I’ll need to take a look also at http://openkapow.com/ and http://www.dapper.net/.

Did a quick test to see how the memory footprint compared across all 3 browsers, Firefox 3.01, Chrome 0.2.149.27 and IE 7.00.6000.16386. Type “about:memory” in the address bar in Chrome. Surprisingly, IE showed the least memory amount used. Always felt that IE was a bit sugglish on page loads but who knows what other background processes it’s sharing with Vista

The UI for Chrome is definitely very appealing, clean sleek look with just a tabbed interface and none of those useless icons and toolbars to clutter the browsing experience. This looks to be a real asset on the screen estate challenged netbook since it has a very small viewable area. Hopefully, it’ll stand up well during tests. Looks like a very promising start for a beta product from Google.

A nice little usability feature which I just noticed is that when pasting an item into the address bar (which also acts as a search input) is that it intelligently determines if it’s a URL and will show “paste and go” or a search item and shows “paste and search”. Nice little touch to make life a little easier for users.

I recently had to configure a Samsung SGH-i600 for a customer and even though I consider myself quite tech-inclined, I had trouble making sense of the options and how to get to them. In a device with small screen real estate, user experience and simplicity is paramount. While I think Windows Mobile is a great platform (and I even develop on it), it isn’t the most efficient manner to address a broad audience. So kudos to Apple for remembering the customer and letting them know that not reading the manual to make sense of their purchase is ok.

http://nikeplus.nike.com

Once the data is uploaded to Nike+’s website, you’ll see your last run featured on the home page. There isn’t much you can see or analyze more from the animated flash chart even though it looks pretty fancy. Also, it lacks the community aspect that Nike+ seems to want to promote since discussions are mainly in forums instead of on individual runs. A nice touch however is the ability to include goals for yourself to achieve. I set myself a goal of running 10 times in 4 weeks. Other goals include to run faster, burn more calories or even run further. 

http://www.nike.com/europerunning/#train|train_tool

Coupled with Nike Europe Running’s training schedule, the system makes for a pretty effective way to track and schedule runs. I chose the “Walk to Run” schedule since I don’t think I can go flat out to 5km immediately so better to go slow and build up my fitness. The best part? The system automatically syncs the data from Nike+ to the schedule so I can see runs as part of my schedule too. The only missing link would be for the training schedule to be played to my iPod since some of the instructions like “(Walk 5 min, Run 3 min) x2. Walk 5 min.” makes for a lot of pressing the centre button to track progress.

http://www.runnerplus.com/

In my quest to figure out what could be done with the data, I stumbled upon a great site created by Chris Duke at Runner+. When I first got my kit, Runner+ was still in beta and registrations were by invite only. Not expecting an immediate reply, I tried my luck and was surprised to find an invite just moments later.

After about a week of running and keeping track of the runs, the most obvious difference that you’ll seeing in Runner+ is the amount of effort put into creating a social aspect to running. The site isn’t done in a fancy flash user interface but yet offers more to the user. From seeing who has viewed your runs to adding notes to runs, it makes it a more interesting experience to use the Nike+ system.

Managed to get in contact with Chris since I also manage SportsKaki’s web programming that primarily focuses on finding friends for sports. Its good to know he also has similar ideas for a Friend Finder function in Runner+.

The good news? Runner+ is now in Open Beta so all users can start joining and sharing their runs. Have fun on your next run

the iPhone is yours come June 29th.

Source: iPhone release date confirmed: yours on June 29th – Engadget

http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/

I then attached the receiver to the Nano and it instantly was ready to receive data from the sensor. Did a quick walk down the steps to get a feel of the audio feedback (which was surprisingly nice sounding, I chose female voice). And so I started my actual lap to walk 15 min. Did a slightly longer one in the end since listening to music got me distracted enough from usual panting away.

After getting back, syncing the Nano with ITunes required me to enter my Nike id and it quickly synced the data with Nike+ site which has a nice graph of the distance that was done.

Also, since I had a training schedule at Nike Running, it also synced the information to the schedule (although it would have been nicer to match it to my goal for the day).

Of course, since MichaelYuhui.com runs WordPress, I had to look around for a plugin that could pull all this data onto our own site. Managed to find one from ear-fung.us but alas, I seem to have hit a wall as it keeps saying “Error: session authentication failed”. Am not really in the mood to debug code so shall leave it for another day.

All in all, I’m quite happy with my purchase and would encourage those who don’t mind using technology to help improve their fitness to try out Nike+. Of course, the geek in me had to find out where all the data is stored and how to do more with them Some links if you are also interested in doing more with Nike+

http://blog.mattmecham.com/2006/09/05/ipod-training-data-under-the-hood/

http://www.runnerplus.com/

I would also definitely like to find a way to have a paced audio feedback from the nano like that mentioned in this thread. *grin* too bad VS 2005 doesn’t have way to write code for the nano.

Nike + iPOD kit = $54.00 (inc/GST)
Nike Sport Armband for iPOD Nano = $54.00 (inc/GST)