The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

I’ve been lax lately on posting articles (many are in various stages of being published) - a few life-changing events are happening, and I’ve been working on a couple of other projects. I have decided to prematurely launch one project today, due to an interesting survey on Wordpress security released today. The project is a new site called NoShrinkWrap, and will focus on reviewing mainly Web2.0 apps.

I’ve been an avid Techcrunch reader for some time now; while I appreciate the timely and interesting news they post, I’m always left wanting more information on the products they talk about. That is the hole NoShrinkWrap will fill - posting reviews complete with screenshots, company information, tips and tricks, and more. For anyone who doesn’t get web2.0, or who doesn’t understand what an application will do for his or her life, or wants more information on the latest web2.0 buzz app, this site is for you. As I’ve really enjoyed learning more about Wordpress, NoShrinkWrap will also host related topics including plugins, themes and how to write them.

I realized when I started reviewing Joost and Traineo that I really enjoy using and reviewing different apps. I don’t want to saddle TheLifeLedger with unrelated content, and I don’t want to constantly shoe-horn reviewing apps into a health-related topic, so these reviews will move to NoShrinkWrap.

Thanks for being a member of TheLifeLedger community. Expect more articles soon, and I hope you enjoy the new project.

Thank you for visiting The Life Ledger. If you enjoyed this article, check out the related posts below and subscribe to our feed.

TechCrunch reported yesterday that eBay is close to acquiring StumbleUpon, according to a Wall Street Journal report. TechCrunch has this to say about the merger:

If the deal is finalized it’s an interesting move by eBay. Paypal was core to eBay’s Auction business. Skype could be justified as a tie into the Auction business as well. So where does StumbleUpon sit? People “stumbling” from site to site with a business model the revolves around selling page views seems like an odd fit. A sign that eBay is looking to expand into new markets perhaps? Time will tell.

The blogosphere seems to echo the sentiment - what’s up eBay’s sleeve? At a glance, StumbleUpon doesn’t seem to add anything to eBay’s core business. Look a little closer though, and I find two reasons eBay has a lot to gain from StumbleUpon - retention and navigation.

eBay has become a morass of auctions, barely navigable through search tools and categories. Auctions are mistakenly placed in incorrect categories, people mis-spell or don’t use the right keywords and title words, search results depend on words used in title and description - it’s a mess. What eBay needs is a way for its community members to select favorite keywords or categories and rate auctions, then use that information to weight and correct searches. As an added benefit, providing such community rating and commenting tools would give community members something else to do on eBay’s site, where they may possibly stumble across an auction or two that inspires a bid. Enter StumbleThru.

StumbleUpon’s new feature StumbleThru could very well be the feature that pushes eBay to new community-centered heights. Improved searches, randomly discovering auctions based on user preferences, a comment and product rating system, tagging - eBay appears to be purchasing in one fell swoop an entire community of people already enjoying and familiar with the process of rating and commenting on sites who would likely gladly do the same for eBay auctions - after all, who doesn’t like rating and commenting? eBay could even further expose auctions by offering a “stumble this on eBay” option in browsers and an official eBay widget or “blog this” feature. Once this core group of current StumbleUpon users builds visible content, I imagine more eBay users will get swept up in the excitement of rating and voicing opinions, using these new features to improve navigation and randomly discover new auctions. Amazon has shown us that adding community features is a great way to increase visibility and user-retention; with StumbleUpon, eBay could leapfrog into the community game and improve its existing technology at the same time. It’s a win-win.

GigaOM has something similar to say:

Look at this from the toolbar-and-Skype lens. StumbleUpon makes a toolbar that provides collaborative serendipity to find web sites. The toolbar, if you ask StumbleUpon users provides more useful and productive results, than say Google.

By marrying the toolbar to Skype client, eBay can do an end run around Google’s dominance of the search business. A simple search box inside Skype client is all it would take. It is not that far fetched: Skype has been slowly integrating various different services (including PayPal) into its client, and slowly becoming eBay’s desktop backdoor.

