If you run, or bike for that matter, you probably keep a record of your runs. I remember back in high school that I used to just write all my runs down on paper. Well, after using Nike+ then switching to RunKeeper, I haven’t looked back.

But then I noticed the Garmin Forerunner series. I’m no stranger to Garmin GPS units. I love the Nuvi for my car and I’ve used the Geko in the past for Geocaching.

Well, the Garmin Forerunner 310XT offers tons of features to keep track of your pace and distance and more. It’s waterproof and has a stellar battery life. In fact, just read a super thorough review here.

But what’s best about this specific Forerunner is that you could win it in a contest! I know! Actually, this blog post counts as an entry for myself (sneaky sneaky!) so head over and jump in this contest before it’s over! It’s super easy!

Resting my new running 'tools.'

Well, I just completed my first run with no shoes on. I did a mile, just because it was feeling so good. I really should have gone less. Actually I should have just walked but it felt so free to be running with just my bare feet hitting the pavement.

I’m reading “Born to Run” and if you’re into running at all you need to check this book out. There are so many interesting things in this book & it’s one of my inspirations to try barefoot running.

I know that a lot of you may think its goofy or even just dangerous but I think there might actually be something there and I need to try and figure it out. I can’t remember where I heard it but there was a quote that I enjoyed and I feel it relates to this.

Those who say it’s impossible should not interrupt those doing it.

Earlier today while at work, I got the idea to start barefoot running. You have no idea how bad I wanted to take my shoes and socks off and start walking around barefoot right then! Then the whole Metro ride then bus ride home I was just itching to set my piggies free!

Right when I got off the bus, I rolled up my pants and stripped off my shoes and socks and walked home. Everything from the sidewalks to the fresh cut grass felt new and intriguing. Like I’ve forgotten the texture of them all together.

The grass was so welcoming that I couldn’t help to run a few steps just to see what it was like. My legs just wanted to run! As soon as I walked in the door to my house, I changed into my running clothes with running shoes in hand and bolted back out the door.

When I started to run, I suddenly realized how ‘free’ everything felt. I really did feel like a kid again, with not a care in the world. Just running. I thought about my mom telling me to come home when the street lights came on.

I passed a few people on the sidewalk trail but in their defense they were moving pretty slow. I wasn’t exactly setting records but I felt amazing. My back was straight and my legs had no pain or anything. I truly amazed myself as to how fast I was moving. I wonder what I could have done if I were on soft earth and running on grass?

Right near the end of my barefoot trial I felt a pain in my left toe. It felt like a small thorn or something.  Well, I would be done in a moment so I just let it go. After I stopped and parked myself on a bench to reflect on the run, I looked at my foot and realized there was what looked like a blister that just formed, popped, and was now a flap that was open. Ouch!

That's an ouchie.

No big deal though. I just threw on my running shoes and made my way back home. After cleaning it and putting a pair of socks on, I think all is well. Though I do feel some pain from it right now. Also other parts of my feet that aren’t use to running out of a shoe! But that’s to be expected.

I promised myself that I’m not going to push anything and I’m going to take it as easy as possible so I won’t become injured and not be able to run period. Being barefoot is such an interesting and liberating experience and I bet that not a lot of people know at all what it’s like.

Do you run barefoot? If you don’t, I want you to try it. Be safe though. Maybe just trot around in a nice field but make mental notes as to how you feel.

I’m afraid that I’m hooked.

iPhone 4 by Flickr user bfgreen

Chances are, you want an iPhone. If you don’t have one, then you are either locked into another providers plan or the cost of the phone with data plan is just too much. I totally understand that. The worst part is, the iPhone is so amazing (in my book) and the cost of ownership is so high, the features make it hard to turn down.

Well, I think I’ve come up with an alternative for you. A way for you to get some “iLove” without having to have a contract for the iPhone. Long story short, my idea is going to end up having you carry both a cell phone AND an iPod Touch so it’s not really as simple as just having an all in one iPhone but in my mind, it can be a close 2nd alternative that’s relatively cheap.

