I've been wanting to talk about my experience with iPhone headphones and exercise for some time.

In my opinion iPhone headphones manufactured by Apple are consumables. I have never had a set last for more than 4 months. They get so much use from me that the rubber holding the earbuds together wears away.

I tried carrying the headphones in several different plastic containers, but each of the containers made constantly connecting and disconnecting the headphones too slow. This says nothing of the problems that occurred when I exposed them to large amounts of my perspiration.

The first set of headphones that I noticed experienced severe wear and tear was a set that I had been using during a period of heavy road biking in June and July. The action button on the in-line microphone on my headphones started to become unreliable. The button stopped working entirely shortly after that, and I suspected that sweat infiltration was the root cause.

In July I started working full-time in Manhattan. At that time I started working out at Newtown Athletic Club five days a week. My workout consisted of riding a stationary bike or running on an indoor track for 40 minutes, followed by sets of pushups and situps.

Because I was working out indoors, there seemed to be an increase in my perspiration level. The new headphones lasted less than a month.

Two major problems occurred:

• the action button on the in-line microphone stopped working,
• the rubber holding each of the earbuds together disintegrated at an accelerated rate.

I bought another new set of iPhone headphones from Apple, and a much less expensive set of headphones without an in-line microphone from a warehouse club. I used the inexpensive headphones during workouts at the gym. I used the iPhone headphones everywhere else.

The result is that the iPhone headphones have lasted a great deal longer. I think I've gotten about four months use out of this set of iPhone headphones. I'm only now beginning to consider replacing them, because the rubber gasket that holds each earbud together is wearing away.

In talking to a number of friends and acquaintances who have iPhones, the consensus is that no third-party headphones are much more durable than Apple's. For the most part, they are just more expensive.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Cool Tool: StrollAway on Cool Tools: "... Once we got this hook, rather than just parking our stroller in the kitchen or dining room, we created a set, out-of-the-way place to store it. And since it's off the floor, that gives us more space to fill up with more baby stuff. The hook is strong (we have a Quinny Buzz stroller, which weighs abouts 15 lbs.). It doesn't require drilling or mounting into anything, since it hangs over the top a door....." Great idea.
• SightSpeed Goes Mainstream with Dell Video Chat « on Web Worker Daily: "... The SightSpeed software installed easily on my Mac, and the video conversation with Mr. Csathy was crisp, smooth and effortless as compared to any I’ve tried with Skype. He had a fancy headset, but I was just using the MacBook Pro’s built-in speakers and microphone. For once, video conferencing felt approachable to me beyond Apple iChat...." This article has a good screen cap of the theme that Dell applied to SightSpeed's software. [ Found out about the Dell / SightSpeed deal from friend Andy Abramson ]
• Access And Share Files With Box.net on The Apple Phone Show: "I have tried several online file store and share solutions since getting my iPhone almost a year ago now. Box.net seems to be the one application that has endured time. I like using it to store and share my most important files and collaborate on work. I’m still getting used to moving my workflow entirely online. I am used to have files that I can access stored locally on all of my devices. But, times they are ‘a changing. The reason I think I have continued using this service and have let others fall by the wayside is because the interface is so simple...." I have to try this.
• iPhone as Pedometer on Inside iPhone: "A short while ago, I discovered that Wii Fit could be used to track my progress as I walked on a treadmill. Wii Fit has a game where you jog in place in front of your TV to travel through a virtual landscape. Instead of bouncing up and down on the floor, I put my wiimote in my pocket, hopped on the treadmill and had a much better virtual exercise experience. And of course this got me thinking: if the wii can track movement, why can't the iPhone do the same?" Cool idea. Interesting execution.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every year I look for blogs that attempt to cover L'Etape du Tour, the Cyclosportive that follows the same route as one stage of The Tour de France. This year I found Rob Mackey's blog at The New York Times called The Climb.

Mackey is a web journalist who has done a great deal of work for major publications. (See his portfolio at http://mackey.typepad.com/.) So, you can bet that he will produce a good blog if he survives the training leading up to L'Etape du Tour.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It looks like professional cycling is experiencing a bit of a revival.