I don’t know about the whole Skype thing, but I agree with what Om says without saying it - marrying the StumbleUpon community to eBay’s auction-centered site will improve searching, increase the amount of time people spend on eBay’s site and promote auctions. Surely that’s worth $75 million?

Anyway, if I haven’t bored you, here’s some more health-related items I’ve stumbled recently:

Better Ideal Weight Body Calculations (stumble reviews) - interesting calculator that discusses BMI & People’s Choice (new one for me) methods of establishing a goal weight. While I’m not fond of calculators that don’t expose the math, I really dig this line: “Women tend to imagine their ideal weight is unrealistically low, so they diet unnecessarily. Men tend to allow their ideal weight to be higher than medically recommended. Men and Women should learn from each other.”

Sports Fitness Advisor (stumble reviews) - articles and information on a wide array of topics, including workout routines for specific muscle groups, training ideas for specific sports and more.

The World’s 7 Most Potent Disease-Fighting Spices at SixWise.com (stumble reviews) - descriptions and health benefits of 7 herbs and spices, including research citations. The site has other similar articles including nuts and berries.

The World’s Healthiest Foods at whfoods.com (stumble reviews) - HUGE list of foods and their nutrition benefits. Articles include research citations. Great resource - I’ll be consulting this one myself.

ririanproject (stumble reviews) - great “positivity” blog with frequent articles on productivity, positive thinking, self-improvement and related topics. Interesting recent articles include “Ten Commandments for Living a Life Free of Regrets”, “Get Your Soul In Shape With These 11 Most Deeply Held Wisdoms” and “9 Effective Ways To Get 200% More Work Done”.

Eating Fabulous (stumble reviews) - a b5media blog focused on food-related news.

If you’re interested, you can follow all my reviews and join up as a friend at http://charshman.stumbleupon.com/ (soon to be stumbleebay.com?), and I’d love to see interesting links you’ve stumbled or discovered - leave ‘em in the comments.

Traineo launched in August 2006 with the mission “to create the most effective weight loss and fitness community on the web by combining the latest software technology with sound information and services from the world’s leading health and fitness experts.” It’s been getting a lot of press lately, even earning an article on Arrington’s TechCrunch. Traineo is gaining the reputation as the poster-child for Web 2.0 weight-loss, and serves as a good starting point for reviewing online fitness journals.

First, let’s get that Web 2.0 moniker out of the way - what does it mean, and what can it bring to fitness? Web 2.0 was first coined by O’Reilly, and is a vague, near-meaningless descriptor meant to define the “new web,” an advancement beyond the idea of static, text-based pages. While the Web 2.0 descriptor is difficult to nail down, it’s easier to identify features following Web 2.0 principles - social networking (enabling interaction among users), tagging / folksonomy (enabling interaction between users and the data) and websites as applications are all examples of Web 2.0 features. Traineo is spiced with Web 2.0 principles including a call-in show packaged as a podcast, user-created groups, “motivators,” forums and more. With all these new-age features, how does Traineo do with providing the basic fitness journal features?

Traineo’s developers clearly intended to create a simple, easy-to-use weight-loss service that focuses primarily on community support, secondarily on daily caloric intake and eschews more complicated notions of nutrition. Traineo members share information through forums and support through “motivators” and private messages. Traineo offers several search features for finding like-minded members, and allows members to form groups complete with their own private forums and message areas. Recording data is as simple as choosing a caloric intake and exercise for the day.

The nutshell - If you are looking for a simple, user-friendly service to log only daily caloric intake and exercise, do not care to record or analyze daily nutrition, and are seeking an active support group with several communication features, Traineo is the place for you. If, however, you are interested in learning more about your daily nutrition and the caloric and nutritional value of the particular foods you eat, you will quickly outgrow what Traineo has to offer.

