It's not Linux, it's you

Whilst the web-based UI for Wordpress and (with plugins) Drupal is quite nice, I find I still prefer to use a desktop blogging client like the excellent Blogilo: for offline composition, WYSIWYG editing, spell-checking and (with Blogilo's nice "preview with blog style" feature) the chance to check and double-check before I hit the big "post" button. (Yes, I know the webUI does most of that, but I had a bad experience with an early Google Gears implementation.) Unfortunately, no Linux client I've tried for the last six months or so has actually worked -- I've tried Gnome Blog, Drivel, QTM ... none of them could authenticate with either this site or my personal blog at glennji.org. Very frustrating, but something I just accepted as part and parcel with open-source -- "maybe I screwed up the installation, or WP changed their API and the developers haven't caught up. It will be fixed eventually, right?".

This week I upgraded to the latest Ubuntu (11.04 -- more on that later) and thought I'd have another go at adding my blogs to Blogilo: still no dice. So I thought perhaps there were others affected by this, I mean, surely Linux users haven't just accepted that there is no good blogging editor for the otherwise excellent operating system?! And if they have, isn't that a good project for me to cut my Python teeth on? A bit of hunting -- namely pasting the error messages into Google and reading three of four pages of results -- and I finally found another person who not only had the same problem, they'd fixed it!

And so, after a long time thinking it was my Linux blog client that was broken, turns out my web-host had switched on some mod_security stuff and it wasn't allowing HTTP POST to the xmlrpc.php file. I raised a helpdesk ticket and they fixed it quick-smart! Yay!

Turns out that having used Linux for nigh on 15 years (after an introduction to Redhat 5.something by Mr Dean and AtomicMPC magazine), I have great expectations of FOSS, but also a willingness to accept "broken" which is maybe no longer relevant or helpful.

Writing: movie reviews

I've decided to try tracking the movies that Dee and I watch, since we seem to watch quite a few. When I can, I'll write a review for them too -- although I might need to (re)install the Drupal "Content Creation Kit" -- CCK to its friends -- in order to capture the appropriate fields.

Wasn't expecting to submit reviews here on glennji.com, but try as I might I couldn't find a good site for unedited user-reviews; yourmoviereviews.com looked good, but gave me an "Access Denied" after submit, whilst IMDb requires a new login (which didn't work) and, of course, new movie reviews are in turned reviewed. So what choice do I have but to add reviews here? Eh?

Oh well; it gives me an opportunity to update this site (yet again) with a new content type and/or to mess about with styles and themes.

In other news, I'm getting a little bit of Android programming done, and have worked through a few chapters of Reto's book. Joy!

The Ghost Writer (Review)

A newly hired ghost writer uncovers more than he bargains for in the memoirs of the former British prime minister.

Come on, do some Android programming already

As we grow ever closer towards taking ownership of our new home, I am finally starting to play with Android again. I've got a whole bunch of ideas (in my favourite notebook, Tomboy) and have grabbed a copy of Reto Meier's "Professional Android 2 Application Development" book -- I couldn't really pick any other book, considering @acampbell3000 and I met Reto at a Google-hosted Android meetup in London one windy evening, and his refreshingly humorous writing-style makes casual reading of a technical book an enjoyable experience. Of course, I love technical books, but this should appeal to pretty much anyone.

So I update the SDK and Eclipse plugin, and start attempting to write something. But it's so hard to find the time to go from "play" to something that actually works -- like, I'm in a meeting right now, so as soon as I finish this little post I'm firing up my Eclipse workspace. Woo!

Cheat-day hangover

It was a good week for biohacking results, with a visible change around my tum-tum; I'm slowly but surely getting something akin to "definition" there, albeit definition of a brilliantly round little beer-belly. So when it came to cheat-day, I thought I would go all out: pizza, donuts, even a Big Mac for lunch.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling hungover, despite not having had any alcohol! Sugar-hangover, perhaps, and reason enough to read up on the "damage control" chapter of the 4HB.

"Introductory week" is over, let's try this for real

I didn't start trying out the Four Hour Body slow-carb biohack until Tuesday last week, but I've been feeling better throughout the week and have decided to try a "real" week -- so it is week one for me, starting today!

It's a staged approach for me: first I try the slow-carb foods for a couple of weeks, with no intention on doing more exercise (turns out I did more anyway, just for fun). If that is working, I should get more energy, and then I can start a programme of beginner-level exercise: core strength, flexibility and basic stamina.

I've got a bunch of exercise challenges to try, including the P90X and couch to 5K running, but I'm going to try each one only when I have some hope of success -- so first, food!

Yesterday was my "cheat" day -- when I can eat anything and everything I want -- and so after a "normal" slow-carb breakfast I was all ready and raring to go. In the end, tho', I pretty much ate like I would've before trying this hack ... a muffin and an ice-coffee, Turkish food and a beer for dinner, icecream and popcorn at the movies and a glass of bourbon in the evening. And that was me trying to eat anything I felt like. Turns out I just didn't feel like (too) much.

It was enough calories (and carbohydrates, and sugars) to "shake up" my digestion/metabolism I hope, and make the "body recomposition process" that much faster this week.

Problem is, I haven't weighed in. We bought some fancy bioinductance scales (a while ago) but left them at Dee's mums up north, so until we get there to grab the rest of our stuff I'm just eyeing myself in the mirror and trying to decide if it's making a difference (opinion: it is, but not so you'd notice it yet). I have got my biometrics stored in the scales, however, so it may well be a nice surprise when I finally step on them again in a couple of weeks. And by then it should be noticeable, too!