Earlier today, Velonews reported that Garmin has become the title sponsor of the Slipstream-Chipotle Cycling Team. The Garmin logo will reportedly debut on the team's uniforms at an event in Brest, France on July 3 prior to the Grand Depart of the 2008 Tour de France.

This is exactly the kind of sponsor that an American pro cycling team should have going forward. Lots of people I know have Garmin GPS navigation systems in their cars, and Garmin's fitness computers have been state-of-the-art ever since products like the Garmin Forerunner 201 debuted about four years ago.

It's interesting to see the evolution of the Garmin-Chipotle Cycling team since its inception. It was originally sponsored by TIAA-CREF, lost that sponsorship at the end of 2006, and has been primarily funded by investors in the team since then. It's had a number of secondary sponsors including Chipotle, H3O (a sports marketing company partly owned by George Hincapie), and Felt Bicycles. Garmin started out as a secondary sponsor and has now made a primary sponsorship commitment to the team through 2010.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chris Brewer, a long-time contributor to the Livestrong and Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team Websites, is back again writing his "Fresh Brew" column for the Astana Cycling Team Website.

In one of his most recent articles, Chris talks about Mellow Johnny's, a bike commuter-oriented bike store in Downtown Austin, TX. Chris writes:

If I told you that 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong had opened a bike shop, I’ll bet you would imagine row up on row of high tech carbon bikes in a state of the art facility. And while there are certainly plenty of excellent historic and high-tech Trek rides at "Mellow Johny's" located in the heart of Austin, Texas, the 18,000 square foot brick beer-distributorship-turned-bike-shop is as good a place to get a tube or an inexpensive commuter bike as it is a rocket to win your next neighborhood world championship…

(Interestingly enough, Johan Bruyneel is doing a book signing there tonight, and flying from there up to West Chester, PA for tomorrow night's book signing previously discussed on Operation Gadget.)

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As gasoline surpasses $4.15 per gallon here in Newtown, I am starting to see more bikes on the road. A lot of the people riding them look like they are not terribly skilled bike handlers, and also don't look like they are riding as much for exercise as they are for transportation.

Here's a report from KARE, the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis, that claims that people looking to shift their short-haul commuting and errands from cars to bikes are repairing and upgrading bikes they already have instead of purchasing new bikes:

I'm going to stop in my local bike shops and ask what their mix of business is now, and if the increases in sales activity this Spring and Summer are different than they expected. [ via Personafile ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Los Angeles Business reports that Oakley has donated $1 Million to the Lance Armstrong Foundation that was generated through sales of the Livestrong line of sports sunglasses. According to the article:

Oakley Livestrong Flak Jacket XLJ: A nice pair of
sunglasses for sports that supports a worthy cause.
[ Image: Oakley ]

The special-edition Livestrong line is based off of three of Oakley's most popular designs: the Radar, the Flak Jacket and the Straight Jacket. Out of each purchase, $20 goes to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

The program took only eight months to reach the $1 million mark.

That works out to 6,250 sets of sunglasses per month.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This morning I received a Nokia N78 as part of my participation in the Nokia Blogger Relations Program. I just posted a bunch of photos of unboxing the N78 to Flickr.

See more of my Nokia N78 Unboxing Photos on Flickr.
[ Photo: Dave Aiello. ]

Some of the Nokia N78's big features are a 3.2-megapixel main camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, 2 Gigabytes of microSD memory, and a free three-month subscription to Nokia's voice-guided GPS navigation system.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

One of the best ways to entertain my son Jimmy over the past week or so has been to put him in the Chariot Cougar 1 Carrier that I use as a bike trailer and tow him around the backroads near our house in Newtown, PA.

Jimmy in the Chariot Cougar 1: We've ridden the backroads around
Newtown together for the past few sunny days, building up our
endurance. [ Photo: Dave Aiello on Flickr ]

Kathleen and I bought the Cougar 1 last year, around the time Jimmy turned one year old. He wasn't really ready to ride in it last summer. I got it out right after Memorial Day and started riding with him for 10 or 15 minutes at a time through the neighborhoods of Newtown Borough. He's really starting to like doing this because he can see people mowing their yards, and walking in the area around the Starbucks on State Street in a way that is different from when we push him in the stroller or pull him in his wagon.

