technology

You’ve probably heard by now that Google Reader will no longer exist after June 30th. Many people are probably going to wait until the very last minute to find a new reader, but I wanted to give myself time to get acclimated to a new reader with enough time to try out a few of them if need be. Surprisingly the first one I tried seems to be working like a gem. I’ve been using Bloglovin for the past few days and the process of moving things over was so easy and I plan on sticking with it.

What I will miss about Google Reader though is using iGoogle as my homepage which had a Google Feed Reader gadget. iGoogle also showed awesome things like the weather and the top headlines from People.com and US Magazine. What can I say, I am a sucker for celebrity gossip. Here is what my iGoogle page looked like. iGoogle is being discontinued on November 1st so I guess I need to get used to that page being gone as well.

{Click on the photo to view larger, I couldn’t get it readable in this size of photo.}

Stupid Google, why are you trying to ruin my life?

The whole point here was to tell you how amazing and wonderful Bloglovin is and how easy it is to use. It has a nice clean layout and is very easy to scroll down and read snippets of the blog posts with one photo included. Here is what it looks like.

You have the option of clicking on the blog title and going straight to the blog URL or click the blog title for a Bloglovin URL that includes a menu at the top to arrow through all of your updated feed subscriptions.

The very BEST part of Bloglovin that makes it a gazillion times better than Googler Reader is once someone clicks your blog by either of the methods I have described above- it COUNTS AS A PAGE VIEW. Halleluiah! Isn’t that awesome? And you are able to comment on posts without having to make an extra click to another page. Plus, I just love seeing everyone’s pretty blog layouts and such rather than a boring looking plain white page.

See just as I was writing this and clicking through screens I read that John Mayer and Katy Perry just broke up for the second time. This news is important you know!

If you are interested in giving Bloglovin a try, Follow these super easy steps.

1. Create a Bloglovin account at http://bloglovin.com
2. Click on the arrow to the right of your profile name and choose “Settings”.
3. Scroll down and click the “Import Blogs” button.
4. Choose “Google Reader” on the next page.
5. Sit back and relax while all of your blogs are imported. If you have a large amount of subscriptions it may take several minutes.

Pretty easy right?

TIPS:

Once you have your blogs imported you can click on “Following” right above your list of feeds and create groups to arrange your blog feeds by category.

You can also get the code for a cool button like this to use in your sidebar or at the end of your blog posts.
Like this… may as well click on it and add me :)

Be sure to click on the HELP page to read how to “Claim your Blog” and answer any other questions you may have.

If you would like me to add your blog to my feed please leave me a comment, I always love finding new blogs to read!

There have been many new subscribers to my YouTube Channel this month and some have left comments telling me to keep at it or to please update them on my progress. All of these are on the series I made called “Can Fat People Do the Insanity Workout?” The guilt finally set in and I figured it was time I hang my head in shame and admit that I never did finish the second month of Insanity. Today I had recorded a video (several times, ugh – it’s hard getting back into talking to a camera again) and just got done with editing and our iMac started acting up again. The spinning beach ball from hell is what I call it. Of course I had already deleted the video clips on my Flip camera so now I can’t upload the video. After doing some research (sometimes I just hate Google- it’s a never ending vortex of information- some of it conflicting) I feel pretty confident in saying that the hard drive needs replaced. After all of the reformatting and crap that I did several months ago resulting in the same issues, it’s just gotta happen. I am going to call our local Mac repair shop and see how much it will cost for them to install the new hard drive for me. If it’s more than a few hundred dollars I will do it myself since I can get a new hard drive for about $150. I have never taken apart an iMac before and it doesn’t look to hard. But this does not work into all of the things that I have to do right now. PLUS I can not upload my video now and the footage is lost. This was me about an hour ago when I was slowly accepting I now have to rerecord the video and then figure out how to use Windows Movie Maker on my PC to edit it instead.

And did I mention how I use the iMac to watch tv shows or movies while I am working!? Now I have to work in silence until I get it fixed. The horror!!

Daily Nuggets (something new I am going to do at the end of my posts, you should do it too!)

-> We took all four dogs to the vet today, there was a lot of bleeding going on. I think the vet used too large of a needle to test for heartworm. Then he clipped one of Tori’s nails too short. It was a mess.

-> The snow is almost all melted!! What if it didn’t snow again all winter? That would be AMAZING!

-> Ken is resigning from being head of our youth football organization. He still wants to coach, but we just can’t be in charge anymore. It takes too much time away from us during the day (in the fall) and when you run your own business, that just doesn’t work out very well. Two years was enough. Still kinda sad though.

After using Windows 8 for about a week I have to say I really like it. It takes some time getting used to the start screen because it is unlike any previous version of Windows. It’s a very modern take of a start screen with all these brightly colored tiles. The new start screen is obviously geared towards users that will be using a touch-screen tablet or an ultrabook which is a laptop that converts to a tablet. It’s a little strange not having a start button that has been there since I can ever remembering using a computer. You can hover in the lower left corner and a start button will appear, but it takes you to the Live Tiles screen, not a long list of programs like in the past. There is still a desktop which you can have program shortcuts as usual, but I like using the Live Tiles for the most part. The mail and calendar apps that come with Windows 8 are pretty slick, but I already have calendar I use on my iPhone (Informant) and I can’t imagine using anything but Outlook for my email since I have so many different accounts. I also love that I can auto sync my photos directly from my iPhone to my PhotoStream, kind of like iCloud. There is so much I haven’t even begun to explore yet, like the games and tons of apps that are available for download. So far, so good and I love how fast my new laptop is running as well.