Option One

Step One: Buy an iPod Touch

-or-

Alternate Step One: Wait until Apple unveils the latest iPod Touch (it’s supposed to have at least one camera on it and better features like Face Time) then buy that.

Step Two: Pick a phone and activate your plan through Virgin Mobile USA.

They have a seemingly decent choice of phones but I’ve never used any of them and haven’t even seen one in person. So check Cnet.com for ratings on the phones Virgin offers before you buy.

One of the main benefits of an iPhone or iPod Touch is all the apps. Twitter app, Facebook app, YouTube app, etc. Those are some of the basics apps that I use on a daily basis (if not hourly) on my iPhone. But there is some good news and bad news  with going this route…

Good news? You can still access Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Gmail from your non iDevice phone.

Bad news? They aren’t pretty apps but mobile sites that are watered down. Just the bare essentials to get your ‘social networking fix.’

• Twitter Mobile
  • http://mobile.twitter.com/
• Facebook Mobile
  • http://www.facebook.com/mobile/
• YouTube Mobile
  • http://www.youtube.com/mobile
• Gmail Mobile
  • http://www.google.com/mobile/mail/

Are you starting to realize how this is working? You have the Virgin Mobile “unlimited” web cell phone plan for $25 a month and the wifi only iPod Touch for all the email and online games/apps for when you are at places that have a wifi connection (which is almost always free). But you can still use the iPod Touch in tons of ways that don’t require an Internet connection.

What do you get with the $25/month Virgin Mobile plan?

• Unlimited Messaging
• Unlimited Email
• Unlimited Data & Web
• 300 minutes

You can get more minutes if you need them too:

• 1200 minutes for $40
• Unlimited minutes for $60

But personally, the 300 minutes a month would be fine for me. They don’t roll over, but I rarely use the phone as an actual phone. I almost always email, tweet, or text message before I’ll call someone. I also read a great article about how people are talking less and less on the phone and I’d love to show you it but I can’t find it! BUT I did happen to find a similar article that has some neat info in it.

The average length of a local call was 1.81 minutes in 2009 compared to 2.27 minutes in 2008.

Read the whole article on New York Times.

So, that’s my solution for you if you can’t afford an iPhone and data plan but still want mobile internet and access to the iTunes app store. Free wifi is growing and almost everywhere so I don’t think you would feel too crippled or weighed down with these two devices on you.

Option Two

The other option is one I don’t know much about. Basically you buy this device that looks like a case but has a battery and SIM card in it. You put your iPod Touch in this “case” and it turns your iPod Touch into a semi-legit iPhone. Read more about it on Engadget. Overall, it’s quirky at best and requires you to jailbreak so it’s not really going to be a viable option for all but I wanted to still share it with you.

Do you have any ideas for getting around not having an iPhone? What’s your strategy, I’d love to hear it!

Photo source: Flickr user bfgreen

Current iPhone Home Screen

I’m the kind of person that enjoys seeing others houses because I think a change of scenery grows new ideas.

I like to keep my home screen filled with the apps I’ll use the most as well as some of the more graphically pleasing apps. The icons on the main screen need to pass my “app appeal” test and it’s more important now that I have an iPhone 4 with retina display!

What’s on your iPhone home screen? As you can see, I have a lovely picture of my smokin’ hot wife! But I have seen some cool wallpapers. A friend of mine has a Pac-Man scheme that goes around all the app icons, pretty creative.

Here is the list of apps on the home screen in no real order: oh! and the “i” notates the apps that come on the iPhone from Apple.