If you are wondering, we bought the Chariot Cougar 1 because we thought after thoroughly researching the different models that this was the best, most protective child carrier we could get for use with our bikes. It's very solidly built and quite obvious to the other vehicles on the road.

Today we went on our longest ride yet, up and down Linton Hill Road through the intersection with Washington's Crossing Road in Newtown Township.

Riding up Linton Hill Rd in Newtown on a mtn bike with Jimmy in a Chariot Cougar 2 1. Felt like Alpe d'Huez, except the tifosi yelled "Daddy!"

If you pull one of these trailers with a two-year-old who weighs about thirty pounds riding in it, a speed bump is going to feel like a Category 4 climb in a bike race. Who needs any other aerobic activity? This is challenging.

I think Lance Armstrong did this with his son Luke in the offseason before he retired. Now I know why.

I hope that Jimmy and I can build up to an hour of riding, so I can take him on some of my training routes. I hope that he finds the scenery interesting enough. In the meantime, it's fun to get out with him, and here him yell and point at the lawn mowers, and the trucks, and the blue cars.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The Polar Infrared Interface USB commonly
used with PCs running Windows XP doesn't
work on a Mac [ Photo: Dave Aiello on Flickr ]

The Polar Infrared Interface USB that many people got with their Polar S-Series heart rate monitors is a USB 1.1 device. I've been trying to use it without success on my MacBook Pro with Polar Precision Performance Software 4 running under Windows XP on VMware Fusion.

According to a number of articles that I've read, the only way to reliably get the Polar Infrared Interface USB to connect with a Polar heart rate monitor using Mac hardware is to boot into Windows XP directly from Boot Camp. No configuration of Windows XP under VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop 3.0 seems to work properly.

A number of people on the Polar user support forums have reported success when using the Polar IrDA USB 2.0 Adapter with PPP4 under Windows XP with either VMware Fusion or Parallels.

The biggest problem with the Polar IrDA USB 2.0 Adapter is its expense. In my opinion, a lot of Polar accessory products that aren't proprietary are similar to Apple-branded products; They are very nice looking and well-supported by the manufacturer, but not economical. Some purchasers of the Polar IrDA USB 2.0 Adapter agree that it's nice looking, but think documentation is very sparse.

A far less expensive IrDA-USB adapter that some people claim to have gotten working is the Cables Unlimited USB1510.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal's Golf Journal column carried an a great interview with Frank Thomas, the former technical director of the U.S. Golf Association (USGA). Thomas makes some great points about the impracticality of state-of-the-art golf technology to the grassroots golfer. The quote that jumped off the page for me was this:

...the thing that concerns me is how commerce now dominates golf and is trying to squeeze the last dollar out of its most avid customers rather than trying to open the game up to more participants. If the goal is to improve the overall health and enjoyment of the game, that's the wrong direction.

I see the same kind of issues happening in sports that I am more involved in, namely ice hockey and road cycling. All three of these sports have grown rapidly in the past ten years, and are arguably having difficulty sustaining that growth rate because they are all expensive sports to play.

The media that helps people follow these sports focus on the personalities at the top of the elite pyramids (people like Tiger Woods, Sidney Crosby, and Levi Leipheimer), and the technology that makes greater achievements possible.

I'm in favor of talking about the technical advances in sports-- Operation Gadget wouldn't be what it is with out them. But, the key to continuing the growth of technologically-driven sports in North America is driving the technology into progressively less expensive equipment.

If all technological advances stay at the high end, growth of these games will stagnate and the gear manufacturers will fight over the people who are willing and able to pay top dollar for the latest and greatest. Some people would argue that's where we are today in all of these sports.

