My Running Tips:

I just completed my first half-marathon and I must admit it was much easier than I thought it would be. I am not a die-hard runner, I don’t count my calories and carbs every day, but I did make an effort to perform some easy steps to help me go from couch to half-marathon in a matter of months.  I have had several people ask me about the methods I used to prepare for my run so I thought I would share those here. I am not a doctor, nor a professional runner, so keep that in mind when you read the following. 

1. Get your doctor’s approval before you start exerting yourself too much. He will listen to your heart and possibly put you on a treadmill if he feels it is necessary.
2. You need a realistic goal. I suggest you find a local 5K and make that you first run. Do the math and figure out how much distance you need to add each month to reach that goal.
3. When I started running, people told me to be nice to my feet. After a year of “serious” running, I prefer to say be nice to your KNEES. Chances are you have owned athletic shoes with thick padding which is even thicker at the heel. You know the shoes I am talking about – they look like spaceships from Star Wars. I suggest you buy some low heel shoes and learn to run in these. These shoes actually flatten your feet when you run instead of striking heel first. This may sound counter intuitive, but it’s better in the long run because it puts less impact on your knee. You will need to train yourself to run like this though. Focus on hitting with the mid part of your foot and taking shorter strides if necessary. If you’ve been running in thicker heeled shoes, you will want to wean yourself off these with your new shoes. Now the thought of running 13.1 miles with my heel first sounds painful. The shoes I bought were called the Adidas Marathon 10. There are many other options available.
4. To stretch or not to stretch? Personally, I stretch very little before a run. I found that stretching actually fatigued my muscles making the run more difficult. Instead, I prefer a brisk walk before and after the run. This is not a sprint so your muscles are going to naturally loosen up a few minutes into the run.
5. Consistency is key. Depending on your goals you will want to run at least once per week. If you run less often, you won’t make much progress and runs won’t get easier. Even if you cannot get outside to run, then you should find yourself on a treadmill or elliptical. Don’t worry about the distance that is indicated on the machine, you need to exercise for the same duration as you would if you were running outside. So, if you have been running 30 minutes outside, then you need to spend 30 minutes on the treadmill. You should not run more than three times per week so your body has time to recover.
6. Cross training will lead to better running and fewer injuries. Cross training is simply doing another type of exercise with your legs instead of running all the time. This could be an elliptical or orbital or weight training.
7. There is nothing wrong with walking. In the beginning shoot for increasing your time on the track instead of speed. Start your run, if you get tired then walk, but DON’T STOP!! When you regain your breath run again. Eventually, this 30 minutes of run/walking will be heavily weighted on running with less walking. As a result, your distance will increase.
8. You will have good days and bad days. Don’t get upset when the exact same run is harder than it was the last time.
9. When you get into a rhythm, alternate short runs with long runs. For example, have short runs on Tuesday and Thursday, with a longer run on Sunday. Your longer runs need to get longer every couple of weeks to reach your distance goals.
10. Eat and drink well. Don’t have a burrito and diet Coke the day you run. You should be drinking constant amounts of water to keep your muscles hydrated well before your runs starts. If you start drinking one hour before run time, you’re doing it wrong. In my experience I have found that the days I don’t hydrate well are the days I have more difficult runs.
11. I take vitamins but your opinion may vary. I take a good multi vitamin, E&D for my skin, a B complex for energy, and fish oil for my Omegas. Some people say that fish oil helps lubricate your joints. Like I said before, be nice to your knees.
12. Find a partner and make a schedule. If you can find someone with your same skill level, then the runs will become much more enjoyable.
13. Keep positive.  If you are dwelling on negative thoughts then your performance will be impacted by the negative stress. On run day, do your best to avoid negative people and make a point to stay positive.  Conversely, I have also found that a run is a good way to clear my mind.
14. Remember you’re not training for a RACE you are in a RUN. The only person you need to impress is yourself.

