Because I’m a fan of the democratic processs, I’m letting all you guys and girls vote. Which ever gets the most votes will go on my twitter, brightkite, flickr and facebook profiles. So place your vote in the comments below.

Normal Web 2.0

Chris,

Last week I was a regular seattleite - living in the city, working on the eastside doing php development, and with a healthy interest in social networking sites and microblogging. Then I learned about Gnomedex and my world changed. I suddenly wanted to be great. I needed to surround myself with the thought leaders of new media. I wanted to do great things.

Gnomedex can enable me to do them. I know all things are possible. However, desire is not enough, and I’m going to need to take drastic measures to pay my bills _and_ go to Gnomedex. I may need to solicit myself on the streets. I fear this could lead to my imprisonment by a Jabba the Hut like entity and be forced to wear the gold bikini. I’m not in the best of shape, so trust when i tell you that no one needs to see that! Save me from the gold bikini!

So in my best holographic voice “Please Chris Pirillo - you’re my only hope”

-Andrew

Update: I’m going to Gnomedex!

The great thing about Brightkite is that you can meet people based on where you are. Someone that you might have never met is now within reach just because you both use the same service. This is the advantage is has over Twitter. However, the userbase needs to be increased dramatically to enhance the interestingness. If they can accomplish this, then you’ll meet others who are currently checked in nearby, as opposed to a few days later. This happens to me quite a bit - where I’ll see someone of interest who posted, but the post is dated from several days ago.

The folks at BrightKite have done some great things with their web application .

1. Map view of your friends. They display where your friends are checked in on a google map. This is great when you don’t recognize the street names and when you want to get a quick sense of where they are in relation to each other.
2. Privacy Control. You may not want everyone on the internet to know where you are all the time. Brightkite has built-in some controls to manage your privacy. They let you mark which friends are trusted. Those are the people who can see your exact location all the time. There are also just normal friends. Below your menu, is a privacy switch. When set to public, everyone can see your location and posts at full accuracy. When set to private, strangers see your checkins at the city level but no posts, your normal friends can see your checkins and posts at the city level, and your trusted friends get to see your checkins and posts at full accuracy.
3. Sharing with other sites. Under “Account Settings” there is a sharing tab. It identifies other sites that you can send your brightkite information to. Currently they support Twitter and Fire Eagle. I’ve never looked at Fire Eagle, but I’m actively using the Twitter sharing. Brightkite sends my info to Twitter when I post a note or photo. I did for a while also send my check-ins but that has zero value to a Twitter user, imho.

There are some things that I would change. Lets call them opportunities for improvement.

1. Email interface for photo uploads. Brightkite assigns a unique email address to you. They instruct you to send your photo to that unique address. A simple as email is , sending photos to brightkite doesn’t work for me. the mobile version of gmail doesn’t allow you to send attachments. It’s just not available. You can make the argument that this is a gmail problem. Never the less, I’m still not able to post photos from my mobile. If Brightkite had a file upload on their site for uploading photos, this would be a non-issue.
2. Placemark names not utilized fully. Placemarks are used to identify places that you go to often, and allows you to assign a nickname to it. The nick names are not used when you check into a place that doesn’t already have a name, like an intersection. For example I might have an address of “9th & Pine, Seattle, WA, 98101″ with a nickname of “Bus stop at Paramount”. When I write a post from that location you will only see the address. I think it would improve the user experience to use the nickname as well.
3. Streamline the interface. Do a place search and enter a business name. If you want to check in at one of the places, you need to click the name. On the new page click the “Check In Here” button. It would be great though if I were able to click “check in here” from the search result. The “visited places” and “place marks” both have that functionality. So why I cant I have it here too. Another thing that bugs me is all have very different looking listings. If they could bring them in line with one another, it’d reduce the time it takes the learn the web app.
4. Symbols. One symbol that you see alot of brightkite is an orange circle icon with a white ‘X’ in the middle. Other applications, outside of brightkite, have taught us that an ‘X’ in a icon means close or delete. So when I see that icon in the placemarks listing, I’m thinking that I can delete the item by clicking the orange circle icon. It will actually bring you to the place stream for the location. That’s confusing to me, and probably to others too. I’d like to see brightkite use the lime green trapezoid in their logo, as that is the placemark icon. It would have a couple of benefits - the ‘kite’ icon doesn’t have any external meanings like the ‘circle with an x’ icon, and it strengthen the association of your location with BrightKite.
5. Editing Placemarks. There is no way to edit a placemark. Many placemark redisplay the address as the name. So, when you checkin and post a note from that location, the address is written out twice. People like names, computers like addresses. That’s a lesson we’ve already learned with DNS. So, I’d like to be able edit the placemark name so that everybody can benefit from it. Also, people make mistakes and there’s no way on brightkite currently to correct them. This alone should be enough to add in the ability to edit.