I always mixed emotions when getting a new laptop. While I love the speed and freshness of the whole thing, it takes me forever to get all my documents and programs moved over. We ended up purchasing the new version of Act for our work database and it functions pretty quickly as well. It took me awhile to get through this list…

For those who live near us and have Buckeye cable, you have to call and get the new modem/DVR combo. Not only does it upgrade your DVR with a larger hard drive, it also allows you to record up to 6 programs at a time. Amazing! AND…you can watch the programs from any device. If you are watching a program in your family room and then want to head to bed to finish watching it, it will pick up right where you left off. You can set, delete, watch recordings from any of your boxes as well. The DVR menu is taking some getting used to, but it’s easy enough to figure out.

The modem is great as well because you no longer need to use a router for wireless connection. It has wireless capabilities and you are able to change the settings for xbox connection (open the appropriate ports and such). There is a $25 fee for the setup and they come out to your house and connect everything for you. The cost of the modem/DVR box is not any more per month, in fact we would have saved a few bucks each month if we wouldn’t have ordered an extra box when we got the new equipment.

I believe Buckeye did some commercials advertising the new box, but I never seen them since I tend to DVR everything and never watch commercials. It wasn’t until I got online to look up their phone number to order a new DVR box because ours kept skipping (like dropping off sound for a second here and there) that I seen that the new boxes were available. No more sound skipping for us!

(This is not a paid advertisement, however if Buckeye would like to give me a discount on my cable bill for saying nice things about their products, that would be super!)

As soon as I heard about this little activity tracker called the Up by Jawbone, that syncs with the iPhone I just had to have one. I have a Nike Plus which essentially does the same thing in terms of keeping tracking of your walking/running, but I don’t have Nike Plus shoes so I always had to wear this little cloth pouch on my shoe and it was such a hassle. Besides the Up tracks all your steps all day long not just your workouts. It also tracks your sleep patterns which I was really interested in. More and more I have felt like I haven’t been getting a good nights sleep and sure enough I was right.

Here is what my Up looks like. I got the black one and it is not the most comfortable thing when you work on the computer all day. I find that I will take it off while I am at my desk and then I forget to put it back on so it is not always 100% accurate. When I am not at my computer I don’t really feel that I have it on so it’s pretty tolerable. Again when sleeping it bothered me a bit and took some getting used to.

The silver tip that says Jawbone comes off and there is a plug inside that goes into the headphones opening on the iPhone to sync your information. The other silver end you push to alter between activity/sleep/workout. You have to tell your UP when you are going to bed and when you are starting a workout. It is pretty simple to figure out.

The actual App for the iPhone is pretty user friendly as well. You can add friends and create teams. All of your data can be shared with your team or you can keep certain features private as well. I was surprised that there wasn’t a share with Facebook option because it seems all Apps these days have some way to connect to Facebook. Maybe that is coming with a future update.

Here is what a typical day of activity looks like. You set your goals as to how many steps you would like to take each day as well as how many hours of sleep you would like to aim for. Mine is set to take 5,000 steps a day and sleep 7 hours a night.

Here is a day of light activity.

Here is a very active day for me. I think I was shopping and running all sorts of errands that day.
It gives you total calories burned (based on your weight and height), total miles walked, total time you were active as well as total steps.

My sleep patterns sure showed some crazy results. I have no idea how accurate this is because I read that it is based off your movements during sleep which I am not sure that I agree that every time you move that means you are not in a deep sleep. Anyways, I did show what I predicted in regards to how much total sleep I was getting. Not a whole lot of uninterrupted sleep! The light blue color shows your light sleep and the dark blue deep sleep and the orange is when you woke up.

There is another feature on the Up that I haven’t used. It has a food journal where you take photos of your meals and then after you have digested your food you are supposed to select how the meal made you feel. This is supposed to help you determine what foods you should eat to feel good and which to avoid in the future. I think it’s pretty easy to figure out that a salad is going to make me feel better than a Bean Burrito from Taco Bell. If the app actually calculated your calories, like similar to the MyFitnessPal App it would be more functional.

Overall I am glad I bought the Up by Jawbone wristband. I know it’s all trivial and at the end of the day really means nothing unless you are big time into running and working out. But it’s fun and interesting to see what your results are. It certainly is going to let you know if you are being too lazy and not getting off your butt enough in a day. I need to sign up for some challenges to increase my activity and start using it to track my workouts more.

With all this being said I have read a lot of negative reviews lately where people can’t use their Up anymore due to malfunctioning wristbands. They won’t charge, they won’t sync, etc. So please know I am not telling you to rush out and by an Up wristband.
I haven’t had any problems with mine. All of these opinions are my own. I do not get paid to do reviews on my website. However I can tell you that I had a hard time finding an Up wristband at the stores and my brother in law hooked us up! He works for AT&T, so if you are local and trying to find one, let me know and I will send you his info.