After a year of “serious” running, I prefer to say be nice to your KNEES

Benefits of running:

You often hear about  the typical benefits of running like weight loss, better heart health, etc…  Admittedly, I don’t struggle with weight so these were of little concern to me.  However, one benefit I have noticed is the desire to eat better.  I spend all this time bettering my health by running, the last thing I want to do is un-do something positive by cramming a package of Twinkies down my throat. I also discovered that my back feels better and I sleep better at night. Regardless of your goals, I suggest you check with your doctor and start running.  You will never reach that 5k or marathon if that bag of Doritos is keeping you pined to the couch.

I never intended to generate revenue from my blog, but I did place a few Google ads in unobtrusive places on my posts just to see what would happen.  For the most part, I let these ads run on auto-pilot and forgot they were even there.  Then, after a year or so, I got a check for $100 from Google.  Cool!! Then, six months later I got another $100 check. Obviously I’m not going to quit my day job, but I’m not going to complain about getting $100 checks in the mail either!  Getting these checks made me wonder how I could increase my revenue and get those checks more often. So, this week, I moved the ads to places that are more conspicuous but still do not detract from the content.  I’ll track this for a few weeks and see if it makes a difference. I use a WordPress plugin called Advertising Manager to manage the Google ads.  This plugin is old but allows me to easily import the ads.

So here are some questions to the bloggers who are serious about monetization:

1. What other services, besides Google Adsense, do you use?
2. What plugin do you use to manage your ads?
3. Do you use any affiliate programs that do not require daily interaction?
4. What other recommendations do you have for monetization?

While you’re here, feel free to click on an ad. 

In the same manner I did with my HP TouchPad list of annoyances, I need to offer this disclaimer to diffuse any hate mail from hard core fans of Windows Phones. Here it is:

Windows Phone is the best mobile operating system available today. I have a Samsung Focus (running the Windows Phone Mango beta), an iPad, and the HP TouchPad. I have carried Androids, iPhones, and Blackberries and the Windows Phone is my system of choice.

I’m not talking about the old-school Windows Mobile 6.x phones that grew into a fragmented mess.  I’m talking about the written from scratch Windows Phone 7 that was released in 2010. Even with a horrible marketing effort from Microsoft, people who use it start to understand that its usefulness comes from its integration and simplicity. Just ask Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. Or check out this article from Ziff-Davis last week on the stability of Windows Phone.

Step out of the Reality Distortion Field and you will realize that “other” companies create quality products. In fact, Windows Phone is the best thing to come out of Microsoft in years. (Although some would argue for Kinect.) The ease of use combined with stability and rich feature set makes for a truly remarkable product. I’m running on a Focus (which is a somewhat older WP device) and it is the smoothest, most responsive system I have.  I like my tablets but the Windows Phone operating system is smoother, more responsive, and less quirky. There won’t be a “Windows Phone Tablet” because Windows 8 (yes, the desktop version of Windows) will run on mobile platforms including phones and tablets.  It’s a shame there won’t be a WP Tablet because the hub concept would work perfectly on this form factor.  I’m sure there is a WP Tablet somewhere in a Microsoft lab, but it will never see the light of day.

By the way, after I posted my list of HP TouchPad annoyances, HP stated they were reevaluating their tablet strategy. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen this time!

As great as Windows Phone may be, it is still a relatively new system and there is obvious room for improvement. Here are my top annoyances of Mango:

1. Customization is lacking. Yes, I know this goes against the Windows Phone simple is better theme, but I saw a silly app called “Phone 8” that showed how basic customization could be performed without taking away from the live tile experience. The app demonstrates concept themes that vary the level of opacity of the tiles and allows a background image to be visible.
2. What in the heck is Tap-by-Turn navigation? Yes, I know that turn-by-turn is available through various third-party apps. I’ve also heard the speculation that Microsoft could not include turn-by-turn due to some licensing restriction with NavTeq, but this needs to get worked out. Tap-by-turn may work technically but it is a horrible compromise.
3. Where is the “Find on page” option in IE9? It was there in the original version of Windows Phone with IE8 so why is it missing now?
4. Limited multitasking has been a part of Windows Phone from the beginning.  It was ‘limited’ since it only allowed for managed apps to run simultaneously. You could easily listen to music with the built-in Zune media player, take a phone call and browse the web. However, if you wanted to listen to music with another app, like Last.FM, your music would stop as soon as you navigated away from the app. With the Mango build Microsoft has created a cool new hybrid technique that sits between full-blown multitasking (like WebOS) and a most recently used list (like iOS). This has promise as a multitasking system that doesn’t kill your battery. My issue is with the user interface implementation. To switch between tasks you are presented with a card-like interface that is similar to WebOS users. In Mango, when you hold down the back key you will see the five most recent applications. However, there is no easy way to close the app from this card view or change the number of items in the list. This really seems half-baked.
5. Why why why is there no way to take a screenshot? I would love to show you the multitasking card view, but I cannot grab a screen capture. I heard someone speculate that this is to protect potential copyright violations. Whatever! Every other OS in the world (including Windows) has this ability.
6. No Citrix client. This might not mean much to you, but in a corporate environment this could be a huge deal and prevent Windows Phone from being adopted as a standard. The Citrix guys blame Microsoft for not giving them the proper hardware level access in the API. We’ll see if that changes now that the Mango API has just been released.
7. No Cisco-EAP WiFi client. File this under “special corporate uses”, but this one is biting me since we use CEAP as our WiFi authentication method at work.
8. No Cisco AnyConnect client. Not having CEAP wouldn’t be that big of a deal if I could simply VPN/SSL in. However, that’s not an option either.
9. Some major apps are still not available. There are over 30,000 apps in the catalog. That is a huge milestone that was reached very quickly. This is even more remarkable when you consider that most of these are high-quality apps. There is definitely a limit on the number of fart apps. So what’s missing? For me, I am looking for UrbanSpoon and the Starbucks pay app. I find it ridiculous that the UrbanSpoon app is missing.
10. There are no folders. Since there are so many apps, why is there no way to organize these on the phone?  You can pin your favorites to the home screen but there is no concept of folders (The same feature is lacking on HP’s WebOS and the first few generations of Apple’s iOS).  The compensating factor is the ability to search for an app, but I would still like to see some type of multilevel organization structure in the app list.
11. You cannot search the full index of the phone.  You can search for apps.  You can search for emails in the email client. You can search for contacts in People Hub. You cannot search in one place and return all results on the phone like you can using the “Just Type” feature in WebOS.  This is a “Bing Phone” so you would think this would be possible.
12. Cloudy cloud story.   What is the ultimate cloud strategy for this platform? From day 1 of Windows Phone, you could login to www.windowsphone.com and find or lock your lost phone.  You could also log into SkyDrive and see your photos.  But does everyone know that?  There is little evidence of this on the phone or on the Zune software.  Why isn’t Zune cloud enabled?  I would love to see my phone synced with Zune through the SkyDrive cloud. Or take it further, why do I need Zune?  Why can’t I have a folder on my desktop that syncs with Phone via the cloud?
13. FlickR integration should be part of Windows Phone like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I would like to browse the pictures hub and see FlickR albums listed as well.
14. Custom ringtones are a pain without a 3rd party app.  In traditional Microsoft style, they provided the guts and are waiting for a partner to build a usable implementation.  As it stands today, without an app, you can create a Windows Phone ringtone by setting the genre to “ringtone” using the Zune desktop software. This is a pain.
15. ActiveSync needs a private app store. Yes, as a corporate user I would love to have a private market place.  I think the natural place for this is on our ActiveSync server.
16. Why can’t I run Windows Phone apps in Windows? OK, this really isn’t a Windows Phone annoyance, but it is still annoying.  If WP apps are written in Silver Light, why can’t I run the apps as a gadget in Windows 7?  This would be huge and open up new doors for new types of apps and attract thousands of new app developers. Update:  This will now be possible in Windows 8.

I picked up an HP TouchPad the other day…

Before I even used this tablet, I really liked idea of this device for several reasons:

• full multitasking (yes, REAL multitasking in a mobile architecture)
• inductive charging
• it’s not tied to any desktop software like iTunes
• it also includes Flash in the browser, but that is becoming less and less important as websites begin to convert to HTML5.