I was really impressed with what Frank Thomas had to say in this interview. The column mentions two places where we can hear more from him:

• His website called Frankly Golf
• His book called Just Hit It: Our Equipment and Our Game

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Stuff We Like: The Dave Laptop Stand on Lifehacker: "The Dave (oh Ikea, you and your names!) features adjustable height and angle, and can double as a TV tray or simple end table when you're not computing. If you've been looking for a better way to surf the internet from the comfort of your couch, the $25 Dave might be just the ticket."
• Optimizing File Sharing on Your Home Wi-Fi Network on Web Worker Daily: "A lot of people who have successfully put in a Wi-Fi network neglect to optimize the way files are shared between computers in a home or workgroup. You can choose ways to organize shared files, and ensure that files are shared securely or not visible to other users on your Wi-Fi network very easily...." Good instructions on how to do this whether you have Windows or Macs
• StrechCordz Short Resistance Training Belt on Cool Tools: "The StrechCordz resistance training belt makes expensive, complex, "endless" pools obsolete. At one end of a 4-foot, black rubber tube is a nylon belt with a simple plastic snap-clip that slips around my waist. On the other end is a loop I attach to the deep-end ladder of our modest home pool. That's it... just tether up and start swimming. Swim as hard and fast as you like yet stay in place."
• Cycling Photography Tips: Shooting Head On on Spare Cycles: "Shooting head on is both difficult and easy: difficult in that the rider is moving at you very fast so your margin for error is very little, but easy in that you don't have to move your camera very much at all."
• Easter's early this year. Deal with it. on God Plays Dice: "...the cycle of Easter dates repeat themselves every 5,700,000 years. The cycle of epacts (which encode the date of the full moon) in the Julian calendar repeat every nineteen years. There are two corrections made to the epact, each of which depend only on the century; one repeats (modulo 30, which is what matters) every 120 centuries, the other every 375 centuries, so the air of them repeat every 300,000 years. The days of the week are on a 400-year cycle, which doesn't matter because that's a factor of 300,000. So the Easter cycle has length the least common multiple of 19 and 300,000, which is 5,700,000." [ via Slashdot ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Mac Automation: listen to a text document on TUAW: "Don't have time to read that Word, Pages, or TextEdit document at your desk? Why not listen to it on your iPod instead? In this Automator how-to, I am going to show you how to create an audio file using text that you have in an open document, then sync that using iTunes to your iPod or iPhone." This is similar to a how-to published in Macworld last month.
• Reliance Digital to Open 60 iStores Across India on Tech2.com: "Reliance Digital... plans to open 150 digital stores and 60 iStores or Apple stores across {India}. While {typical Reliance Digital} stores offer a wide range of consumer durables, iStores are exclusively for Apple's products for professional and consumer segments."
• Time Machine Now Works with Airport Extreme USB Drives on MacRumors.com: "After the release of today's Time Machine and Airport update, several readers report that Time Machine now supports backups to USB drives connected to your Airport Extreme basestation. This configuration essentially reproduces the functionality of Apple's Time Capsule product."
• Shimano buys clothing company Pearl Izumi from Nautilus on VeloNews: "Bringing premium sports apparel and footwear to its offering of industry-leading cycling and fishing products, Shimano has completed its purchase of DashAmerica, Inc. (dba Pearl Izumi USA, Inc.) from Nautilus, Inc." This actually happened a month ago, but I just noticed it.
• The Feedzone with Monique Ryan: Protect your heart this season on VeloNews: This is a great article which focuses on eating the right kind of fats and other smart food choices as part of an athletic lifestyle.
• When to Stay With Windows in Mossberg's Mailbox on AllThingsD: Walt Mossberg talks about when it's OK to stay with Windows when upgrading home computers. A couple in their 70s asked if they should upgrade to a Mac although no family members have Macs, so family support wouldn't be available to them. He points out that it's OK to stay with Windows now, but the question will need to be re-evaluated sometime this sommer, when Microsoft stops selling Windows XP to OEMs for installation on new machines.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Amgen Tour of California began on Sunday with a Prologue time trial in Palo Alto.

One of the more intriguing developments is the return of veteran sprinter Mario Cipollini to the ranks of active professional cyclists after a three year retirement. Cipollini retired on May 7, 2005 after a ceremonial 1.1km time trial at the Giro d'Italia. He has now joined the upstart U.S. team called Rock Racing.

