Found a great pair of iPhone application for any of you health nuts out there.
FoodScanner: Uses your iPhone’s camera to scan UPC barcodes on the foods you eat. Automatically track your calories without manually searching yourself. Cost $0.99 but well worth it. This is a 2 step process 1. Scan barcode 2. Select quantity.
DailyBurn: This can link up with your FoodScanner to let fully track all your health goals. It has a full exercise library to allow you to roughly record all your caloric activities. I’m using the free version and don’t really see the need to upgrade.
Both apps link up to a website you can visit and get all the info on more real-estate.
Here’s a quick vid showing off the FoodScanner.
I found these apps while trying to find an easy way to count calories while doing Lyle McDonald’s Rapid Fat Loss diet, which by the way has been hugely successful.
I now use them whenever I cook new dishes to get a fully accurate count of the calories and distribution of the meal.
So you’ve started to play with mapping on your website and now your ready to up the functionality. You’ve heard of the new featured HTML5 is promising to bring and now it’s time to play around with them. One of the easiest features to use is the HTML5 Geo-Locator. Here’s all you need to get start:
if (navigator.geolocation) { // Use method getCurrentPosition to get coordinates navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function (position) {
Latitude = position.coords.latitude;
Longitude =position.coords.longitude;
call function():
});
}
else if(!navigator.geolocation){
alert(‘Your GPS is not enabled’);
}
That’s is!!!
Have fun and please send me any questions you may have!
With HTML5 making it’s way to the top of standards, it’ll be interesting watching how developers choose to use the new features. Where i see HTML5 really improving things is on the mobile platform. Desktop browsers have been doing most of the new features for years, just in an in-efficient manner, but mobile browser have been so limited. HTML5 is definitely going to give the mobile platform a boost of power. The top features I plan to and have already started using for my mobile web apps are:
Application Cache:
The ability to store your entire mobile web-app on the person phone! Bam, that sounds nice. One of the challenges with web-applications is they require the ‘web’, no longer with HTML5. You can store databases and websites through your users phone, create a nice version check to update the database whenever there is a internet connection and your set. Here’s a link to the Apple’s html5 safia requirements.
Geo-location:
This feature makes me feel like Big Brother. You can’t buy a phone these days that doesn’t have a gps device in it, this html feature takes advantage of this to target the exact location of your users. Try out my own sample.
Canvas
This really lets us mobile developers make our web-app feel native. This feature wil let your draw and interact iwth broswer in a never-seen-before way. This feature will definitely help when created games on the mobile platform. My favorite non-mobile example of this is here.
Video:
Finally, no more inefficient .mov files and no need for resource draining flash, HTML5 finally has integrated video support. This isn’t just your basic ‘play video’ support, this is a fully featured video player that allows you to set-up custom toolbars and even set-up a green-screen like tool. Easy to use to, simple use a <video src=”mymovie.ogg” ></video> for a basic sample. Video format as also somewhat standardized with mp4 and ogg working for most. Try it out here
A year ago my goals were much different than they are today. I use to think being in school was a serious duty with serious responsibilities. Not only are many people on their own for the first time in their lives, but they also have scheduled commitments, work obligations and face-smacking financial responsibilities.
The goals I kept in school were much smaller and naive than the ones I aim for today. Paying your own way through school with a helping hand from the government somewhat makes this world smaller than it is, getting out of school and into my first real job meant being able to buy that $70 video game and those $40 pair of jeans. Without school I save on those large tuition fees, spend my class time at work earning money, I should have plenty of money to buy those non-essential items in life. My goals in school were small, centered around entertainment and focus on the short-term enjoyment.
After a year of working and building my own business, my goals are very much different. I have a steady and solid income and I’ve traded large tuition fees for large loan payments. My goals have shifting from short-term pleasures to long-term security, I’ve adjusted my aim for the further target. The sad thing is, throughout this transition, that $70 video game and $40 pair of jeans have somehow been forgotten. I don’t even consider buying those $70 video games anymore and instead of those $40 jeans, I put that money towards the $90 dress pants.
I am unsure if everyone goes through this transition or if this transition is even greater for other. For the first 22 years of my life I had similar goals and somehow, what seems to be overnight my goals have shifted.
It’s been about half a year at my current job as a web programmer for a Canadian Publishing company. I’ve learned a LOT, picking up the web language was a quickie with my education but learning the foundation of design was quite the hike. .
I’ve got to see first hand the amount of money this company is making off of me, from daily newsletter ads to simple QR codes; It’s time to start raising my cut in all these deals, time to go into business for myself.
Keeping the day job.
