Upon returning from a weekend of sun and sand in the Caribbean, I have given in to one simple, but hard truth: I’m out of shape. In fact the phrase “out of shape” is too nice, as are analogies like “spare tire” and euphemisms like “my metabolism is slowing down”. Plain and simple: I’m fat.
It hasn’t always been this way. Ever since high school, I have been strong and lean. Going to the gym, getting exercise, and playing sports weren’t something that went on a to do list, they were just a part of everyday life. Exercising or choosing the right foods were no more an inconvenience to me, as say breathing was. Fast forward to 2008, it’s safe to say that my fitness train has derailed. It’s time to get my fitness train on the right track!
This return to fitness got me thinking. I’ve already signed up at my local independent gym, what else can I do to ensure I stay on the right track? Below (and in no particular order) are the top five independent online fitness training and tracking sites to aid us on our path to fitness.
Customized workout given to you over your iPod or mp3 player.
Integrate your favorite workout tracks with the trainer’s workout.
It’s like having your personal trainer with you no matter where you workout.
Great for those who want the instruction and encouragement of a personal trainer at a better price
$19.95/month.
Creates a customized workout.
Creates customized nutritional and meal plans.
Gauge progress in five areas of fitness with one FitScore number.
Great for those who workout in the gym and focus on strength-training.
$14.95/month.
Applies the same detailed charts and graphs, like like those in personal financial programs.
Compare your fitness rankings to your friends, or to everyone on Fitness Journal.
Helps smokers kick the habit by tracking cigarette use.
Great for those who want to keep detailed fitness data… also great for iPhone users.
$7.95/month.
Uses online communities for encouragement and accountability.
Join groups of up to four people based on different criteria or create one of your own.
Broad motivational network.
Great for those who have good workout/diet routines, who also want social web aspect.
FREE.
Diet finder allows you to input what you want from a diet, then makes diet type suggestions.
Includes many essential health trackers including exercise, water intake, and sleep trackers.
Social community allows you to track your progress against others in your group.
Great for those who want detailed tracking of every detail on the way towards fitness goals.
Mighty is hosting ROFLthing tomorrow night (August 29th) featuring Andy Baio talking about Star Wars Kids, LOLcats micro-humor presented by Ben Huh, Eric conveying an emotion, Evil Berts aplenty, and most importantly, an open bar!
Sofa just released an extensive look into the indie Macintosh developer community, with close to 50 hours of interviews and lots of online resources! Here is what they have to say about the project:
“‘Indie Fever’ is the first result of a multi-year human geography research program to investigate the social and economical world of so-called ‘Indie’ developers on the Macintosh platform. ‘Indie’ is the self-chosen nickname of software developers that serve worldwide markets from the Internet, hold their artistic values in high esteem and celebrate their ability to make high quality software as small companies. Indies form a major part of the pool of developers of third party software for the iPhone that is currently available in Apple’s App Store.
Indies have organized themselves informally but strongly in a virtual community. Although they are scattered over several continents, they continuously interact over the Internet, share rumors and code, and discuss business and private interests as if they were coworkers while –technically– they are competitors. They share a common culture which is intertwined with the history of the platform they develop for and the Cocoa programming environment in particular. The thesis describes the turbulent social history of Cocoa and its early protagonists who became the role models of the Indie community. Furthermore, it analyses how Indies sustain and reproduce their particular culture primarily through online means, something that is argued to be rather difficult in the social-scientific discourse.
Indie Fever also pays attention to the relationships between the Indie community and Apple Inc. It argues that they have a symbiotic relationship but that the balance of power between the two is different from what one would expect from just looking at the economic dimensions. Indies substantially contribute to Apple’s software innovations and play an important role in the platform’s competitiveness.”
SnagFilms launched in beta, this past week. The site, founded by award winning documentary producer Ted Leonsis, allows a viewer to stream one of the 250 documentaries in its library. Free, with no sign-ups or software downloads! Streaming some of the greatest names in indie docs such as Arts Alliance America, Indiepix, and ITVS, Snag has an additional 200 films, already under contract, that will be added next month.