BikeRadar.com reports that Cipo's bike is not standard team issue and speculates on its componentry. They have a number of good photos of the bike. When I have covered pro cycling races in the past for Operation Gadget, I've always gone looking for the most unusual bikes, and this one certainly is.

I think the return of athletes like Mario Cipollini bodes well for the sport of pro cycling. It certainly needs some good news and some developments that take the focus away from the controversies surrounding testing for performance-enhancing drugs.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Top 7 Web Applications for Sending Large Files on Geekpreneur: "If you’ve ever had to send a large file to someone, you know the hardships that arise. Email services keep strict limits on attachment sizes. What’s more is that it’s often hard to send more than one attachment at a time. This kind of disservice has made email quite unpopular for sharing files- and thus, we have entered the age of hybrid email. The premise is simple: cut out the bulk, and just give us an easy way to send files over the internet!"

• Torvalds: Leopard file system "utter crap" on MacNN: "Linux creator Linus Torvalds recently blasted Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for having a file system that is 'complete and utter crap' at a Linux conference in Melbourne."

  The Leopard file system, technically known as HFS+, has been around in some form since the last time I was a Mac developer-- 1992. Of course Apple would like to move to something more robust. They've been building up to switch to ZFS, or some other sophisticated file system, for some time now.



• Turn Your Nokia Phone into a Wi-Fi Hotspot with JoikuSpot on Lifehacker: Who needs tethering when you can make your Series 60 phone into an ad hoc WiFi base station for your laptop? Wow.


• How to record a kickass podcast between two macs — and cheap! on A Whole Lotta Nothing: "A lot of people ask me how I do the MetaFilter Podcast.... I know they ... mean... 'what software and hardware does it take to make a decent sounding podcast?' After almost a year of regular podcasts and trying out different software and equipment, I’ve gotten the workflow down cold and I wanted to share the my way of making a good sounding podcast on the cheap. This works perfectly well for me being in Oregon and talking to my friend Jessamyn in Vermont over Skype, recording at both ends, then tossing it all into Garageband to complete the podcast." [ via 43Folders ]


• Nike SPARQ Parachute Makes You Run Faster, Eventually on Gizmodo: "The Nike SPARQ Parachute is designed to create drag 'to force athletes to push themselves harder to achieve speed' and look like a moron in Central Park." Can I use this thing on the ice sometime?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I never met Sheldon Brown, but I learned a great deal from him.

Sheldon developed a website, SheldonBrown.com, that had an incredible amount of technical information about bicycles and cycling. If I Googled for some information about one of my bikes, I often ended up consulting his site.

Sheldon passed away on Sunday, February 3, 2008, reportedly of a massive heart attack. May he rest in peace. [ via spare cycles and BikeRadar.com ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• RPI Plays Princeton tonight in the 31st Annual Big Red Freakout. RPI needs the win. In other news, the White beat the Red in the Alumni Game 9-8.
• Kipkay's Video Tips & Tricks on Instructables: "Here are 5 easy and cheap tricks for anyone who uses a camcorder. Total cost for all 5 is under $10!" [ via Lifehacker ]
• New Devices and Applications on the Wi-Fi Front on Web Worker Daily: "While many Mac-based users already have next-generation, draft 802.11n Wi-Fi technology in their homes (because they use Apple’s Airport Extreme routers) lots of other folks still use slower 802.11g Wi-Fi. This year is when official certification of 802.11n Wi-Fi is supposed to arrive, and the month of January brought some product announcements that point to what the widespread arrival of 802.11n technology might mean...."
• Review of the Nike Amp+ iPod Control Watch: "... the Amp+ isn't designed to be an all-around running or fitness watch. It's specifically designed for runners who already have the Nike + iPod kit. Similar to the Timex iControl we recently reviewed, the Nike Amp+ is a remote control for your iPod Nano, however unlike the Timex, the Nike Amp+ uses the existing Nike + iPod gadget that plugs into your iPod, so you're actually adding the iPod remote control to the Nike iPod system." [ via TUAW ]
• Crazy Apple Rumors on Hiatus on TUAW: CrazyAppleRumors.com is a site I just found out about recently. It's articles are what you might read in The Onion if they covered Apple more aggressively. Sorry to see it go dark.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sunday's New York Times had a terrific article about fighting a weight loss battle while working a full time job which resonates with me. What was most interesting was the fact that two of the three people profiled work at very athletically-oriented companies.