To level set, I have an iPad (1st Gen with the latest iOS) and a Windows Phone 7 (running the Mango beta) on a Samsung Focus. This note is not intended as an iPad Vs HP Touchpad vs Windows Phone showdown but undoubtedly there will be some comparisons made.

The HP TouchPad is nice, but…

Overall, the TouchPad is a REALLY GOOD entry to the tablet market.  I am really impressed when you consider that this tablet includes the first version of WebOS not running strictly on a phone (version 3.0.0). I keep hearing that an update is pending and some of my issues below will be addressed, but I haven’t seen anything yet. I would really like to see how the over-the-air update function performs.

After a week of use, I like this device.  Let me repeat that since I am about to list some annoyances:  I like the HP TouchPad.  However, it is obviously not a perfect device so here are the top items that I DO NOT LIKE:

1. HP made some questionable camera decisions. Where do I start with this annoyance? Let’s break this up into annoyance 1a and 1b.

1a. There is only a front camera. Why is there no rear facing camera? Don’t tell me “it doesn’t make sense” because HP included both cameras on their Slate 500. Even if HP decided it didn’t make sense, they should have included it anyway and let the developers and users decide how to utilize it.  I don’t expect people to walk around taking snapshots with a 10” tablet, but there are dozens of uses beyond snapshots.

• I can easily imagine a warehouse program that would use the camera to scan bar-codes. How can you take photos of large stock items with the screen facing away from you?
• Take Windows Phone’s Bing Vision as a great example why there needs to be a rear camera.  Bing Vision allows you to point the camera at a book cover and it will tell you all the details about the book and where to buy at the lowest price and download it from Kindle.
• Someone could also come up with a creative way to use both cameras as motion detecting security device.

If anything, you would think HP would want the feature just to say “me too” when compared to the iPad and the slew of Android devices.

1b. There is no camera app for the front facing app.  You read that correctly… In version 3.0.0 there is no way to take a photo with the TouchPad.

2. The browser is not good, bordering on bad. I’m not a fan of WebKit browsers in general, but this one is barely functional in some instances.  Since there aren’t that many apps available yet, the browser needs to be excellent — it’s not even close. You know when you go to Starbucks and you have to agree to the terms to use their AT&T wifi? Well, that language is all stacked on top of other sections and it is difficult to actually click the acceptance box. Try browsing through photos on facebook — it is a challenge to read all the comments for each photo. Try adjusting the volume in a YouTube video. The browser also scores the lowest of any modern browser on the ACID3 test.

3. The organization of apps and icons in WebOS is confusing.  It comes preloaded with two categories: APPS and DOWNLOADS. I still don’t know what the difference is. Worse yet, I cannot create my own folders to organize apps the way I want. On my iPad I created folders called “Reading” “Kids Games” “Music & Movies” and so on.  I would like to replicate this behavior on the TouchPad. This seems so basic and logical, but it took several updates to iOS and lots of begging before Apple finally added it.

4. Lack of quality apps hurts big time since this is what makes a tablet actually useful. Where’s Urban Spoon?  Where’s Netflix streaming? Windows Phone is up to “only” 25,000 apps but they reached that level faster than any other platform and they did it without a lot of junk type apps. I’m not impressed with a high number like the Android and Apple app stores since so many of their apps are pure junk.  How many fart apps are there in the Android App Store?HP could take a lesson from how Microsoft is courting app developers.

5. This is the newest, yet least fluid of any of the devices I own. My phone running the Mango beta is the smoothest, followed by the iPad, followed by the HP. The HP sometimes stutters as you navigate and browse. I hear the first update will address this issue, we’ll see.

6. Button clicking doesn’t always work. When I try to tap an on-screen button I see the little animated ripple on screen, but it doesn’t always activate the control. After several attempts, it usually kicks in.  After some reading, this seems to be systemic problem in WebOS phones as well. This is really annoying and needs to be fixed.

