As some may remember, I took up biking again this year. It has been an extremely enjoyable and rewarding endeavor to get back into, and I'm happy with the results. (We'll talk about my obsessive nature in pursuing such things later.  ) One thing I noticed is that this hobby tends to collect a lot of IT folks. The field is littered with technology add-ons and technical talk to optimize your riding. I just did the 150 mile Scenic Shore ride this past weekend, and I met several people who talked about some of the technology. As a result I thought I'd share some links of some really cool gadgets and web-sites related to biking. I figure there at least some out there that will appreciate this.  If you have any other accessories that you use and love, post them here in the comments. - Garmin Edge 305 - This is a GPS device that tracks multiple categories (position, climb, speed, cadence, heart rate). The battery power is ok, the price is steep, but the data it gives you is endless. I really wish the device could have actual maps on it so you could see (e.g.) "Oh, I'm coming up on Highway 42 now".
- Even though you don't have maps, you can create a course on your PC and sync it to your Edge.
- Ascent software - If you have an Edge, it comes with bundled software that is adequate. But for $35, this software is well worth it. The downside for most people is that it only runs on a Mac. The upside is that the Animation, Statistics, Profiles, Google Earth usage, and tight integration with the Edge are unsurpassed.
- MapMyRide.com - This is a web site that lets you input routes and capture your training data online. You can also publish routes to share with others (see the link to the Scenic Shore 150 above for one such example). You can either draw the route by hand, or integrate with your GPS device. As a social networking site, I think this site does it right. It's very targeted in what it tries to do, and it succeeds in that regard.
- Using a Garmin Edge to Plot Cycle Routes with Google Maps on Linux, Macs and Windows - Nice technical information that a developer may find helpful on what you need to do to interface between Google Maps and GPS devices.
I got turned on to BackPack from 37signals as a way to better manage lists between multiple people in a collaborative fashion. I really love the Voicenotes addon, too! Being a typical developer, I figured I'd use the BackPack API to extend the system. I found a nice 4-part article on Coding4Fun that already did the hard work, so now my job got even easier. The only thing to really note here is that you get the API token from the Accounts page of your BackPack site. After that, things just worked great. I'll extend the code to do things like only display active items, and integrate with the Voicenotes to play the sound file, but really, it seems that 95% of what I wanted to do is already done in this article. Thanks to Michael Campbell for writing the series.
When connecting via Airport to an existing Linksys wireless router, and that router is using WEP, you will need to prefix the key with a dollar sign ($) when asked for the password. This makes the password be treated as a hex number and will get you connected.
I'll post this on the off-chance that one other person has not heard of, or already switched to Microsoft LiveWriter, an application to make it easier to publish blog entries. I really like how easy it was to get this tool up and running. It auto detected everything for me, and it just works. I used to use w.bloggar, but it never really worked as well as I'd liked, so I ended up just using my blog engine's online posting tool via the admin interface. I still am not a hip Web 2.0 kinda guy, as I prefer to be offline and disconnected and use tools that will post when I do have connectivity. I guess that's my DataSnap briefcase days shining through. At any rate, taking this tool through it's paces, I really like it. The fact that I can write my blog entries ahead of time and schedule them for publishing is a big bonus, too.
No, this isn't a blatant quote rip from Inigo Montoya in Princess Bride, but rather, a post to talk about how it's funny when things come full circle. Back in my youthful college days, I was an ardent supporter of all things Apple. I worked in the Micro Information Center as a Macintosh Expert and loved everything about my oh-so-superior Macintoshes. Then reality hit and I realized that I should probably start programming for a system where I could actually make a living. Fast forward to today, and I realize I can have my cake and eat it, too. I am now the proud owner of a MacBook Pro. I imagine it will take a while to get up to speed and catch up on the advances made since Finder 6 was released on a Mac SE/30 , but that's alright because I will be dual booting this bad boy and using Paralells to have seamless integration between the 2 environments. That way I can stay productive and still have time to play and reacquainte myself with my long lost friend. Stay tuned for more posts about my Macxperiences. I'll set up a new category for anything Mac related.
If you've come across this error when starting up an application, be sure to check the format of your app.config file. It turns out that this exception is of the type System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException. The real problem was that I had ended up generating a malformed config file (see the schema in c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Xml\Schemas\DotNetConfig.xsd) by putting configSections after appSettings. Once I put the configSections element back to the top of the config file, everything was fine again.
I recently created a Windows Service using .NET, and in order to install the service, you need to execute this command: installutil myservice.exe
However, when I did this, I received a System.BadImageFormatException. It turns out that my PATH settings were still pointing to the 1.1 .NET framework tools. Changing the PATH to point to .NET 2.0 (c:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.0.50727) fixed the problem and the service can now register successfully.
I absolutely LOVE my iPod. I find it invaluable to catch up on podcasts during commute time, keep me company when I ride or exercise, and keep me entertained when I travel. It is well-designed, looks good, sounds great, and just doesn't fail me. However, that doesn't mean that it couldn't use some work to make it better.
I'd like to add tracks to the "On-The-Go" playlist while a track is actually playing. Most of the time, I play my iPod by using Shuffle Songs. When I hear a song that I'd like to hear again, I'd like to press and hold the middle button to have it add to the On-The-Go playlist. We should not need to scroll through tons of songs, reading them one by one, to add them to On-The-Go.
If you have a way to get this into the next version, that would be great.
|