News for Nerds Update

Your Facebook profile photo might appear in a "Fakebook ad", luring your friends.

A reporter reviews Baltimore's new WiMax network: "WiMax delivers speeds much faster than many DSL circuits, rivaling many cable modems. I often clock downloads at 6 megabits per second (equivalent to basic cable service in many areas) and uploads at faster than 1 megabit per second."

Twitter explains itself to unhip business owners using language like "best practices" and "highly relevant" and offering "case studies".

FCC questions Apple and AT&T on removal of Google Voice apps from the iPhone app store.

Senate Investigating Cellphone Industry

I've never seen David Pogue so upset!

The New York Times' tech columnist has offered Congress a roadmap for investigating the U.S. cellular industry. Among Pogue's complaints:

• Double-billing: Why are both sender and receiver billed for calls and text messages? A traditional landline call bills only the placer of the call.
• Long and unnecessary voicemail instructions. Pogue estimates that Verizon alone earns $850 million a year by explaining how to use a phone.

Related:

• A Guide to Lowering Your Phone Costs with VOIP
• Use Your Broadband Connection to Save Money

"Funemployed" and Staycationers Boosting Endurance Sports

Back in February, I declared that triathlon is not recession-proof and made some predictions about what would happen to the sport during this recession. Since this recession is likely to continue into spring 2010, time will tell how right I am. Right now, though, I'm happy to report my wrongness.

This is a great time for some in the endurance sports industry, especially athletes and producers of lower price-point products.

Aside from the Slowtwitch.com poll I mentioned in my February post, the June issue of Runner's World magazine ran the first story I've seen addressing endurance sports and the economy. "Fiscally Fit" by Yishane Lee is a survey article of how the recession is affecting run.

Some of her findings:

• Runners are running more now than pre-recession
• Race attendance is up and registrations are filling up faster than usual
• Race entry fees haven't changed
• Corporate sponsorships--both for races and elite pro runners--are way down

Read the Runner's World online survey that inspired this article at runnersworld.com/economy.

Reed Albergotti at The Wall Street Journal has found that "funemployed" and furloughed athletes are spending more time training and racing. In his June 9 article, Fast Times for Jobless Runners: As Unemployed Amp Up Their Training, Marathon Results and Participation Rise, Reed shows not only that there are more runners, but also that they are actually faster!

Some highlights:

• Participation in 2009 is up over 5%.
• Marathons, triathlons, and road runs are filling registrations in record time. "With the economy in the doldrums, more people are discovering thatwithout those 12-hour workdays, they're able to pursue fitness goalslike never before."
• In 2009, 4.6% of marathoners could qualify for the Boston Marathon. That's a 39% increase over 2008.
• Average gym membership has actually risen 18% this year.

And on July 6, Iowa's WCFCourier.com published a story "Road races not feeling sting of economy". This article provides several examples of running races selling out registrations--because of the down economy.

The main points:

• "Nationwide, several races appear to actually be prospering in the current economy." Even my hometown's Bolder Boulder 10K, which hit record participation numbers last year, "had its second highest number of entries and a record number of finishers."
• Endurance event race registrations, ranging from $70-$150, are cheap in comparison to travel and vacationing. By racing, endurance athletes are saving money. That's one way to "staycation".

Americans exercising? During a recession? We must reward these energetic people with The Pro Deal for All Americans!

UPDATE July 22: "Running for Lean Times" from the Wall Street Journal and "Spent, before race: Sales of marathon goods still strong" from the Boston Globe discuss the emotional benefits of running when times are tough and the shopping mentality of the "bucket list" marathon runner.

Your Two Minutes of Hate, Amazon Edition

Amazon deleted ebook editions of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle users' accounts and their Kindle devices and then refunded their money.

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices

Amazon was right to delete these books from Kindle accounts. (It seems that the irony is the story here!) But this point is really scary: "An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function."

Yet Amazon sold the ebooks anyway because it didn't know any better.

This lapse demonstrates my leading critique of Amazon--that Amazon has no way to vet any of its content and relies instead on unreliable sources. Any user can suggest changes to an Amazon product page. From a product perspective, Amazon is a dumb database (and from a sales perspective, a pretty smart one). Amazon is the Wikipedia of the retail world.

Clearly, Amazon's reliance on the goodwill of its users and vendors is flawed. It's fortunate, then, that Amazon can delete its mistakes. Who knew Bezos had the right and ability to push a button and delete books off a Kindle?

Oh wait--he doesn't have the right. According to the New York Times story cited above, the Kindle terms of service say explicitly that when a user buys an ebook from Amazon, they have bought the right to a permanent copy of the book.

So what if an unreliable vendor sells an illegal copy on Amazon? Apparently, Amazon is willing to incite the wrath of its Kindle customers to defend a copyright. Nervous, future ebook publishers everywhere are relaxing just a little.