• Steve Madden, the editor of Bicycling and Mountain Bike magazines is 44 years old, 5-feet 10-inches tall, and weighs 198 pounds. In other words he's almost exactly my size.

  The shocker in this story is that Madden rode his bike 4,451 miles in 2007. No question that he could have journaled it all using a heart rate monitor like the one I use. How can you ride 85 miles per week, year round and not lose weight? I know. You eat what you want and never commit to a serious eating plan.

  There's no question that Madden is both fit and overweight, as I am at the moment. He demonstrates how far you can take this lifestyle as an amateur athlete.




• Marcello Aller, National Athletics Account Manager at Polar USA is 34 years old, 5-feet 8-inches tall, and weighs 218 pounds. He says:

  My colleagues think I look fine, but it’s become more of a challenge to become lean.... I’m not an endurance athlete, like a small cyclist or a runner. I have a typical, square football-player build. Sometimes it’s more difficult to regain a hard body; my metabolism has changed with age.

  Aller is an inch shorter than I am and weighs over 20 pounds more than I do. I weighed this much when I worked on Wall Street. He needs to realize that he'll have to both change his diet and work out in order to achieve the results he wants.

  I think a warning sign in his behavior is that he thinks his metabolism has changed at age 34. This may be the case to a small extent, but he'll do a lot better if he admits that the quantity and type of food he eats is a substantial part of the problem.

These two men work at athletic lifestyle companies where it should be easy for people to lose weight, keep the weight off, and stay in shape. Yet, it's obvious that doing the right things is not as easy as it should be. Most overweight people cannot lose weight by exercise alone. They have to watch what they eat and control the size of their meals and snacks. That's the key to achieving significant fitness and appearance goals.

I can completely relate to their situations. I can be an even better athlete if I have an eating plan. I made the commitment to plan what I eat again a couple of weeks ago. It's a struggle, but I hope to see the benefits by the end of the hockey season.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MacRumors reports that Garmin released a new beta version of their Bobcat GPS management tool for MacOS X. This beta of version 2.0 of the software includes the following features:

• transfer waypoints, tracks, and routes between a Mac and Garmin GPS device,
• manage maps and DRM keys for transfer to a Garmin GPS, and
• search for points of interest on the Mac and transfer the locations to your Garmin GPS.

It wasn't too long ago that Mac users would have to keep a PC around the house or spin up a PC emulator or virtual machine to take advantage of Garmin software. Bobcat looks like a serious product that can help you get the most out of your GPS or heart-rate monitor.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Gmail IMAP Change in 1.13 - Apple Phone Show on Apple Phone Show Blog: "The 1.13 upgrade to the iPhone automatically changes POP configured Gmail to IMAP...." I saw the change in folder arrangement on my iPhone after I updated the firmware, but I didn't realize the implications of it until I read about the switch to IMAP online.
• The new Favicons: Making Webclip icons for iPhone on SixApart ProNet: The professional developer website for Movable Type and TypePad posted the first explanation of how to make a custom icon for a website that will appear on the home screen of an iPhone or an iPod Touch. I already made a Webclip icon for RinkAtlas, a site whose logo lends itself to doing so.

• Forty years since Masterton's death on the Globe on Hockey Blog: "Masterton, 29 at the time, was checked by Larry Cahan and Ron Harris of the Oakland Seals, and hit his head on the ice after falling backwards. The game took place Jan. 13, 1968, in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Masterton died in hospital two days later due to a brain injury."

  "His death led to the lobbying of more widespread use of helmets, and a mandatory helmet rule was passed in the summer of 1979." Anyone playing ice hockey should pause for a moment and remember Bill Masterton. His unfortunate death began a series of rule changes and other protective measures that have made our sport much safer.