• Calendar (i)
• Navigation Folder
  • Google Maps (i)
  • Google Earth
  • Waze
  • Where
  • MapQuest
  • ArcGIS
• Photos (i)
• Camera (i)
• Messages (i)
• Notes (i)
• Home Screen Folder
  • iMovie
  • Red Laser
  • Digg
  • DailyBooth
  • 43 Things
  • LinkedIn
• Productivity Folder
  • iDisk
  • Box.net
  • Evernote
  • Springpad
  • Google
  • Voice Memo (i)
  • Omni Focus
  • DocsToGo
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Foursquare
• Dropbox
• X-Plane-4G
• Instapaper
• Tumblr
• Settings (i)
• Phone (i)
• Mail (i)
• Safari (i)
• Music Folder
  • iPod (i)
  • Pandora
  • Shazam
  • Soundhound
  • I Heart Radio
  • Simplify
  • Pzizz Sleep
  • Pzizz Energizer
  • Ambiance
  • Bing Music
  • Boombox
  • iOrgel

Wall Charger & Sparq 2.0

I recently got a 40% off coupon from Zagg.com and while browsing their site for something to use it on, I saw the Sparq. It’s a portable battery pack for recharging any electronic device through USB. It promises to do some pretty awesome things such as recharge an iPhone from 0 – 100% 4 times! It can also take an iPad from 0 – 60% battery in the same time it takes a wall charger to do it. Those are pretty impressive stats.

Instead of doing the normal test of recharges and seeing long it lasts that way, I thought it would be fun to see how long I could use just the Sparq 2.0 to charge my iPhone. Would it last a few days? A week? Longer?! I don’t know!

I use my iPhone for almost everything and I use it a lot. I read on it, watch videos on it, play games on it, work on it… It’s easy for me to drain the battery once a day if I’m really cranking away on it.

For this test, I won’t be doing anything different that I usually do. This is going to be a real world test. I’ll try and keep track of what I do but since I honestly do so much on it and my “schedule” changes all the time so I may just give an overall review of use.

I’d love to hear what you use if you have some sort of battery backup! Do a test of your own and tell me about it!

*Oh, enter you’re own email address here for a coupon code good on Zagg.com, you could get up to 50% off!

[Update]

Short Version: Sunday AM to Tuesday PM (3 days)

Long Version: Living off of the Sparq exclusively lasted for longer than I thought. It survived all the way from Sunday morning to Tuesday night.  That may not sound like a long time but remember, I was using my iPhone a lot.

I got a new iPhone game, Archetype, and I played it throughout the whole test period. You can play online via wifi, 3G or locally over Bluetooth and all of those will drain the battery pretty quick.

Other than that new game, I was using my iPhone over both wifi & 3G to check and update Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr… everything! Having to recharge multiple times a day but not from 0%, just when I got around 50% or so.

Conclusion? I feel confident that if used right, you would last a whole week off just the Sparq 2.0. How do you do that?

• Low backlight
• Cut off wifi & bluetooth when not in use
• No iPod EQ setting on
• Turn off mail push & fetch
• Limit gaming & surfing

I’m one of the ‘heavier’ iPhone users that I know and if I can get it to last under such hard use for those 3 days, I’m impressed and I would recommend to anyone needing to charge a USB powered device.

I say almost because it is more like the iPad version than an app made to fit the low screen “real estate” of the iPhone. But it’s still an amazing app! So much detail and all the planes built into just one app.

To read some background on it, you should really read this blog post over at the X-Plane 10 Blog.

Here are some screenshots to show the difference in quality but they really don’t do it justice! Both are using the Cessna 172 on the LOWI 08 Austria runway.

iPhone 4 with original X-Plan app (had to be two screenshots because the other app shows the front view AND the dash)

iPhone 4 with X-Plane HDEF app

Here are some comments that I posted on the original blog post:

Tomorrow is going to be the hottest July 7th in Washington DC ever! The current high for that date is 99F in 1991, but tomorrow it’s supposed to reach 101F!

My plan is to run from work to the Washington Monument and back. It’s about a 4 mile round trip and I haven’t been running in a while so this is going to be extra tough on me.