I’d love to hear what you think.

On the nutrition side of things, I’ve been getting more protein. This is mostly chicken that I’ve cooked, and some beef. Speaking of which, a burger on whole wheat toast is awesome! way better than just a white bun. I’ve also been drinking a ton of water at work. I haven’t done as well with the fruits and vegetable however.

The exercise has also suffered a little. I didn’t meet my goal of 16km for the week, although i did run 4 miles on Saturday morning without much trouble. So I’m getting better at it. I’m wondering if 16km was too ambitious. I’m usually sore the day after a run, so it’s not so easy to run 2 days in a row. That can be problematic if I don’t plan the week ahead of time. The takeaway here is that i need to stay on top of it. So I need to be mindful of when I last ran. I’ve been taking the bus this past week, so I walk around more. I doubt it had any significant impact, but it feels good. By the way, if you live in Seattle I suggest that you try out the bus system - it’s pretty good.

I am happy with my overall progress this month. I’m 10 pounds lighter than when I started. While I’d like to think “I’ll just do exactly the same thing for the next 3 months and I’m done” - something tells me it’s not going to be that easy. So, what have I learned? A few things actually. The biggest thing is don’t eat a lot at one sitting - space things out. By doing this, I don’t get super tired in the afternoon like i used to. Nowaday if I’m tired, its because I didn’t sleep well the night before and not because I’m in the midst of a food coma. Another thing is time matters. When you eat something, seems to matter. There were several nights where I hungry at 10pm or 11pm. Usually I’d just go to sleep. The metabolism is gonna slow down as soon as I go to sleep, so it’s best not to give it additional food to digest. It probably wont get to it anyway and just store it as fat. If the hunger pangs are just too much, drink some water. This will let you feel full, without the additional calories. This will just tide you over until you can eat something good in the morning. Also, progress comes from modifying your diet and exercise. Doing just one only maintains what you have.

I had started with the idea of twittering my daily status. I did do it for a few days, but it quickly fell by the way side. I think I just needed something to keep me mindful of the goal. Now I’m thinking that writing this blog weekly was enough to accomplish that. Once I got into it, it was easier. I kept the commitment to myself. Just like the life lesson that we learn from Back to the Future - you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it

Weight: 262 ( delta from last week is -3 )

I’m still on track with avoiding junk food. It’s getting easier to avoid it. Although, there are times when it would be nice to have the option to have a sweet of some sort. For example, on warm sunny day a snow cone sure would hit the spot. Only 10 days left. In August, I’ll allow myself to partake of a treat on occasion. I’m considering two options: the first is only a certain type of treat - like only an ice cream cone. The other option is to have any type of treat but only once a week. I should probably limit the size of the treat so things don’t get out of hand. What works for you? I’m interested to know.

Although three weeks is a short time, I am seeing progress and feeling the difference. For one, clothes are fitting on me better. I still have a while to go before I can justify getting a new wardrobe but that’s something I look forward to. Also, I’m starting to see the difference in my reflection. By the way, my best friend Jed is getting married in mid September, so I’m hoping to make significant progress by then. It’ll be great to know that I did my best to look good in my tux.

Weight: 265 ( delta from last week is -1 )

On the nutrition side of this program, I find myself thinking more creatively. Largely, this is because the things I know work are getting boring quickly. I don’t like cooking but it provides for more options, so I’m experimenting with it more. I find that temptations are greatest when I’m in a social situation - like at a bar with friends. It tastes good and incredibly convenient. However, prioritizing by convenience is how I got to where I am. I managed to resist the temptation, but it was difficult as my appetite was bordering on ravenous.

Part of the incentive of this program is weight loss. I read about the topic on several websites, all of which indicate that lifting weights will increase weight loss. I find myself hesitant because I don’t want mass. In my head I imagine the muscles get added on top of whats present, thereby making me larger. I don’t want large muscles. Rather I want definition with an overall decrease in size. This in part, is why I’m running. Who’s ever seen a 300lb marathoner? They’re always lean, defined. While I dont want to be a marathon man either, it’s closer to my ideal than a football player is.

Weight: 266 ( delta from last week is -3 )

After a week, it’s a little easier. I feel like I’m starting to get a rhythm with eating healthier. I didn’t do so well with the exercise portion of my Power of 2 diet. I was supposed to run 16 Km (10 miles), of which I only ran 6.8 Km (4.25 miles). I need to improve greatly on this, in part by setting time aside for it. Overall I’m feeling better, which is good. My energy level is more constant.

