. Losing money while you sleep is bad enough but giving money away to people/groups of people you don’t like – truly evil:

The SnÅ«zNLÅ«z uses the very complex psychological phenomemon known as ‘HATRED’. Basically it’s human nature to wish harm upon your enemies. Similarly, it’s human nature not to give your enemies gobs of cash so that they can grow big and dominate the world with their totally wrong, stupid and invalid point of view. ThinkGeek realized that. That’s why everytime you hit the snooze button, the SnÅ«zNLÅ«z will donate a specified amount of your real money to a non-profit you hate. The problem of sleeping in is solved.

Well, I already give a payday portion away to a good cause… Perhaps I’ll purchase this guy and start donating to some “not so good causes”. Any ideas? Get your Snuz On

Popularity: 1%

Update 2: I managed to pull a couple of screen shots from Joost. Here’s an episode of that Sweet 16 show from MTV:

And here’s a screen shot of the Joost Invites that I’ve sent out. I’m showing this because one of the commenters suggested that people were asking and not receiving. Guess who won’t be receiving an invite from this guy? Your Bad

Update: The invites are working now. Who wants them? Note: The app still crashes a lot. You’ve been warned.

[[[Update: BUGGY BUGGY BUGGY. After using it for a couple of times it crashed and required a reinstall. The invites feature is not all I hoped to to be either. I should have tested it on my own email account before pimping invites. For those that have already commented, I know who you are and will get the invite when I can fix this sucker.. Apologies!!!]]]

I randomly found someone in the blogosphere that was offering invites to Joost. For those that haven’t heard Joost is the ultimate pc to tv experience (that means you can watch tv on your computer, mom). It took me about 3 seconds to set up and I was browsing shows in about 5 minutes. **Note: the installer did advise me that my video card on my laptop was 1/16 the recommended capacity. This might be a problem over an extended period of time** The interface is really good looking. Unfortunately, my capture tools kept coming up blank, so no pretty pictures with this post.

The big issue that I have with the service and the major stumbling block for general public acceptance of these types of services like these is that you’re still watching tv on your pc/laptop. The company that gets this right will provide an easy way to watch the boob tube AND provide a slick internetting interface to send emails/IMs/surf/etc at the same. Maybe Joost will eventually offer hardware that sits atop your tv and interfaces cleanly with a remote/keyboard. I remember Microsoft gave it a go a couple of years ago and somehow I can’t find a reference to that box-atop-television gadget that they were pushing. Was it Microsoft TV? Anyway, here’s Joost commercial I found on Youtube:

Joost is invite only. Lucky I got free invites. Leave a comment. But leave an email address with your comment and you get an invite. If you leave a fake address, your invite goes there. Pretty simple stuff.

Oh, and for you Mac-Heads, from what I can tell the service is offered on your one-button-mouse systems too.

Popularity: 28%

This is an oldie-but-goodie tip that I’ve been using for the past 3 year that I hope a lot of you are already using: Google SMS. It’s really simple… text message a quick phrase to #466453 (that spells GOOGLE) for something you need an answer to and get a response back in about 15 seconds.What exactly can you get an answer to on your cellie? Everything in the Search Features column on the left. The column on the right shows examples of what to enter into your cell to get those answers.

I mostly use the SMS feature to find hidden treasures restaurants when I’m in NYC. I was just in the city last night and Ramya wasn’t around to be my guide. A quick “Mexican 10012″ to google and I had 3 restaurants texted to me in seconds.

Calling 411 has gotten better in the past few years. Now the operator can do a few extra things like sending SMS messages of the listing to your mobile. The last time I checked my phone bill though, 411 was like a $1.50. I’d rather take free and I’m sure you would too.

Oh… the other feature I use a bunch is the Glossary feature. I’ve won a few bets wagered against my Ivy League educated brethren when challenged over my vocab selection. Don’t Hate.

I actually just noticed that there are driving directions included in google SMS. I’m going to have to try that out since I’m still too cheap to splurge on a GPS.

So try it out sometime. You should also create a “GOOGLE” contact in you cellie so that you have easy access to Google SMS when you need it . . .

Popularity: 3%