How to Disable DNS Prefetching in Firefox 3.5

If you just upgraded to Firefox 3.5 and have been frustrated with many "server not found" error messages, you might be having trouble with a new feature introduced into the 3.5 version of Firefox called DNS prefetching. DNS prefetching looks up every link on a web page and figures out where that link is going. This is supposed to speed up web browsing. Obviously if you're getting a lot of "server not found" messages, DNS prefetching is really slowing you down. This feature needs some work. Until it's fixed, you can disable DNS prefetching in two ways:

• Open Firefox 3.5.
• Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter.
• Click "I'll be careful, I promise!".

This "about:config" menu is where users can make changes to Firefox's configuration.

• In the "filter:" bar, type "prefetch". This search should bring up one result: "network.prefetch-next".

You'll see in the "Value" column that this preference is set to "true".

• To disable DNS prefetching in Firefox 3.5, simply double-click the gray line to switch this value to "false". This new setting is now saved and should take effect immediately. If you ever need to turn DNS prefetching back on, just do all these steps again but set the preference value back to "true".

• If you are still getting lots of "server not found" error messages, you can close Firefox and restart it.
• If you are still getting lots of errors, you can restart your computer.
• If you still getting lots of errors, there is another setting you can try.
• Open Firefox 3.5 and go to about:config as described above.
• In the filter bar, type "network.dns.disablePrefetch".
• There should be no search result.

There is no search result because you will have to create this setting.

• Right-click in the blank search result area.
• Highlight "New" and then click "Boolean".
• Type "network.dns.disablePrefetch" into the space. Hit OK.

• Choose the value "true" and hit OK.

• To confirm that you created this new setting, type "network.dns.disablePrefetch" in the about:config filter bar.

If you created the setting succesfully, it will show up in the search area.

• If you are still getting lots of "server not found" error messages, you can close Firefox and restart it.
• If you are still getting lots of errors, you can restart your computer.
• If you still getting lots of errors, then you might want to consider uninstalling Firefox 3.5 and installing Firefox 3.1, which did not included any DNS prefetching features.

Other resources: This Mozilla article about controlling DNS prefetching in Firefox 3.5

National Park Fee-Free Weekends

Our Colorado-grown Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, announced in June that the National Park Service would offer free park admission on three weekends this summer!

1 out of 3 National Park Service parks will offer free admission on June 20-21, July 18-19, and August 15-16. Here's the list of parks that are participating.

Windows 7 50% Off Sale Ending Today

Microsoft is offering a pre-sale discounts on its next generation operating system. You can pre-order Windows 7 for 50% off the full retail price until midnight Eastern time tonight. Microsoft has said that the offer is good "while supplies last", which is sort of funny considering that the software won't actually be available until October.

To upgrade from Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, that's just $50 for Windows 7 Home edition and $100 for Windows 7 Professional!

Many software columnists and tech reviewers have called Windows 7 the "fully baked" version of Microsoft's Vista. Where Vista was widely criticized, even despised, 7 is earning positive press from Lifehacker, Gizmodo, and the New York Times's David Pogue.

Google Planning Its Own Operating System

Google announced this week that it will release an open-source operating system for netbooks this fall. The Google Chrome OS will operate netbooks, which are scaled-down laptops designed primarily for doing webby things, like reading the news, checking, email, etc.

Google has mentioned several goals for its Linux-based OS:

• It will be free and open-source.
• It will boot quickly, getting users onto the web in seconds.
• Its design will be minimalist, much like the Google Chrome web browser.
• Most of the functionality of computers powered by the OS will come from web-based applications, like Gmail, Google Docs, etc.
• Files will also be available offline, presumably using Google Gears and Google Apps.
  

Google Plans a PC Operating System
New York Times

Introducing the Google Chrome OS
Official Google Blog

Google Releasing Chrome Operating System
Lifehacker

Do Kids Really Need Exercise?

The New York Times is many things and lately it seems to be a personal trainer. The Times "Well" blog, anchored by Tara Parker-Pope, is offering everything from free nutritional advice to free marathon training plans.

So I was a little surprised to see contrarian writer Gina Kolata questioning the common belief that kids need exercise. In "How Much Exercise Do Children Need?", Kolata argues, as is her familiar refrain, that there is little clinical research supporting the conventional wisdom. Kolata raises these points:

• Research shows only small health improvements in some (not all) kids who exercise
• Kids don't get continuous exercise the way adults do. They exercise in spurts.
• There is no evidence that kids participate in their childhood sports in their adult lives. I.e. Soccer kids don't necessarily play adult league soccer.
  

Parker-Pope offers a different approach in "Help for Budding Couch Potatoes". She cites a new study published in the JAMA that shows that "by the time a child is 15, daily activity falls to less than one-third of the level it was at age 9". She offers strategies to help kids stay active and these other findings:

• Active parents don't necessarily inspire activity in their kids. Adults often exercise away from home, so kids aren't exposed to exercise.
• The most physically active kids have close friends who are physically active.
• Kids are more likely to exercise when parents offer logistical support and help with daily living like making meals, driving to practices, etc.
• Half the kids drop out of sports programs by age 12 because they don't enjoy them. This is probably because many programs are overbooked and kids do "far too much standing around".