Weight: 269 ( delta from last week is -2 )

I was first inspired on the idea on a twitter post by SourJayne. She participated in Junk Food Free June. I should have tried it then, but I didn’t. Then, about a week ago, I read a posting on LifeHacker about someone using Twitter to build in accountability for their weightloss plan. That is a great idea. In order for this to work, I need to define some parameters. I thought about the things I’m doing regularly, that I know are the wrong things but they’re easy or convenient - and do them anyway. One is eating out. I do this everyday. This is due to 2 factors. The first is convenience. The second is a dislike for preparation and cooking. I dont enjoy the process like others do. Another bad habit is not eating fruits and vegetables on a regular basis. Also, its not uncommon for to get another mocha as i hang out at a coffee shop or meander about seattle. All bad things. On the upside I can run further than i could 2 years ago, and I’m playing (and enjoying) volleyball on a weekly basis. So I’ve done some good, but it’s just holding things level and not improving.

Since I’m a nerd, I created a guide where each item is based on a power of two. I call it the “Power of 2 Guide”. Pretty creative title, eh? It was designed to establish rules against the bad habits I’m currently implementing. The directives keep me on course. The items themselves are my todo items for a successful implementation. Without further adieu, here is the guide.

Power of 2 Guide

Directive 0 (The Prime Directive): Anything you consume must add value.
Directive 1: Cannot eat food from a restaurant by myself

• 1 salad per day
• 2 coffee drinks per week
• 4 fruits per day
• 8 ounces of fish per week
• 16 Km of running per week
• 32 ounces of juice per day
• 64 ounces (mininmum) of water per day

Now that I’ve got my plan, let’s discuss logistics. I need a target and some monitoring. My current weight is 271 pounds. To complete July 2008 junk food free is the short term goal. The long term goal is reach my target weight of 230 pounds by Dec 31, 2008. For monitoring, I’ll be using Twitter on a daily basis with daily result #PO2 PASS or #PO2 FAIL. I’ll write a weekly update on my blog. Tuesday July 1 is Day 1.

If you have any ideas/strategies on cooking/preparation, I’d be glad to hear it. I encourage you all to participate. If not, at lease cheer me on! Wish me luck!

In short, my idea is to put your website menu in the browser chrome. The browser chrome, as defined by Urban Dictionary, is “a euphemism for the graphic control elements of your browser interface.” It would work like this: The webdesigner would create an XML file in the root of the website called ’sitemenu.xml’. The browser knows to where to look for the sitemenu.xml. It finds the xml file, parses it, and generates the nodes in the toolbar menu under ‘Site’. The toolbar menu is the same one that has File, Edit, and Bookmarks. So this means that the contents of the Site menu are dependent upon the website in the browser window.
Why would we want to do that? you might ask. Well, there are several reasons:

1. Web Designers would spend their valuable time on other aspects of the site
2. Accessibility would become a non-issue:
   • Anyone using a screen reader already knows how to use there application menus.
   • Usability is increased since the user doesn’t need to relearn the navigation style for that website
3. There’s now more room for the content without the navigation consuming space on the page.
   • Reduced Page Size - A good thing for the mobile environment, since currently subscribers have to pay for the data charges.
   • Can be cached for browsing multiple pages on the same site.
4. It would work identically on your mobile browser as it does on your desktop

Can this actually work, you say? Sure! Why not? All the pieces are available. Google already uses a similar idea for crawling your site. Browsers are already doing something similar with a favicon (the image that shows up when you bookmark a site). There are challenges ahead, to be sure. The biggest one is browser adoption. Theoretically, I could create the optimal XML file and associated DTD, give it to Opera and Mozilla, and they’d have it implemented in a fortnight or two. However, Microsoft would probably get around to it with IE9 because between this day and that, they would create a slightly different implementation that they would force upon the development community. Then there’s the mobile browser manufacturers. The fragmentation in the mobile community is great. With the numerous mobile browser manufacturers out there , It could take years for them all to catch up. Like I said before - there are challenges ahead. However, I still think it can work.

When I told Erika I planned on it, it was just a promise. Today, I’m officially signed up. There are multiple events you can participate in, but I will be participating in the Co-ed 5K run/walk as part of a Erika’s team “She’s My Wingman“. As a participant, my objective is to raise $150. If you’d like to help by contributing, that would be great! If you can help me meet the goal of $150, I’ll add $200 to the total pot.