Peter Shankman put a note on his Facebook saying:

Thinking about doing the Central Park Loop Run today around 2pm just because it’s a record-setting heat. I know that seems crazy, but if we DO set a record, how cool to be able to say “Yeah, I was running when we set that record…”

I read that and instantly got excited. If you read the comment thread on Peter’s Facebook page, you’ll notice that a lot of people are urging him to not do this. Yes, safety is undoubtedly their reason but what I see are a lot of naysayers.

Ok, I guess they aren’t really “naysaying” but when I hear someone say I can’t do something it only fires me up a ton more! When I told a few coworkers my plan and offered an invite, they all turned me down and told me not run. But there is something about this one little crazy goal that I just really feel I have to conquer, just to know “I did it.”

Now, I know that’s it dangerous and a 4 mile run in this heat and humidity is dangerous but I’m going to take it easy and if I feel like I’m going downhill, I’m going to have tons of water as well as my SmartTrip card for the Metro and money for a taxi.

So come tomorrow, I’m loading the Camelbak up with ice and water, updating the iPhone with some motivating music and I plan on getting all the way to the Washington Monument and back. I hope my mom doesn’t read this because she probably won’t approve…

Wish me luck!

**Update**

I did it! Check out the run:

Mike Petrucci’s AppMakr Saga. Mike Petrucci decided to use AppMakr to put together an app aggregating his Twitter, blog, etc, feeds…only to have Apple reject it because it wasn’t of general interest. That’s a big difference between iPhone apps and, say, web apps (blogger has definitely never rejected someone for being of limited interest). It’ll be interesting to see what line Apple decides to take on this, and how AppMakr and similar companies push them.

Here is the direct link to the page for you see yourself: pssst, click –> here

If you were interested on the backstory, it’s so far in 3 parts but I should probably make a new update as a lot has changed but in a good way.

• Part 1: App Denied but thanks for the $49!
• Part 2: AppMakr Fail Update
• Part 3: AppMakr Update [Things lookin’ up?]

But really, AppMakr didn’t just say “sorry” and move on, they said “sorry, lets work together on fixing this so it doesn’t happen again” and THAT’S what I call awesomeness.

Well, I’ve had just about a full day to tinker and play with the new operating system on my iPhone 3GS and I have some thoughts.

There is a lot that I like but if I had to pick just one thing to have because I find it the most useful, it would be ‘folders.’

But let me list the features I liked and the ones I didn’t.

Positives :
- Super fast camera! It almost takes the pic faster than the shutter sound can go off!
- Folders has saved my life. I went from a full 11 pages to 5.
- Wallpaper is a nice addition and I didn’t find even a portrait to be too busy. But that’s a personal preference.
- I love the new “places” feature in the camera roll. I can view the pics I took with my iPhone camera on a map which sometimes makes it easier to find specific pictures.
- With the new screen rotation lock, I’m sure emailing and tweeting from bed will be much easier!
- You can now adjust your spotlight searching. I want apps to have a higher priority than emails and notes just under apps.
- Real spellcheck! Even has the little squiggly red underline thing. Very easy to use.
- One of the most fun surprises was that my Bluetooth keyboard would pair and let me type a note or email etc. Felt like a real laptop!
- When shooting a video, you can now touch to focus and change the auto iris.

Negatives :
- Still no way to add image in email while composing. Well, no easy way. One way is to be in the email, double click the home button, go to pics, click and hold to copy pic, double click home button, back to email and paste. I recommend it should behave like Tweetie, I mean Twitter for iPhone.
- I want the entire screen (apps and all) to rotate when i rotate the device. Like the iPad.

Notes:
- Swiping from page to page feels fluid sometimes but choppy other times.
- Still getting used to using a centralized inbox but they have all the mailboxes separate of you want them like the old way.
- I like how iBooks highlights and you can email a note but I want to be able to email those notes. And even have a “lending” feature so I can share iBooks with friends.
- Multitasking works well although I got used to the double press of my home button being quick access to my camera but now it’s used to access multitasking.