When it comes to the benefits of exercise, Parker-Pope's article contradicts Kolata's: "Overall, teenagers who take part in sports earn better grades, have fewer behavior problems and are less likely to drop out of school."

Okay, so there's no clinical research showing that kids need exercise. Do we really need clinical research to tell us this? Kids run everywhere. They play all the time. And when they don't, they get overweight in epidemic proportions. At any age, it's human nature to exercise, clinically proven or not.

Fitness People vs. Outdoor People

Back in December, I wrote about a creative agency's white paper, "Actively Different: Fitness vs. Outdoor Messaging". In that short post, I mentioned that the agency's interesting observation was this:

The outdoor-oriented person asks, "What could I do today?" The fitness-oriented person asks, "What should I do today?"

Ever since, I've been thinking about this observation and wondering how one might expand on it. As a backpacking triathlete, a skiing cyclist, a swimmer turned camper, I've often found that my endurance sports training plans interfere with my more directionless wandering about in the woods. Training plans have a framework; each short-term goal is part of a bigger picture. Woodland wandering more often seems like simple fun.

What makes the outdoorsy different from and similar to the athletic?

Outdoorsy :: Athletic
* What could I do today? :: What should I do today?
* Being outside as long as possible :: Being outside for as long as the workout requires
* Eat what tastes good :: Eat carefully
* Build capability for longer hikes, higher climbs :: Build muscle for speed, endurance

Common ground
* Goal orientation: reach the summit
* Enjoy the journey and enjoy the workouts
* Except for the old-fashioned outdoorsmen whose yester-gear is "good 'nuff", gear lust seems to be a common trait. (This explains my garage.)

To Earn a PR, Pace Yourself

Joe Friel, one of the most respected coaches in endurance sports, just blogged about why the negative split is so crucial for endurance athletes. Joe says that he recently read about pacing and running world records.

"[The research] indicates that nearly all of the record-breaking times in the last 40 years or so have been run with negative splits."

A negative split is when you do the second half of something faster than the first half. For example, I can confirm that I eat the second half of an ice cream cone much faster than the first, mostly to prevent it from dripping all over my hand, which I hate. If I were to begin eating an ice cream cone really quickly at first, my tongue would go numb, I wouldn't savor the flavor, and I'd likely get a painful ice cream headache.

It's the same in endurance sports. If I burst off the start line, I'll likely get very tired quickly and then I'd have depleted much of my body's limited carbohydrate fuel stores (because I usually race without access to ice cream), and I'd be unable to recover. I'd either shock my muscles and they'd turn to lead or I'd race for awhile and then bonk.

Instead, the goal is to set a controlled pace, let the body, the muscles, and the fuel systems to adjust to that pace, and then gradually build into a higher speed. It's this gradual build to a higher, sustainable speed that makes the second half take less time than the first. This negative split is key to racing well. And when you do it right, it feels fantastic! Instead of feeling fastest at the beginning of the race and fading, which is frustrating, I race faster and faster all the way to the finish.

Joe concludes that "The bottom line here is, once again, that if you want to run a fast race it appears to be beneficial if you start conservatively and pace yourself so that the second half is run slightly faster than the first half.".

For cyclists who have on-handlebar computers, estimating pace is easy. How does one estimate pace while running?

• Run on a track.
• Run on a path that has mile markers.
• Trace a route on mapmyrun.com and get familiar with landmarks that approximate distances.
• Use a "foot pod". Foot pods relay stride length to a recording device, usually a wristwatch, but they must be calibrated and can't adjust for changes in stride length without recalibration. Many runners' stride lengths will change throughout a season and throughout a run, so food pods don't strike me as reliable.
• If you have an iPod, get the Nike+ device (Nike site, Apple site). This $29 device, profiled in the July issue of WIRED magazine, straps to your shoe and your iPod and estimates and records your running speed and distance. Next time you sync your iPod, you can upload your running data to the Nike+ website for logging and analysis. The Nike+ uses an accelerometer to measure how long your foot is in contact with the ground, which exercise physiologists have found to be a 95% accurate measure of running speed.
• Use a GPS device, like certain smartphones or a Garmin Forerunner wristwatch. Polar and Timex have GPS products, too, but they look enormous compared to Garmin products. GPS products track your speed over various time periods, which can give you your current pace, average pace, and much more.
  

Some day, running without a GPS watch will be like driving without a speedometer. Sure, there are purist runners out there who won't run with even a wristwatch, but there are purists in any sport until they've all become convinced by their faster peers. I just got a Garmin Forerunner 405, and I'll review it later.

Until then, pace yourself. It's the time-proven way to set a personal record.