• Mini-Review: Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader on 37signals Signal vs Noise: "There are plenty of comprehensive reviews of the Kindle floating around so I don’t think we need another one. Instead, I’ll focus on comparing it with the Sony Reader."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Nike Amp+ Sport Remote Control has finally made it to the market, and iLounge has done a comprehensive review of it. Jeremy Horowitz writes:

It would be an understatement to call Nike’s Amp+ iPod nano Remote ($79) the coolest and most misunderstood iPod accessory introduced in the past year. The bracelet, which is sold in four colors—blue, green with orange, black with red, or black with graphite—is a watch, an iPod remote control, and a fashion statement. Give it a quick glance from a distance and you’d think it’s just an extra-wide Lance Armstrong LiveStrong wristband, but get up close and you begin to realize that Nike has crafted an understated and underpromoted work of design genius....

I think the Amp+ looks incredible. It's the kind of watch that I could see wearing once or twice a week, the same way I tend to wear my Polar S625x to work on days when I'm officiating hockey. I'd like to see the reaction from people in my office when they saw this watch on my wrist.

I wish that Apple and Nike would expand the availability of the Nike+ product stack to iPods other than the nano. How hard could it be to make that happen?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My father-in-law George Kuykendall pointed out an interesting article in The New York Times called The Bicycling Paradox: Fit Doesn’t Have to Mean Thin. It talks about the types of cyclists that go on European cycling trips that follow the route of The Tour de France and how older and/or heavier riders often turn out to be more successful than most people might expect. The article says:

... cycling is a lot more forgiving of body type and age than running. The best cyclists going up hills are those with the best weight-to-strength ratio, which generally means being thin and strong. But heavier cyclists go faster downhill. And being light does not help much on flat roads.

The article goes on to say that Dr. James Hagberg, a kinesiology professor at the University of Maryland, thinks that cycling is not as physically demanding as running. Anyone who uses a heart-rate monitor in their training can easily see this. There is a significant difference in average heart rate and estimated calories burned between running and cycling for 30 minutes.

This is a popular article in my office, where the all of the cyclists can more easily identify with Thor Hushovd than they can Michael Rasmussen, at least in terms of BMI .

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm three weeks into a new full time job. In order to get to work on-time, I need to leave the house by 7:45am. My son (who is about to celebrate his first birthday) goes to bed between 7:00 and 8:00pm, so the best time for me to exercise is before work.

I started running on weekdays beginning at 6:15am. I managed to get out on five days of each of the first two weeks, but I'm afraid of injury if I keep up this frequency.

I vastly prefer biking on a daily basis. The problem was that I had been keeping my Trek 1500 in the basement of my house, and my wife was dead set against me moving my bike in and out of the house before 7:00am.

The solution was for me to get a multi-bike stand for my garage. I chose the Delta Design Boticelli, a sturdy, free-standing rack with room for four bikes on it. The Boticelli was delivered by UPS yesterday, I assembled it in my garage last night, and I was out riding at 6:00am this morning.

This rack is seven feet (2.1 meters) tall when fully assembled. The stand has a two by three foot base (23 x 29" or 58 x 73 cm to be exact), which leads me to believe that it will never tip over, even though the stand will only normally hold three bikes when it's in our garage.

I think that the build quality of the Boticelli stand is very good. The stand came unassembled, but the installation instructions were very clear. Assembly was simple. All I had to do was put the powder coated pipes together and screw them together with eight hex screws. The package included the hex key that I needed, so assembly was an Ikea-like experience, although the instructions were clearer.

The Delta Boticelli is very compelling combination of space efficiency and clean design. It looks great in my garage. I'll probably bring it into my basement during the hockey season when we don't do much riding. The great thing about this rack is that it would also look fine in the living room of an apartment, if you were inclined to keep it there to show off your bikes.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My sister Julie Howson pointed out that Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James purchased a minority stake in bike manufacturer Cannondale, according to a report in The Cleveland Plain Dealer. James reportedly said, "Cannondale is one of the premier cycling companies in the industry.... Biking is an extremely important part of my training routine, and I like to invest in what I know."

LeBron James hosts King for Kids Bike-a-thon each year in Akron, a small city near Cleveland. Last year he rode a custom-made Cannondale in this event, and now uses that bike in his off-season training.