As the name implies, films can also be snagged from the site and embedded on a MySpace or Facebook page (or any other page for that matter). Using the SnagFilms widget, it seamlessly enables the viewer to snag either a single movie, or multiple movies in pre-arranged category widgets. These widgets can turn any web page into a digital movie theater, offering free, full-length viewing of the best of indie non-fiction films via a pop-up player. The movies are advertiser supported, with the revenue shared equally between Snag and the filmmakers.
“There has never been a time when so many high-quality socially relevant documentary films have been made, yet even though tens of thousands of documentaries are submitted to film festivals every year, only a handful find theatrical distribution. SnagFilms was created so that anyone who has a website, publishes a blog, or participates in a social network can open an online multiplex theater, giving others an opportunity to watch one or more of the films we’ll stream, to distribute these films by snagging them for their own sites, and to support the causes promoted by these films by linking to participating nonprofits. Through SnagFilms, everyone on the web can be a theater owner and a film distributor if they just donate their pixels and enable these incredible documentaries to be seen,” says Leonsis.
This new distribution channel for indie docs has enormous potential. As Snag clears up the bottleneck that has always plagued the genre, these compelling movies can be seen by wider audiences. These new audiences will also be able to act on what they see. Spurring viewers to social action, SnagFilms encourages users to engage the films’ issues and supporter communities through special bonus material and links to relevant nonprofits.
Here’s a movie I snagged:
(Seven years in the making and culled from 2000 hours of footage, DIG! plunges into the underbelly of rock n roll, unearthing an incredible true story of success and self-destruction. Anton A. Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols are star-crossed friends and bitter rivals - DIG! is the story of their loves and obsessions, gigs and recordings, arrests and death threats, uppers and downers, and the delicate balance between art and commerce).
Become a “filmanthropist” and check out this site!
Rhapsody recently launched an alternative to iTunes, offering DRM-free (!) mp3’s for purchase. This is in addition to their unlimited-listen (for a monthly fee) jukebox model. They were also offering a free $10 credit if you were one of the first 10,000 people to sign up. Naturally, I jumped at the chance.
Today I went on to download some music and test out the service. I typed in Rhapsody.com, logged in with my username and password, and was taken to a site where I can search for music.
** Searched for “Ben Mono” (by artist)
** Results came back from his album “Hit the Bit” (on my listen-to list for a while)
** Liked the previews, clicked to purch… but wait, no purchase button!?
** Clicked link to “Buy Ben Mono MP3s”
** Search results page came up “No Artist found for “Ben Mono.”
FAIL.
How is it that I can listen to tracks on Rhapsody, and not be able to buy the tracks from Rhapsody?
Now before you get on my case… I understand that they are two different things now (rhapsody.com and mp3.rhapsody.com)… I understand that only after spending 15 minutes frustrated, searching over and over, with different phrases on the “store”. But it frustrates this music-lover enough that I will probably never use the service again, even with a free $10 credit to my name.
The moral to this story is simple: In a medium where navigation/interaction is the main function, user-experience is key! Especially when you are competing with iTunes… an admittedly easy, established, user-friendly store.
Rhapsody… you want to beat Apple’s iTunes Music Store for my Ben Mono business? Make it drop dead simple. Offer an extensive catalog with DRM-free music, or features that I can’t get anywhere else! Make it fun to browse. And don’t make me have to think about anything… point, click, purchase, done.
My Favorite wine critic in the US of A. Gary Vay…ner…chuk! This guy basically reviews wine as if he were reviewing your favorite music (with alot of sports thrown in). The reason why Gary is great especially for you indies out there is two fold.
1st his over arching rule is to trust your pallet. If you like it, it’s good, he’s just the reviewer. You can’t beat this philosophy.
2nd he’s fun! Wine has been too stuffy for too long and it’s coming out of the closet for EVERYONE in the new millennium. Stay tuned. Iff you don’t know now ya know.
We are all about the little guy… but we are also about the big picture! So make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed, check us on MySpace or Facebook, and get yourself hooked up with our Twitter account!