Day 2: Forming habits

Second day and I haven't faltered (yet!), with a big plate of beans and eggs for breakfast and the second chicken-breast for lunch; better yet, I ate more slowly than I think I ever had before. Strangely, I can't see any difference in the mirror just yet...

After last night's pre-sleep cold shower I thought I'd try something similar after a slow-carb breakfast. I started with hot water, scrubbed up ... and then twisted the hot tap off completely and shivered myself awake! Seriously bad, but better than I'd expected. (I've tried the "cold finish" before, but never been able to turn the hot tap all the way off ... so more a "tepid finish" I suppose. Let's see if it makes any difference to my metabolism, eh?)

So I don't really know if I'm forming good habits just yet, or if I'm in the "three day monk" period and will revert to my quick-eating, hot-showering self by Friday.

I'm missing milky coffee most, I think.

Tracking, tweaking, reporting

Today was the first "real" day of my biohacking experiment, and I think it went pretty well. Of course, the first day is always the easiest...

Breakfast was delicious and filling; lunch too; and dinner finished me off nicely. I got some exercise in; not much, sure, but "some" is more than "none" and it's best to take it easy. I didn't eat too many calories, but didn't feel hungry either (and the exercise just may have burned more than I consumed). I had plenty of water and even tried a cold shower an hour before bed.

There are a few tools I'm using at the moment; I'm sure the list will change with time, but for now I'll stick with the following:

I mentioned Tomboy as my preferred note-taking app; similiarly I've been using red notebook as a 'personal journal' type thing. Journaling is reputably good for your brain, and good for sleep aps you can "unload" the cares of the day into a trusted source -- yep, it's just like "closing the open loops" in GTD-speak, with perhaps a wider scope than just "doing stuff". (Like metathought: thoughts about thoughts. Feelings. Guff.)

For tracking food (and some exercise) I've been using fatsecret and their corresponding Android app Calorie Counter. It's pretty nice, although searching is sometimes slower than I'd like and the barcode scanner doesn't understand many Australian (or UK for that matter) barcodes. The "exercise tracking" is a bit limited, with only a handful of different exercises to choose from, but a good HRM like my Suunto T3 should let me enter custom exercise estimates.

I'm going to try uploading foodie pics to twitpic; not sure how that will go, but if I can do it from my phone then maybe it's a habit I can get into. I haven't decided whether to upload biometrics to Daytum and/or a shared Google Spreadsheet that a friend and fellow experimenter has created. He's also recommended some Android/iPhone apps (such as RunKeeper) -- and I found that the C25K one looks good, once I get around to attempting that.

Other than that, I only have a few pieces of exercise equipment: a skipping rope stolen from my sister; some twisty handley things for pushups; an old exercise-bike; and a pull-up bar that I'm afraid to put up in case it tears the wall down. (Best wait 'til we're in our own place for that.) Oh, and an old-fashioned analogue timer that I use when I want to (e.g.) skip for 5 long minutes, or cycle for 15.

It's a short list, but a good one for now. Once we're in our own place I'll get a few "free weights" (i.e. dumbbells) and a bench, but that should be about it.

Bodyhack: the beginning

I've held the intention to get fit for a little while now, and that has translated into some amount of effort: morning exercise on the bike; counting calories; drinking more water; and minimising bread and potatoes from my diet just to see what happens.

I have also been making extensive notes in my personal wiki of choice, Tomboy. This little tool contains an ever-growing collection of topics of interest, thoughts and plans for myself and my personal growth. So it is no surprise that I have a few pages of notes about my fitness, why I want to improve and even how I might go about it. I was rocking along with "the hacker's diet", tracking calories in and out, feeling better and having some modicum of success.

And then Christmas came along and it all went to hell. But hey, that's okay, too: my intention is now that much stronger. Intention precedes action, after all, and my intentions are pretty well-reasoned, trackable and verifiable by now. Time to get fit (i.e. shape myself to 'fit' the system called 'my desired life'), to make the long journey all the way from here (computer programmer slob) to "hyper-fit".

(I've coined this phrase to mean more than just regular healthy-levels -- I'm talking about the kind of fitness that marathon runners have, or professional sports-people, or the kinds of people that cycle across Africa. Like, scary fit.)

To this end, I bought 'Four Hour Body' by Tim Ferris this weekend, and have been reading it on and off since. Tim is a proper hacker, or so he seems to me: he experiments on himself and others, loves data and ignores the advice of others (telling him something is impossible, especially).

So, internets, on his advice (and that of others who have succeeded, like geek girl gets fit) I am tracking my progress publicly. Please feel free to comment, ridicule, laugh, tell me I can't do it, tell me I can do it or just come along for the ride.

Get your game on! Rowr!

Confession: I am a W3SchoolFool - I just didn't know any better!

A friend o'er the ocean just sent me an email highlighting something I didn't know: just how wrong, stupid and evil w3schools.com really is.

w3fools.com is dedicated to disseminating this knowledge, and if (like me) you've ever Googled for a quick reminder on CSS or Javascript and wound up at w3schools, ho ho, how wrong you were!

Of course, now that I know better, I've got a bunch of unlearning to do!

Seriously, go read w3fools.com, then vow never to visit w3schools again.

(Thanks for the heads-up, Crash.)