Posted by Ub3rG33k on Mar 1, 2010 in
Fitness Around a middle of January, I though, “The sun will be out soon, time to get
into shape and lose the Christmas gut”. I attempted to go running, and ended up getting 2 colds in a row (probably down to the running in snow), so decided to start working out inside.
I’ve seen multiple “Get Fit” type games for the Wii, and decided to give them a try. I initally started with “
Wii Fit Plus“, which to be honest I didn’t feel like I was getting a decent workout, it seemed really good for slower excersies, but after an hour and a half of running through every activity I could, I still hadn’t worked up a sweat.
The next one I tried was “
The Biggest Loser“, which to be honest was a little too much, especially when over the Christmas period I’d done nothing but sit on my butt, play on the games consoles, drink beer, and eat loads. It was a very good work out, and one I’ll probably work up to, but as a “sofa to get fit”, it was a little too much.
I then tried
EA Sports Active, and I was quite impressed. In the box you don’t only get the Wii game, but you get a leg strap for you nunchuck, and a training band. I tried it for a couple of days, just picking random workouts, and it seemed to work very well. You get an option of Low, Medium or High intensity workout for each session, a choice of genre of soundtracks, and with or without Wii Balance Board support.
Towards the end of January I decided this was the one, and started the 30 day training program, and this morning was my last seasion.
So how was it you may ask ?….Well suprising good !
I ran through the 30 day program of Medium intensity, with the Electronica soundtrack, set my goals, created my avatar, and away I went. Basically the 30 day program consists of 2 days on, 1 day off. Each workout can take from 20 minutes to 35 minutes on medium, and it seems if you select the high intensity this adds around 10 minutes as it just increases the number of reps.
The excersises run from, running/walking on the spot, to more upper body such as upright row with tricep kickback. The workouts seem to try and keep each days workout unique, and seems to exerise different muscles
Before each workout, it gave you a list of the planned exercises it had for you, an estimated time and calories burnt. During the workout you have a running counter in the top left of the screen, informing you of current calories burnt. Each workout seems to burn off an adverage of 160 calories, which for a 20 minutes workout isn’t bad at all.
During all the workouts, you have you created avatar mirroring your movements to show you what you should be doing, and highlights anything your not doing correctly. You also have the trainer on screen, again pointing out anything you may be doing wrong.
Overall thoughts
As I needed something to get my butt off the sofa, this worked really well, because the exersised were mixed up enough, and it attempted to intergrate games into this, the result was, it felt more like playing a game than doing a workout. I think EA have tried to make this fun by adding a few “game type” workouts, eg Baseball, Basketball, Inline Skating, Boxing, Tennis and Volleyball. These however for me were the worst part of the workouts, I didn’t feel the Wii was quick enough to match my movements. An example of this was the Volleyball, basically it would say “Lunge Left” or “Lunge Right”, and then for you to do the Volleyball actions, this however seems to be a little slow, and by the time that it had recogined that I had stepped off the Balance Board to the Left, it then didn’t register my Volleyball movements in times and suggested I missed the ball. The same annoyance was with the tennis, whereby if I moved the Wiimote even slightly, it would take a swing, which would lead to me missing the ball.
A couple of other things, using the Wii to work out is a great idea, however I nearly got tangled up a few time in the cable between the nunchuck and the Wiimote, making some of the excersises quite annoying, however I fixed this by buying a
wireless nunchuck, which was such an improvement. I also felt with the bands I wasn’t getting enough resistance, I did attempt to make them shorter, however they just ended up snapping on me. I then attempted to use some pre-made Reebok bands which did work, however the large sponge handles made it quite hard to hold these , the controller and nunchuck. In the end I bought just a resistance band in the
Reebok Fitness Travel Gym Set with no handles, then tied this to the EA Sports Active supplied handles and this worked a treat. Finally, the excersised seemed to concentrate on upperbody, lowerbody, and only very few core exersises, which was fine, however I would have prefered a little more core.
Final thoughts
If I can forgive the fact that there was limited core exersises, the sometimes oversensitive motion control and the bands sent weren’t resistant enough for me, this is a decent workout, and over the 30 day program I’ve become pretty tones and lost 13lbs which really isn’t too bad. My next mission is to go for the
EA Sports Active : More Workouts, as this is meant to improve the sensitivity issues as well as consentrating a little more on the core.
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Posted by Ub3rG33k on Jun 17, 2009 in
Apple Ok, I’m a little sad, ever since the WWDC I’ve been counting down the days until the version 3.0 software for my iPod Touch. Today as most of you a
re aware is d-day. I’ve spent the day checking the net to see if it’s out, but to no avail.
5.30pm came, I got myself home in record time, sync my iPod, hit Refresh of the update page….and got the, the latest firmware is 2.2.1…Booo !
