Web Worker Daily

I’ve talked about the importance of fitness for web workers many times before. A side effect of spending our days working online is that most of our working hours are spent sitting in front of a computer, so we should make a special effort to fit some type of physical activity into our daily habits. Having software to track my progress makes a big difference in my motivation to work out. I like being able to see that I ran faster or further today than I did yesterday, which helps me to always try to work a little harder everyday to keep the trend lines moving in the right direction.

This week, I’ve been playing with the RunKeeper iPhone app to track my workouts. I wanted to play with something different to track my runs, and some friends have been using RunKeeper, so I thought that I would give it a try. RunKeeper has been around for a while, so it is only new to me, but I like it way better than I thought I would. Read the rest of this entry »

Staying fit is particularly important for those of us who spend our days sitting in front of our computers. Exercise provides many benefits, including keeping your brain working better, improved mood, longer lifespan, increased stamina and reduced risk for many health issues. I’ve written before about how I use technology to keep myself on track and motivated about my fitness regime. This weekend, I ran across a great new fitness tool that uses the GPS functionality of my iPhone to automatically map my workouts and provide me with data including speed, distance, altitude, maps, photos and more.

MotionX-GPS for the iPhone comes in two flavors: a free Lite version with somewhat limited functionality and a full version currently available for $2.99. I used the Lite version for my evaluation, but I’m already thinking about upgrading to the paid version. I gave it a pretty good test with a 1.5-hour, 5.3-mile workout over a combination of city streets and a hike up a local mountain, but there are so many features packed into this app that I wasn’t able to test absolutely everything. Read the rest of this entry »

I spend a significant amount of time, more than I probably realize, naming things both online and offline. We have usernames, Twitter handles, blogs, training classes, books, events, and so much more. Each one needs to have a name, and many of us probably don’t spend as much time as we should when picking a name. Personally, I hate coming up with names: the brainstorming to come up with something unique, the paralysis of choosing, the uncertainty about choosing something that won’t work as well as you thought it would, having to change the name later, and more. I prefer being poked with a sharp stick.

I started thinking more about naming this week when I went to my fitness tracking web site, Gyminee, and found myself on a new web site, DailyBurn. After poking around on the blog to find out more about the change, I found this: Read the rest of this entry »