For the past few weeks I’ve spent my spare time working working on a new version of Plaxo’s mobile access (WAP). It uses PHP, Smarty, and the new Plaxo 3.0 APIs so I’ve had to do very little work myself. The hardest part by far has been getting the layout to look good on all sorts of phones.
Plaxo Mobile 3.0
Some of the cool features:
Data is always in sync with Outlook, Mac, Gmail, etc using thanks to 3.0’s sync setup.
Main page shows my weather and calendar events for today and tomorrow – usually that’s all I want to see!
Add and edit tasks and notes. The only reason for me to use a paper todo list or grocery list was that I could take it with me. Now I can just keep my tasks/notes in Outlook and access them from anywhere.
(Outlook tasks and notes aren’t implemented in the most user-friendly way, so I often just use the mobile access through my browser. We’re hoping to get these features added to 3.0 soon!)
If you want to check it out just hit up http://labs.plaxo.com/mobile/ from your phone (should also work from your browser if you don’t have a data plan or want to play with it first.
Feedback welcome in our Google Group.
One of the top 5v5 teams has become one of the first groups of WoW players to become professional gamers– Curse reports that CheckSix Gaming, an e-sports agency (or should that be promoter? sponsor?), has picked up ZERG IT DOWN as the first professional 5v5 arena team (one of the first actually, see Update below). CheckSix also sponsors Counterstrike, Call of Duty, and BF1942 teams, and while they say they were skeptical Blizzard would be able to make WoW a part of “eSports,” the arena system is what put it over the top– it provides a quantifiable way to determine which team has the better players.
Was just reading over on WoW Insider that a few 5-man arena teams are now sponsored and it made me wonder why we aren’t seeing competitive video games on TV yet. It’s obviously coming, but when? Are there not enough people interested in watching? Does that mean that there are enough people interested in watching half the other crap that’s on TV currently? There are a number of professional gamers and gaming teams that make a living off tournament winnings so clearly there’s some serious money being put into it. There must be dozens of games out there with communities large enough to have an active, competitive community.
I give it 2 years before there’s a channel dedicated to it or ESPN has some sort of coverage. Lucky headshots clearly deserve a place in the SportsCenter Top 10.
Also, I just noticed that the OGL is still around and is sporting the exact same website design they were when I was a member back in 1999.
Pete showed us a workout today that he said was inspired by the workout the guys did for the movie 300. Although I didn’t see that mentioned anywhere, the workout still looks good. I’ve never liked going to the gym (and haven’t even used my Plaxo employee pass at Gold’s), but I do love that post-workout feeling of relaxation and sore muscles. I’ve been biking 30 miles almost every weekend but I find myself getting a little restless due to lack of physical activity when Wednesday rolls around. Hopefully this will help keep me relaxed as well as get me in shape.
The simplefit workout has a few benefits as I see it:
It’s simple - just 3 different exercises 3 times a week; and I don’t have to go anywhere to do it!
It’s not always the same - although each of the 3 workouts use the same exercises they’re presented in such a way that each day will (hopefully) feel like a different challenge
It’s rewarding - the way its set up into different levels gives you something to focus on besides just getting more fit and helps you realize the progress you’ve made so far
I’m sure other workouts have similar structure and simplicity but I didn’t really care to do any research. :) So today I did a ‘Day 1’ workout and completed 56 sets in the 20 minutes. The pull-ups are definitely my bottleneck at this point.
Hopefully in a few weeks it’ll get a little warmer out and I can bike to work every day (it’s just under 7 miles). It will be really nice to bike home after a long day instead of sitting in traffic. Exercise is such great stress relief, and it’d be stupid of me not to take advantage of the great CA weather.
