On June 1, I joined WeightWatchers Online.

I am a technology worker. I work entirely from home and sit at a desk for long hours. After which I like to sit and watch TV or play video games. I realized 2 years ago that this lifestyle and long term health do not go hand in hand. With this knowledge we purchased a Lifestyles Elliptical machine, and I began working out.

For 2 years I’ve used the elliptical machine 4 days a week. When I first started I could barely workout at 0 intensity for 20 minutes, not even making it to 2 miles in that time. After a year I was up to 40 minutes, intensity level 10 and over 4 miles, using the various pre-programmed routines. Shortly after Christmas 2008, I was up to 5 miles in 40 minutes, same intensity and same routines. However, in the 2 years my weight remained unchanged between 235 and 242.

My wife is a lifetime WeightWatchers member, and has been for 6 years. We do eat on the healthy side, but my lack of weight loss had me confused. I decided it was time for me to join. At the very least when I wasn’t losing weight they’d have nutritionists and trainers to tell me what I was doing wrong.

The first week I lost almost 6 pounds. It appears that portion control was the #1 problem.

Now almost 4 months later, I’ve lost 35 pounds. I am still losing, and feeling great.

I’ve been using the elliptical machine in our basement for the last two years, 4 days a week pretty consistently.

When I first started I could barely last 20 minutes, and even then it was a low intensity and I didn’t travel too far. Before injuring my back, I was able to do 5 miles in 40 minutes with an intensity level of 10, or 6 miles in 45 minutes same intensity.

With my back feeling much better (once I’ve loosened up), I attempted another 5 miles in 40 minutes again. What was different this time is I set the elliptical for an interval workout. 1 minute no intensity where I’d travel at 10mph, and the next minute level 10, trying to stay around 5mph.

Wow what a workout! After 20 minutes I wasn’t able to maintain the 5mph at intensity level 10 and had to be satisfied with over 3.5mph.

greg hughes – dot net – How to exclude a domain from your Google search results

Yes! No more Experts Exchange in my search results.

OSX: Changing the “Web Receipts” Folder

Due to the recent holiday season I had a number of receipts that were either on my iMac or the MacBook Pro, but not both. Trying to find the receipt for one purchase meant checking both computers, which is silly, I am a Dropbox user afterall.

I had thought it would be a simple matter of moving the receipts into the Dropbox Documents directory and creating an alias from Documents/Web\ Receipts to Dropbox/Documents/Web\ Receipts, but this stopped the Print to PDF from working.

Following the instructions in the link I was able to setup a new option that prints receipts directly into Dropbox’s Web Receipts folder.

Games

• Fallout 3
• Dead Space

Movies

• Chronicles of Narnia (bluray)
• Prince Caspian (bluray)
• The Dark Knight (bluray)
• Cars (bluray)
• The Mummy (bluray)
• The Fifth Element (bluray)
• A Knight’s Tale (DVD)

Electronics

• PS3 Bluray Remote

Clothes

• American Eagle Hoodie
• Comfy Pants
• Skates
• Long sleeve Roots T

Toys

• Lego Droid Minifigs

Misc

• Photo Mug
• Corona Gift Set
• Wallet
• Star Wars Book

Installing Oracle 11g on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)

New virtual machine, new version of Ubuntu, new version of Oracle. Time for new instructions.

It started with pTerm. About 5 minutes after purchasing pTerm, I found out about iSSH, which was delivering on everything that pTerm was promising to have in 2 months.

Next came DataCase. Not having to carry a 2GB USB thumbdrive, which I tend to break in pockets, has appeal on its own, but being able to use the iPhone’s 16GB of storage had me hooked (I don’t have any video or music on my phone, I have an iPod Touch for that). Shortly after, AirSharing was released and for free. While they appear to have the same functionality, DataCase still wins as its sharing is done via AFP. The iPhone shows up automatically in Finder as a network resource. But free with a little work beats $7 with no work.

Recently, I purchased What’s On? With the promise that Canadian support would soon be added. It’s well known that application submissions to Apple can take a long time. I’ve been waiting 3 weeks now. Still no Canadian support, and a long comes i.TV with Canadian support for free.

I am using i.TV now, however I find it slow, and cumbersome to use, it needs web integration for easier configuration. I keep checking to see if What’s On? has finally been updated (it hasn’t), hoping it will be better. Today however I discovered TVStatus which appears to do everything I’m looking for, I need to know a new episode is on, not necessarily on which channel.

I’m now afraid to buy new applications, as what happens tomorrow when something better or free comes out to replace what I’d bought?

The iPhone is a real love/hate relationship. When it works, it is the most amazing piece of technology. Everything that Apple promises. When it’s not working, I want to throw it through the wall.

The 2.1 iPhone update fixed a lot of the issues I had been experiencing. I now have full use of my phone and the performance is greatly improved.

That doesn’t mean that there still aren’t things that I want. Everyone has a list, this one is mine.

Copy and paste

This is probably the top of everyone’s list. I am a big proponent of the 1Password application. On a Mac it works great. Automatically filling in my passwords and user IDs. The iPhone version is functional, and allows me to carry my passwords with me. However trying to remember 20 character random passwords while configuring a new application is impossible.

A central keychain

Chances are I already have an ID and password for a desktop version of an application I’m installing on the phone. Why do I need to enter my credentials?The OS X keychain should sync automatically to the phone and have access to the information contained within.

Back to my Mac

I am a paying member of MobileMe. There are multiple VNC clients for the iPhone. Why hasn’t Apple made one that works with Back to My Mac and the same way that screen sharing works with OS X? Sure I can turn on VNC access but that’s a separate ID and password from what the system already has.

Mail

While paying for MobileMe is fresh in my mind, why am I limited to one signature for all my mail accounts? MobileMe knows all my mail accounts and the signatures fort each. They should also be available on my phone.

And what about mail rules in the cloud? Again MobileMe has a copy of these. My me.com address should be able to apply these even if only routing mail to the proper mailbox.

Google now supports push email to Android phones, where’s support for the iPhone?

Lastly smtp.me.com needs to allow routing of adresses other than me.com. I have multiple email addresses that I would like push enabled for, and could forward to me.com but having to select a from address when in a hurry is just a pain. At least with mail on the Mac it automatically selects the from address of the mail address the email was sent to. Of course if Gmail enables support push to the iPhone this point becomes moot.

Icon arrangement

The 2.1 firmware helped a lot with icons no longer moving when an update is done, however I still have over 100 apps and arranging them on the iPhone is a pain. What would be nice is if the application tab on iTunes had a mock iPhone display that I could drag applications around on. Installing an app would be dragging from a list of apps onto the iPhone screen.

Profiles

When I’m at home, I want Wifi enabled, 3G, Bluetooth, and vibrate off. When I leave the house, I want 3G, Bluetooth and vibrate on, with Wifi disabled. I want to quickly and easily switch profiles. Right now to do these changes takes too much time so I don’t.

ADD: One thing I forgot to mention about profiles, Push. I want it disabled when I’m at home, and enabled when I’m out. Work related emails are using up my battery while I have a mail client right in front of me.

VMware/Tools – Community Ubuntu Documentation

Because I run Ubuntu Server inside of VMWare, I don’t have the default graphic programs (Gnome) that the tools process assumes I have. The instructions here helped me resolve this issues, and get VMWare Tools running.

VMware Communities: Ubuntu in vmware, change foldername …

I recently migrated from Parallels to VMWare Fusion 2 beta 2 on my MacBook Pro. The Windows XP migration went flawlessly however Ubuntu lost network connectivity. Following the directions in this post I was able to get networking to work again, and move on to installing VMWare Tools