Had a quick look on twitter, and and there was a tweet from TrekkyGeek to suggest the firmware wouldn’t be out till around 9pm. Great I though, I’ve got things to do, and this gave me a little time to do them, then I could spend from 9pm onwards messing with the new software.
Just after 6, there was another post from TrekkyGeek saying, ooops, 9pm may have been wrong, so I hit refresh and there it was FINALLY !
I hit the magical download button, did as most people do and just hit the “I accept your T’s and C”s”, paid my £5.99 and hit download.
Initially it download a “iPod Software Update” of 277Mb, went through the motions of updating my iPod, rebooted, once rebooted I unplugged it, went straight to Config >> About and it still said 2.2.1 ? Thought WTF !, So I plugged it back in, iTunes detected it, and said…”Hey, there’s a new firmware available ?!?”, so I downloaded the firmware again, this time a 257Mb file, it ran through the motions, and voila Version 3.0 !
So, I’ve had a couple of hours to have a play with it, so what do I think ?
Well, it’s quicker, and I’d say noticeably quicker, it seems to feel a lot smoother.
Bluetooth, now enabled !, for those of you that didn’t know, the iPod Touch 2G has bluetooth, however this was never made public knowledge, ad this is what was used for the iPod + Nike, and was how you communicate with the sensor you put in your trainer. This now seems to be unlocked so you can use it with Stereo headphones, and speakers. From what I’ve read, this will also be used for peer to peer gaming also.
One of the major additions for me is the Landscape keyboard, currently it only seems to work with Safari (which it did anyway), notes and mail, which is cool, however I hope they bring this to the other applications.
Spotlight Search…anybody who owns a Mac will know just how good the spotlight search is. This will check meta data and id tags for the “searched word(s)”, emailed, notes and it an incredible local search engine, to see this work on the iPod Touch was lightening fast, and a welcome change.
Now this is the major seller for me, and worth the £5.99 alone, Cut, Copy & Paste..I tend to use my Touch a lot for browsing the web, and sending and receiving email, and to be honest it’s been frustrating not to have these when you become so used to them, on the PC and Mac. This does work a treat, you hold down your finger or thumb on the screen for a few seconds, and you get the Cut, Copy, Paste option, select the text, or images you want, with 2 movable start and end blocks, and your done, works very well.
Voice recorder, not a major feature for me, as it means I’ve got to plug in my ear bud/mic combo headset in, but works pretty well.
Something I noticed when I was listening to a podcast shortly after was a number of new icons on the play bar. You now have the option to jump back 30 seconds, which for me is a godsend, I’m forever getting interrupted and struggle to find where I was, with this, 1 click and your 30 seconds in the past !. Another of the icons lets you speed up / slow down the play speed, this way you can power listen to the podcasts you are behind on, which seem a really good feature to me !
The main update I’m looking forward to (which won’t be available till September) is the Push Notification, which allows information about your apps to be notified to you (kinda how the blackberry’s work) for example if you use a Twitter application, this could potentially be coded to let you know when you have a reply, without actually running the application. This if done right with be brilliant, and really give blackberry a run for their money I think.
Finally, a feature that’s been missing since day, something very simple and something you could do by using Yahoo, it’s the ability to sign in to your YouTube account and see and play your subscriptions ! GENIUS !
Anyway, the firmware is still new, I need to have a good play with it, and will get chance over the next couple of days.
There are many more features, but the above are the only ones I’ve played with so far.
Tags: 2g, avail, bluetooth, counting down the days, couple, d day, day, Download, feature, firmware, ipod, ipod software, ipod touch, little time, lot, mac, motions, new software, nike, play, public knowledge, record time, Refresh, search, software, software update, something, stereo headphones, time, time sync, touch, TrekkyGeek, tweet, twitter, update, version, work, wwdc
Posted by Ub3rG33k on Jan 10, 2009 in
Apple To be honest, I was hesitant of spending £54 on a pair of earphones, when I already had a prefectly good pair of Sony ones. The problem being that I use my Ipod Touch the most at work, which means that I have to keep pausing my podcasts. Now this wouldn’t normally be a problem, but as my Ipod Touch or Iphone user will tell you, if you set the power saving, pausing your music can be a lengthy task. You have to unlock your screen, enter your pin, goto the music, and then hit pause, dependant on how tired you are, this can take upto 10 seconds.
I again did the cost saving thing, and bought some headphones from ebay (for around £6) which had a mic and remote, but the sound quality is terrible, and the are very uncomfortable.
Anyway, after buying them, and trying the for the first time, I don’t regret getting them 
The box broken down
The earbuds and the spare buds
Finally the spare buds, very cool !
Tags: 2g, Apple, buds, cost, dependant, earbud, earbuds, earphones, ebay, goto, headphones, iphone, ipod, ipod touch, music, pair, pause, pin, podcasts, power, power saving, problem, screen, sony, sound quality, spending, task, thing, touch, upto, user, work