To minimize the risk I’ve decided to keep my day job and do freelance on the side. This is beneficial to my financial security, if i somehow manage to find no business I’ll still have a paycheck. The main negitive about keeping this day job is that it really acts as a deterrent for not hunting for more business, I am not pushed to go find more business in order to survive.
A single post on Criagslist
Wow, amazing! I posted one ad for web design-development and it has got me 7 different job opportunities over the course of 6 weeks. I’ve managed to seal 3 of these opportunities and turned a quick buck on a fast website development.
Freelancing
Freelancing looks great, I would make my own schedule, see 100% of the earnings and there’s salary cap. I could really see myself potentially earning more through freelance than my day job. Don’t think this is as easy as it sounds, you have a lot more stress and ownership, you also have to study, study, study all the tax laws related to owning a business.
My freelance career is going pretty well, but for now I’m not ready to accept the higher risk of giving up my day job.
After about 2 month of job hunting I’ve been hired! Finally I can buy a few of my wants in life, put some money in the bank and start paying off my debts.
The job isn’t exactly what I’ve imagined myself doing, although it is with-in my field of computer science. I’ll be the Web Development Coordinator at a large Canadian Publication Company, this entails designing, developing and maintaining several of their websites. I’ve always imagined myself developing complex software programs for some large company, where my work wouldn’t be of any huge significance but I’d be challenged.
The trouble I see with web development is the over-satiation and outsourcing of these positions, there’s high-school kids developing well designed and functionally awesome websites. The one large bonus of this position is that I’ll have large creative freedom and I’ll be managing our Mobile Application expansion, giving me the opportunity to practice my software-engineering techniques, This should really help me out in the long run.
Sometimes, even though the path doesn’t look exactly like you imagined, it’ll take you to where you need to be.
It’s week 3 of my job hunt. After adjusting my hunting strategy I’ve seen a significant increase is callbacks. My callback have jumped from about 5% to 20%, I think this is greatly due to the cover letter improvements.
Most of the companies I’ve applied to directly that were not advertising career positions have replied to my email, not with an opportunity but with words of encouragement. This encouragement is welcomed, after 3 weeks of job hunting and only 1 interview I’ve been feeling a bit discouraged.
The 1 interview I did have was for an java sql programmer position for a marketing company; Unfortunately they have decided to go with a summer student. It was exciting though, my first real career interview, they even had me write a programming test.
For now the job hunter continues, I send out roughly 40-50 emails a day with my resume, tailored cover letter and a short blurb about myself and how I would fit the positions requirements.
June 2009 - No luck from those junior programming jobs yet, a few emails informing me they are looking for someone with more experience. I’m spending what I feel is a large amount of time every day looking for a job, applying through a job sites and even using craigslists.
It seems I’m not the only one having a bit of troubles, not a single of my univeristy friends have found a job in their field, some of them have been unemployed for 8 month already. You hear about those univeristy grads getting out of school and living unemployed, but for every story of struggle, you read an article about the increasing need for people in your field.
I choosing to be optimistic! The job market isn’t banging but there is always a solution to any challenge. I need more avenues to pursue career opportunities in, starting with sending my resume to every software company there is in the GTA, rather they are looking to hire or not. I’ve jumped on 3 more job search websites and spent 8 hours refining my cover letter. [Cover letters help ! - invest a good day into your own if you haven't already]
April 2009- I’ve finally done it! The great day of achievement is finally here! I’m a university graduate!
The world is mine for the taking. I’ve always been smart, hardworking and now with this Bachelor of Science, nothing can stand in my way. I bet Google has already sent some big-shot talent scout my way, wonder if they’ll try and woo me with a big signing bonus?
June 2009- ….Silence…. no emails… no job offers…. not even a reply from Junior software developer positions i’ve applied to. Everyone always told me school is the answer, if you want to be successful, earn loads of money and live the easy life…. get an education. Have I been bamboozled by my own parents!?
I’ve worked pretty hard to this point. Countless late night’s coding, early morning classes, grueling summer jobs and throwing every penny I have into paying for school… still taking on a fat government student load. Looks like the hard work isn’t over yet.
June 2010 – Geeze… was I fooled! A year after graduating and I find myself working harder than I’ve ever worked before. Education is just a nice section you can place on your resume, the real determinate of success is the drive you have to reach your goals and the risk you’re willing to take.
This blog has been started to share my experiences and hopefully provide some entertainment.
Keep in mind I’m a computer guy.. not a english major. These post aren’t meant to be examples of a professional writer but rather quick thoughts I’d like to share with my audience.
