Steve's Seaside Life

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More about SwimMP3

I wrote a short article yesterday about how my SwimMP3 player has transformed the way I swim.  In this article I will provide a better review of the device itself.

First off it looks quite strange, you get lots of looks whilst swimming.  If you like to chat to people then it’s a good ice breaker!

It has 128MB of memory, which is reasonable for music, if you set it to random then most people won’t get bored even if they swim every day.  If like me you listen to talk shows, conferences etc then 128MB is more than enough, in fact the way I use it I tend to load it up with just 2 * 30 minute MP3 files, less than 30MB, why 2, just in case I don’t fancy the the content of the first one and need an alternative.  Each day I just delete the talks I have listened to and download another.

My main source of talks right now is IT Conversations

I find that lots of the things I want to listen to are too long for my swims, so I split them into 20-30 minute sessions depending on how long I want to …

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Working while you swim

I have recently restarted swimming.  It’s a great way to keep fit and it really helps ease my aching muscles and joints, but it’s really boring!  I recently found the solution though.  I purchased a waterproof MP3 player, that looks like this:

and it works by bone conduction of sound. When the device is placed on any bones of the skull (i.e. the cheek bones or the mastoid tip) it leads to vibration of the fluid in the inner ear. Thus I can enjoy clarity of sound with the SwiMP3 device that was never before possible.  Jon mentions it in his blog as well.

At first I thought I would use it mainly for music, but then I discovered the IT Conversations web site, which is chock full of really interesting downloadable talks, many of which are so relevant to my job that I can make a valid claim to be doing research while I am swimming!

I found a slight glitch in that there is no way to bookmark the point you get upto in a talk and restart at that point the next day, so for longer mp3’s I have had to split them into 20 – 30 …

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New Years Resolutions – 2005

 

  1. Establish a healthier way of life (now that I seem to be “fairly” stable and know which activities help keep me that way)

ü      Cycle or walk daily

ü      Swim daily

ü      Take plenty of short breaks

ü      Don’t eat sweets or dairy products

ü      Reduce the amount I eat at night

ü      Drink more water

ü      Learn to cope with pain and frustration (cognitive therapy or meditation)

ü      Make it possible to work in as many enjoyable places as possible

ü      Continue to improve on the limited success in not biting my fingers and lips!

ü      Get my weight down to 11 Stone

ü      Use my blog as an outlet for my interests (mainly those not funded by my company or shared by my family)

  1. Eat out once a week and take Debbie out at least once a week (Friday and Wednesday)

ü      Wednesday is evening meal, Cinema or Theatre and maybe in the summer just walking/cycling

ü      Friday is a walk and lunch or breakfast together

  1. Establish my new role at work

ü      Final edit of what I think the conclusions are and …

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Looking Back

I thought I would take the opportunity to look back on my year (and a funny old year it’s been) before looking forward to the new year in a few days.  It’s nice and quiet in the house and after such a lovely time (Christmas Morning) it’s left me in an appropriately reflective mood, so here goes:

 

Health

What a year it’s been, around the middle of January 2004 I started with another flare of Adult Onset Still’s Disease, which had been in remission for about 8 months.  This time no remission has occurred and one year on I am still suffering. However I have come to terms with it well and am approaching the point after many experiments (often painful) and lots of record keeping, research and analysis I think I am on the brink of getting things under control. …

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Christmas

It’s Christmas day today and the girls have had a fantastic time opening and enjoying their presents.  It started like this:

 

  1. On Christmas Eve the girls were allowed to choose one present to open, inevitably they chose ones that looked most like clothes so that they could where them on Christmas morning!

  2. They all went to bed nice and early without a peep (very unusual) as they all understand that Father Christmas misses any houses where children are awake J

  3. Debbie and I acting as Father Christmas’ helpers then packed up 4 gift bags that Father Christmas was to deliver that night to their bedrooms, one of the nice touches is that during holidays the Twins sleep in bunk beds with their older sisters instead of together.

  4. On Christmas morning we let the kids open their presents from Santa at 7:00AM (and the rest after breakfast) although they often hold one or two back to open on boxing day; which is my Birthday.

  5. This morning Debbie crept into their rooms just after 6:00AM and found them sitting on their beds surrounded by unopened gifts patiently waiting for 7:00 to arrive (bless) I think she let them sneak a …

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Windows Media Centre Temptations

Quite a few of my friends now have Windows Media Centre 2005.  I got a Tivo about 3 years ago so I haven’t been too jealous but the Tivo is showing its age, it’s a bit slow it’s hard disk is small and its lack of easy expandability and integration into my home network are gradually frustrating me.  Here is one of many examples of the media experience integration that caught my eye:

Described in its full glory here.  I won’t be investing until the  middle of next year at the earliest but I am starting to earerly anticipate the upgrade.

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RSS and the benefits of a standard format

I have evalgalised for a while the innovation that is unleashed in clients and servers when a standard format exists for passing information beteen them.  RSS is a great example of this, and Dare makes the point strongly in this article, a snipit from which reads:

RSS is a wonderful example of the higher level of interoperability that can be built upon XML formats. Instead of information sources using various incompatible mechanisms for providing information to end users such as NOAA’s SOAP web service and the Microsoft.com web services which each require a separate custom application to consume them, sites can all standardize on RSS. This standardization creates an ecosystem of applications that produce and consume RSS feeds which is a lot larger than what would exist for each site specific web services or market specific XML syndication formats.  Specifically, it allows for the evolution of the digital information hub where users can view data from the various information sources they care about (blogs, news, weather reports, etc) in their choice of applications

He goes on to point out that RSS goes one better by allowing domain specific extensibility whilist still allowing standards based readers to consume feeds:

Additionally, RSS is extensible. This means …

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I suffer from mild Asbergers Syndrome so I approached this book with unusual interest.  I learnt two things, first how mild my Asbergers is by contrast with the main characters and second how shockingly brilliant the book was in the way it allowed us to get inside the head of a person with this condition. 

I would recommend everyone to read this book, not only will it delight on many levels, but you will never look at a shy and retiring person the same way ever again!

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Crow Lake

A lovingly crafted book, that on one level deals with obvious tragedy of loss but in the end shows that the real tragidy lay in misunderstandings and negative attitudes.  I really enjoyed the book, a slow read but one to be savoured and remembered.  I read the Da Vinci code immediately after this one as was shocked at its poor quality of writing compared to Crow Lake, but equally suprised at how it made up for it in pace.  Two very contrasting books equally enjoyable in their own way.

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Angels and Demons

Not quite as good as the Da Vinci Code, bit still a good read.  Took me about 4 days to get through.  Many of the same themes as his other books and the writing is just as bad, but the facinating story line makes up for it.  I think its worth reading but only if the Da Vinci code appealed to you.