7.  I’ve come to like the swiping and throwing motions that are built into WebOS but they are not obvious at first to a new user like myself. Since this is a TRUE multitasking environment on a large screen (not on a phone) you would expect to see a close option or an “X” on each app. As computer users, this “X” is baked into our being.  Closing an app with the TouchPad is a two-step action to hit the home button to get to the task list, and then you throw the app away. Alternatively, you can swipe from the edge to the center to get the task list. Regardless, both actions require two steps.  It’s not bad, just different.

8. I guess the only way to switch between browser instances is to go to the task list? I don’t see a “tab” option anywhere. Once you get to the task list, the instances are generally stacked.  I still haven’t figured out how to get to the middle of the stack without closing every instance on top of it. Implementing something like IE’s QuickTabs or OSX’s Expose would be really helpful here.

9. The hardware itself is OK, but doesn’t feel as solid as the iPad. In fact, I had to replace my first TouchPad due to a defective case. Whereas the iPad has an alloy back, the TouchPad has a plastic case.  I was told the plastic is required for the inductive charging (but I don’t know for sure). Which, by the way, the Touchstone charger is really cool!  You can charge it in either orientation but if it is placed horizontally, it must be centered or it won’t charge.

10.  The Exhibition app doesn’t seem complete. Maybe I don’t understand this app but it is basically a display app (think screensaver) that scrolls through photos, displays your agenda, an animated clock, or any other “exhibition” app that someone creates.  When you set your preferences, you must click “start” and as expected it takes over your screen.  The problem is that if you select “clock” and “photos” it doesn’t rotate through these items as you would expect.  You must select a drop down to switch the display element.  If I have to do this, then why do I have to go through a set up process?  Here are my suggestions to improve exhibition:

1. Obvisouly, it should rotate through the items you selected in the setup without on-screen interaction.

2. There should be an option to auto start when placed on a charger or Touchstone. (Update:  Exhibition does auto start when placed on the Touchstone.  I’m not sure why it wasn’t but now it is.)

3. It should remember which Touchstone you are using and let you set preferences for each.  For example, my Touchstone at work would display my agenda and clock.  When placed on my home Touchstone, it would display photos.

4. Integrate alarms into the clock.  I can imagine a Touchstone by my bed that would replace my real alarm clock.

11. I want to use Bing everywhere. It’s good that Bing is the default map provider (I didn’t even see Google listed as an option), but why isn’t Bing available as one of the built-in web search providers? This is really inconsistent and a little confusing. This really needs to be tightened up by the HP guys. Perhaps they should give the user an option of all Bing or all Google in the settings. I am on a Google-free diet right now and this experiment is difficult with the TouchPad.

12. Minor hardware design issues may be limiting later. For example, the volume control should be two buttons vs a single rocker switch.  There should also be a usb port on the long side of the device for horizontal docking.

13. Changing the wallpaper requires a series of crazy steps.  Before you can change the wallpaper you need to realize that it can only be done from the “Screen and Lock” app under settings. That’s fine, but you also need to know that the image must exist in the “Wallpapers” folder on the device.  Once you understand these two items you can then browse photos with the “photos” app and click the “+” icon to copy images to the correct location then go set it with your “screen and lock” apps.  If that sounds confusing, it is because it takes TWO APPS to change your wallpaper. It’s too bad that you simply cannot long-click on any photo (in the web, in facebook, in the photos app, etc)  and set as wallpaper.  The good news here is that the TouchPad has integration into other services like Facebook.  When you browse with the photo app, you can see your FB photos as well.  This is a good implementation and similar to the way Windows Phone does with Facebook, Flickr, etc…

14. The power button does NOT turn the device off with a long hold like every other device in the world.  Yes, this function is needed.  You iPad owners know that an occasional reboot is required. You also need this for air travel. How do you turn this off anyway?

15. Inserting the text cursor into a precise place in the middle of a word takes several tries of tapping in the approximate area.  With iOS and WP7, you long tap the text area and get a very maneuverable cursor to drop EXACTLY where you want.  With WebOS it is probably quicker to erase and retype the entire word vs trying to do single character edits like this.

