YiBi's Life|Live Log

As part of my effort to improve my physical fitness (and appearance), I have been getting into more activities. I’m jogging more regularly and bought a new mountain bike. And being a geek, naturally I would want to visualise the efforts in a geeky manner. So now I’m plotting my routes and paths with Nokia N95. Problem is, carrying my N95 while jogging is not that ideal. It’s relatively too thick and heavy. But I guess I found my solution.

Nokia is pairing up with Polar to provide a package which includes the Polar Heart Rate Monitor. The heart rate monitor will feed data to the N79 via Bluetooth and all the information gets recorded into the Nokia Sports Tracker software on the phone. This is cool, and really what I have been planning to do.

Watch this advertisement for the N79 Active. I do find it abit too cheesy at the ending though, too geeky..hehe..

Nokia N79 Active Advertisement

There’s only 1 problem now. Where can I get this from in Singapore?

Finally, I brought my new bike out after keeping it in the room for about a month. So this is the virgin ride, other than the ride home on the day I bought it. I was supposed to meet up with some friends nearby, so I thought I cycled instead of driving, it’s going to be good exercise.

This was the path I cycled.

Cycling Trail – 19/03/2009

I’m tracking my paths with Google Map so that I know how much I have cycled. Next time round, I will be using the Nokia Sports Tracker to record the path. Was supposed to use that, but there’s serious issues with the battery life if I use the internal GPS. I will write about it another day, so I won’t go into details here.

It was raining cats and dogs over the weekend, so my interest for cycling was really drowned. I will attempt again this weekend though. And while searching for the route to cycle to Pasir Ris Park, I discovered that there’s a mangrove board walk at Pasir Ris! I always thought the board walks were only built at Changi and Labrador. I love nature, the beach, the trees, the habitats at the mangrove. I’m definitely going to the board walk this weekend. Will snap some pics and post here!

Where’s the board walk?

[googlemap lat="1.381482716329854" lng="103.94838809967041" width="300px" height="150px" zoom="15" type="G_NORMAL_MAP"]Singapore[/googlemap]

Today I put Shozu to some serious use. I went around taking pictures for some work. And then I ran into 1 big problem. My battery went low in less than 1 hour. I specifically disable the sending of pictures immediately after capture, to prevent the data connection from consuming the battery, but I forgot about the AGPS. AGPS requires data connection for a quick GPS fix, which is crucial for the N95 because without the AGPS, it takes forever to get a fix. I used GPS primary for driving, so power’s not a problem, it’s always plugged in for charging.

I guess I need to use my Bluetooth GPS (Holux M1000) next time, but it’s a dread to bring another device, especially when I’m on foot and cycling. Guess this is a problem. Perhaps it’s time to change my phone. :P Any other phones out there with better GPS? :)

It’s about a month since I got my bike, and I have not brought it out since. :) So I’m planning the maiden trip this weekend. First few ideas would be to explore the Park Connector Network. Maybe to Pasir Ris first, to warm things up abit. I have not cycled for a long time, let alone trying to cross the roads with it.
Wish me good luck..ahah..

Oh, I will attempt geotagging too..:)

I have recently start geotagging on my N95 using Shozu. Although it is quite interesting, I still find Shozu’s integration with the N95 slightly incomplete. In a quick try at a specific location, there are discrepancies in the results. Out of 4 pics, 1 of them still ended up not being tagged with the GPS coordinate in the exif. I haven’t really done much trouble shooting, but I think one of the possible reasons could be that GPS fix was lost at that point of time. I guess I got to do some research on GPS and Shozu to see why this occurred. Are there alternatives to Shozu? Or a better way to use Shozu?

I have taken up cycling as a new hobby this year. Losing weight is one of the reasons why I decided on cycling. :)

This is the mountain bike I bought for this new hobby. It’s a Jamis Trail X3.

I bought it at $512, which is quite a steal. The original price is $569. It comes with front and back disc brakes. I thought this would be useful. Even my car doesn’t have disc brakes for the back wheels :). There’s front suspension, which makes the ride less bumpy. Overall I’m happy with this buy.

A couple things I would like to do when I cycle, just for fun.

1. I’m going to take photos as I cycle. And do some geotagging thing

2. After which I will map out my trail on Google Map.

3. I will explore taking video for the whole trail as well, then have my own version of Google Streetview :)

I hope to start soon, as soon as I figure out how to do the geotagging part with my existing GPS and camera.

Anyone keen to join me?