And as always, we love to hear from you, so drop some comments below, or send us some email!
Checked out the March 2008 issue of The Plug today, and I have to say it is quite funny. The piece on the hand-made “public service” signs was fantastic, and the “found camera” spot is one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-it moments. Have a gander and enjoy!
If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out Viddyou.com after our review in issue 17—you absolutely need to give it a whirl now! The already wonderful service is now officially legendary!
Today, Viddyou becomes the first personal video service offering 1080 and 720 High Definition video! (I have tested it myself and can say without a doubt that it is a stunning experience–especially at full-screen!)
In addition to this massive feat of web-ingenuity, they also have “thrown in” a few other tidbits for your enjoyment, namely:
Also, if you are in the Bay Area on April 1, 2008, and would like a live demo, come down to SF Beta 2.3 at 111 Minna Gallery from 7:30–9:00pm in the front room. You can meet the founders, Aaron and Ryan, and check out demos of the labor of their love! And who knows, maybe there might even be a a few of your favorite magazineeditors in attendance as well!
The Political Compass
Democrat or Republican? It’s easy to ally yourself on simple left-wing and right-wing terms, thanks to the powerful duopoly that the two parties have on our country. There is more nuisance to politics than linear right and left thought. Politicalcompass.org is a great site that independent thinkers and voters should check out. Take the test and see which quadrant, based on a combination of social and economic views, you most identify with. Then compare your analysis with current presidential candidates, world leaders, and historical figures. There’s even a reading list based on your specific political taste.
I thought we would introduce you to a site that I love and don’t get to use much but figure it’s only a matter of time before some of your favorite people (wink wink) are doing the same thing. With that said if you’re in LA subscribe and find out the daily happenings (kc! you may want to add to this if you know someone else). These guys know what’s up for sure. They serve a daily that doesn’t disappoint. Check them out!
What’s Twitter, you ask…? In short, it’s microblogging… for example, Twitter is to blogging like instant messenger is to email. A quick way to let people know about what you are doing, wherever you are! …and if that makes no sense, then here is a short video which puts it into very plain English!
And when you join, make sure to add LEGENDmag to your friends!
Even get tired of searching through all the stuff on craigslist? Me either it’s great. Well there’s always someone willing to get it done better then you and that’s what the guys over at crgslst.com have done. They claim that “crgslst: so fast, we left the vowels behind“.
Well we say they better be fast because once Mr. Craigslist himself (first name here Newmark) finds out that these guys use craiglist.com rss feeds to search his site, you can’t help but ask yourself how long they’ll be around. Although after using it we hope they are.
Here’s what they have to say for themselves:
“crgslst is an ajax driven search tool that allows you to search craiglist faster and scour multiple cities quickly.
How does it work? We use craiglist’s existing rss feeds to pull data from multiple cities. each query is handled via ajax to minimize load time and allow users to quickly find what they are looking for. Please do not abuse our system! crgslst is working hard not to burden craigslist. we do not allow aggregate city searches for this reason.
So, a friend told me about this site and I couldn’t help but go visit. She told me about how she was cracking up all day and thought I should give it a gander. So what did I do, I took a gander and the laughs just don’t stop. In good taste I should say that the person writing seems to be white. It’s not a sight bashing white people but hey if you can’t laugh at yourself you probably shouldn’t be visiting funny sites anyway. Here’s a snippet.
In the olden days of white culture, people used to look up to Kings and Princes. These were the people that they adored, and every night they wished and hoped that somehow they could wake up and be just like them. But with Royal Families crumbling, that role has been filled by one man: Mos Def.
He is everything that white people dream about: authentic (”he’s from Brooklyn!”), funny (”he was on Chapelle show!”), artistic (have you heard “Black on Both Sides?”), an actor (”he’s in the new Gondry film!”) and not white (”I don’t see race”).
The Political Compass
In the olden days of white culture, people used to look up to Kings and Princes. These were the people that they adored, and every night they wished and hoped that somehow they could wake up and be just like them. But with Royal Families crumbling, that role has been filled by one man: Mos Def.