16. Why oh why doesn’t tapping the space bar twice insert a period?  I thought this was standard on every device.

17. There doesn’t seem to be a web service that allows you to locate, lock, wipe, loud ring, or display a message on a lost device.  I think every platform (even BlackBerry finally) has this type of service.

OK, this utility won’t really make Windows look like Windows Phone, but it seems Metro is everywhere these days.   I just posted a note about making Windows 7 look like Windows 8,  then I found this Metro Home open source project.  This utlity/app/gadget will add a very nice looking metro styled info pane on your desktop. As a user of Windows Phone, this looks very appealing!  Of course when Windows 8 is readily available I’m not sure either of the projects will have much use to me. In the meantime, check it out the pre-release code:  http://www.htchome.org/en/metro/

Keep your eye on the Mosaic Project.  It’s early early in development but looks really cool.  Although it is in its infancy and a little quirky, it is stable and won’t have any ill-effect on your computer.  I gave this a quick run through and it looks promising.  http://mosaicproject.codeplex.com/

Where are the Best Coffee Shops in Tulsa?

The kings of Tulsa coffee are Topéca and DoubleShot. All other coffee shops bow before these two. Both of these joints roast their own beans in a local facility which means that the coffee is very fresh and has only been roasted for a few days by the time it hits your lips. Compare this to Starbucks where there is no guarantee of when or where the beans were roasted.  This definitely makes a difference – the fresher the roast, the better the taste. Both of these companies sell their roasted beans to other local shops and ship to other locations.

• DoubleShot is located in the 18th & Boston district. If you like a stronger coffee/espresso taste in your drinks, then this is the place for you. Even the mochas only have subtle amounts of chocolate so that the coffee flavors are not overwhelmed.  Their signature drink is the Americano. They buy unroasted beans from various regions, combine them for a proprietary blend, and do the roasting in the store.  These guys are coffee fanatics! They are so fanatical, that one of the workers (Isaiah) told me that they no longer sell tea because people were ordering dirty chai, and to the owner of DoubleShot, this was undermining the taste and pleasure of the espresso.   As a side note, Starbucks tried to make DoubleShot change their name as they thought it infringed on their DoubleShot canned drink. Obviously, small business won.  (Note to the 2Shot owners — your website needs help.  Why does it try to load a QuickTime movie?  This isn’t 1998.  In fact, my company strongly encourages us not to load the QT player for security reasons.)
• Topeca is a larger operation than DoubleShot.  If you only drink Starbucks and want to dip your toe into “real” coffee, I suggest you start here. This place has the best iced mochas around. Topeca is one of the only coffee companies in the world that owns the complete supply chain from end to end – or as they call it, from seed to cup. Yes, Topeca actually owns the coffee plantation in El Salvador, employs the workers, picks, packs, ships, roasts, and sells coffee.   Topeca has two retail locations in Tulsa — one at 115 W. 5th St. and the other in the Hyatt on 2nd street downtown. One of the baristas told me they are going to start offering coffee classes to the public.  Sign me up now, please! I want to learn to make froth designs in my mochas.

From there, there are other good coffee shops. The hippy types seem to hang out at Shades of Brown and Coffee House on Cherry Street (CHoCS).  Mod’s Coffee, downtown on Boston Street is a cool retro looking shop that sells handmade crepes. All of these have good coffee.  CHoCS makes a really good dirty chai.  Stonewood Hills Coffee in Broken Arrow and Kaffe Bona in South Tulsa are also good for those in the suburbs. My least favorite is Gypsy Coffee on the north side of downtown.  The coffee is sufficient, but the dirty chai was bad bad bad.  The atmosphere reminds me of Jimmy Hendrix’s living room.

There are lots of other coffee shops around Tulsa.  Which is your favorite?

The Best Starbucks in Tulsa

If you’re simply looking for the coolest Starbucks in Tulsa, then head to the one in Utica Square.  It was just remodeled in June and is very comfortable.  It has lots of inside and outside seating and enough power outlets to share.  It has wood(ish) floors and a comfortable atmosphere.