Read the full review after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

A while back I mentioned listening to podcasts as one way I make exercising more fun and more consistent. I personally find podcasts much more interesting than music for exercising for three main reasons:

• Listening to people talk is much more engaging than listening to music
• Podcasts are topical, so I can listen to people talk about something I’m interested in (or you can listen to music centered around a particular theme, if that’s your bag)
• Podcasts are serial, so I look forward to the next installment as a part of my exercise routine

Since mentioning podcasts as part of my exercise routine, I’ve been asked what podcasts I listen to while exercising, what mp3 player I use and what podcatching software I use. I chose the SanDisk Sansa e280 media player because it’s flash-based (I’m not interested in a harddrive-based player), has a nice interface and an expandable memory slot. After using a couple of other podcatchers (including Juice, HappyFish and a few others), I settled on Ziepod due to the interface and slew of advanced features, like dynamically renaming files and tags as it downloads episodes. Here’s a Ziepod screenshot:

Here’s an incomplete list of some of my favorites podcasts to listen to while exercising:

• This American Life
  My absolute favorite podcast - Ira Glass has a way of picking the absolute most fascinating topics and stories that seem boring at first, but end up engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking. Make sure you set your podcatching software to download this one - only the current week’s episode is available for free.


Tech-related

• This Week in Tech (TWiT)
  Leo Laporte’s a strong personality behind the podcasting movement, and TWiT is the foremost show in his podcast netcast network. I have to admit I haven’t liked Leo much in the past - I liked Patrick Norton better on The Screen Savers (Patrick, by the way, is currently serving up shows at dl.tv), and liked Chris Pirillo’s version of Call for Help more than Leo’s. All that aside, I really enjoy listening to Leo’s netcasts - I think he really shines in this medium. TWiT in particular gathers together several personalities that enjoy talking about tech and BS about tech news, making for some great moments (my favorite so far is Steve Gibson and John Dvorak going rounds about spam). If you like tech, this is an entertaining fluff podcast.

• Security Now (Another member of Leo’s netcast network)
  Steve Gibson is pretty entertaining to listen to and does a good job breaking down complex security issues into understandable concepts. I like the interplay between Leo and Steve, and the topics they cover are interesting and advanced enough to keep my attention.
• This Week in Media
  This is a great podcast for someone who appreciates four people who love to talk about their passion - all things media. Fortunately, when these guys geek out, it’s still entertaining (particularly since they stopped talking about the Red camera).
• Other tech-related podcasts I enjoy include Chris Pirillo Show, Engadget, TalkCrunch, FLOSS, Windows Weekly.


Disney-related

• WDWToday
  My wife and I went to Disney World for our honeymoon, and I have been hooked since - I love going to WDW, I love reading news about Disney (check out Jim Hill’s articles for some fascinating reads), and I love listening to podcasts about Disney. WDWToday runs about 20 minutes per show, has great hosts and fun topics. This is one worth downloading and listening to previous shows - if nothing else, the antics of Len Testa (co-author of the my Disney bible, Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World and owner of the world’s biggest coffee drip) never fail to make me laugh.
• WDW Radio Show
  Lou Mongello has written a couple of Disney trivia books and hosts a fun, informative podcast. While Lou doesn’t make me laugh as much as Len Testa, I do enjoy WDW Radio Show for all the fascinating tips, trivia, Disney backstory and ride-throughs. Lou’s previous podcast, MouseTunes, is also worth listening to - although some of the information is dated, there are some fun, timeless segments to be found.
• Some other Disney-related podcasts I enjoy listening to include Magical Definition and Imagineering My Way.


Other topics

• The Wordpress Podcast
  Who’d have thought listening to people talk about blogging engines could be interesting? I just started listening to this show - as this blog runs on Wordpress, I enjoy listening to the latest news, plugins etc. For Drupal users, Lullabot hosts an interesting podcast.

For audio books, I’ve used two interesting resources: PodioBooks and LibriVox.

There’s a slew of other podcasts I’ve subscribed to or tagged, but just haven’t had the time to listen to. Have I missed your favorites? Share them in the comments!