A photo gallery of the 2006 King for Kids Bike-a-thon is on the Cleveland Cavaliers' website. Most of the bikes ridden by NBA stars appear to be city bikes and hybrids rather than road bikes.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you live in an upper middle class or an even more exclusive area, you probably have neighbors who have a Toyota Prius or other types of hybrid automobiles. Most people know that these vehicles can run entirely on battery power under certain conditions, and in that situation, are extremely quiet.

An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal entitled Blind Pedestrians Say Quiet Hybrids Pose Safety Threat got me thinking about my own safety when riding my road bike in this area. How am I supposed to know that a hybrid isn't overtaking me on a two-lane road if it's running on battery?

According to the article in The Wall Street Journal, the noise level of a Toyota Prius when accelerating under electric power is 53 decibels, while a conversation at home is about 50, and an operating vacuum cleaner is 70. If there's a cross or a head wind while I'm riding, it often limits my ability to hear vehicles behind me anyway. Think of the difficulty of hearing a hybrid approaching from behind you in those conditions.

Since people without subscriptions to the Journal will have difficulty reading this story, I'll quote the real-life scenario that begins the article, so you can see the real threat that is posed to blind people:

... Michael Osborn, a blind marketing consultant from Laguna Beach, Calif., and his guide dog, Hastings, were in the middle of an intersection one morning last April when the yellow Lab stopped short. Mr. Osborn took the cue and halted -- just in time to feel the breeze from a car passing right in front of them.

"Half an inch and it would have hit us ... it wasn't making any noise," says Mr. Osborn, 50, who has been blind for 12 years. Witnesses say the car was a Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle....

My conclusion after reading this article and thinking about the implications for cyclists, runners and in-line skaters wearing their iPods, and for children playing near residential streets, is that the auto manufacturing and insurance industries and public safety agencies need to study the points made by the advocacy organizations representing blind people. I think they are on to something that will be a bigger concern to the general public in the future.

If you are a cyclist, are you concerned about hybrid vehicles passing you when you are riding alone? How are you protecting yourself? Does this concern affect group rides as well? [ Subscription usually required to read articles in The Wall Street Journal ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

One of the more interesting articles I read this week was about The Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team's use of custom orthotics with all of its riders. They are using custom fit technologies from eSoles Custom Footbeds, a technology that has existed previously and has been used by a few elite pro cyclists. Discovery is apparently the first ProTour team to employ this technology for all of its riders.

eSoles uses laser digitization as part of their orthotics fit process. As a result, the company can reproduce orthotics multiple times. This is a major advantage over other orthotics production techniques such as plaster casting. eSoles also maintains a database of shoe patterns, so that they can build orthotics for multiple shoe types from one fitting.

It's hard to say exactly why DCPCT management elected to fit all of its riders with eSoles orthotics. The article claims that custom orthotics improve biomechanical efficiency and reduce fatigue. What we don't know from this article is whether all of the team members also have custom-made cycling shoes.

Hockey players have benefitted from custom-made skates for a long time. I had custom-made skates at RPI and those skates were significantly more comfortable and less fatiguing than the off-the-rack skates that I have worn in recent years. Do elite cyclists get the same performance boost from custom-made shoes as hockey players do? If the Discovery riders are all wearing custom-made shoes, what percentage of the enhanced efficiency and comfort come from the shoes, and what percentage would come from custom orthotics?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just found out that Giro is planning to produce an authorized Livestrong Special Edition Atmos Cycling Helmet again for its 2007 model year. I love my Rudy Project Ayron Helmet, but the Livestrong Special Edition Atmos Helmet is one I'd wear in its place.

Giro will donate 5 percent of its proceeds from sale of these helmets to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

I already added this to my Wishlist at Amazon.com, so many people in my family will see it even if they don't buy it for me. The Giro ® Atmos Livestrong Edition Helmet is also available at the Discovery Channel Store and all sizes are in stock at this writing.

Technorati Tags: Livestrong, Giro Atmos, bike gear, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal reports that quite a few Nintendo Wii owners are developing aches and