Adam Howitt's Blog

Run your ass off this year!

After another 200 hour programming marathon spread over 4 months I'm thrilled to announce the release of version 3 of WalkJogRun's iPhone App "WalkJogRun Running Routes".

What does it do?

The most significant change version 2 was the addition of 23 training plans created by Coach Jenny Hadfield of Runners World fame. Once you sign up for a training plan and pick a start date you'll get alerts every morning at 6am (silent so they don't wake you) to tell you how far to run, how fast and give you motivation. Tap the find routes button to find a training route in your neighborhood from the 600,000 routes at WalkJogRun.net

What if I've never run before?

We've got plans for beginners, intermediate and advanced runners including one called "Run your first 5k" designed to take you from the sofa to being able to run a 5k race in 10 weeks. We've also got 10k training plans, half marathon training plans and full marathon training plans.

Gimme the nerdy stuff

The programs themselves are delivered as in-app purchases using the StoreKit framework on the device to process payments and then send receipts to the ColdFusion server to register the subscription and begin delivery of the alerts.

The alerts are delivered as Apple Push Notifications generated by ColdFusion. No mean feat I can tell you using Java in ColdFusion to connect to a streaming data socket to send and receive the bytes and then drop the encoded JSON packets off on your phone. The phone gets the alert, opens the app and takes you to the training session for the day to show you your training tip.

Download a copy of "WalkJogRun Running Routes" before it gets too late!

See Howitt Run

I have 2 weeks left to raise the remainder of my $3,900 goal for Leukemia and Lymphoma and I need your help. I'm in Week 15 of the Team in Training plan to run the San Diego marathon on June 4th.  Saturday was an 18 mile run out in Darien, IL and my legs are still tight from the challenge.  It's a distinct change from the flat course along Chicago's lakefront.  We've got a 10 mile run this weekend before the next jump to 20 miles the following week.

I was initially running in memory of my Aunty Moreen who passed away in 2004 after a 6 year struggle with bowel cancer.  The weekend after I started my training we discovered that my wife's 3 year old niece Haidyn had been diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia).  Over the past 12 weeks she has been a tough little girl fighting infections caused by the drugs reducing her immune response and dealing with the loss of hair caused by the chemo.  At mile 16 on Saturday as I felt like my legs couldn't keep going I remembered the pain her and her family have experienced and it pushed me to the end.

If you have ever read one of my posts on SQL, AJAX, ColdFusion or even my most popular post on how to fix a bug on your Motorola DVR, please take time to donate.  I appreciate anything you can spare.

British pedometer - WalkJogRun

Okay, WalkJogRun has long been available for the UK but now it has it's own URL WalkJogRun.co.uk which starts you on a view of Europe, features better resolution satellite maps, detailed European maps and imagery (looks like a Dan Brown movie) and a postcode lookup feature. Oh, and it also includes Japan but at present those maps are all in Japanese so I'm unable to make head nor tail of the place names.

I have to admit that the imaging improvements are all Google's idea but it doesn't come free.  Google has an upgrade document for it's mapping API users to help you move your code from v1 to v2.  The move took about 3 hours for my site but it wasn't as easy as the upgrade document made out "The quickest way to upgrade is to update your Maps API <script> URL to refer to 'v=2' instead of 'v=1.'" Hmm. No dice.  The way I proceeded was to start with the function I call to initialize my map and eliminate any subsequent map based code and gradually add it back in, digging into the APIv2 Class reference.

One of the biggest changes for me was the move from GPoint to GLatLng objects which means little until you realize that the old method of passing points has changed and the order you pass in longitude and latitude coordinates is now opposite.  One trick someone suggested was a simple function which takes the old format and returns the flipped values but I figured it was easier just to straighten them out manually. 

Another such flip was the zoom scales which used to run 0 to 17 with 17 being the most coarse view and 0 allowing you to see up someone's nose.  GMap2 now goes the opposite direction with 0 being the most distant and 17 the closest you can get at this point; presumably this allows them to get closer yet at some point in the future without having to get into negative numbers.  This means most of the code you have will need to be rewritten with the substitution 17-oldnum to get the correct new value.  Or just stand on your head.  

This all coincides with my move to hosting the site on my own server happily running BlueDragon 6.2.1 on Linux with MySQL and Apache.  I have a nice dev environment to play with now instead of playing chicken with large code changes and an easy way to migrate them between environments.

If you have any Google Map related questions and need a hand working out where something is breaking, I will follow up if you have any questions.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and maybe even plot out a nice run or bike ride. 

Cubs tickets

Last night I was mortified to see that behind home plate at Wrigley Field, there were plenty of empty seats where season ticket holders elected to stay at home to keep warm.  I think this is absolutely ridiculous. 

A season ticket holder at the office, who was actually there despite the cold last night, told me that it is his prerogative to choose whether or not to turn up.  "It doesn't harm anyone if I don't turn up".  I disagree.  It is the season ticket holders who stay at home and the scalpers who can't sell their tickets who leave ball games empty.

I suggest that sports clubs around the world should begin instituting a 30 minute cutoff to allow real fans to see the games they want from good seats.  After 30 minutes, if the turnstile has not registered a seat as being taken by the ticket holder, the seat is immediately put back into circulation for the club to resell.  No refund for the ticket holder who missed the 30 minute cut off.  The club makes extra revenue and the best seats in the house are never left empty.  This would reduce scalping if people without tickets knew that there was a standby line to get in 30 mins after the game begins.

Please share this post with any sports franchise you are affiliated with and lets try to put the hardcore fans back in the seats.

Glazer to take Manchester United

As Malcolm Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American Football team, closes in on full control of Manchester United I have a dream about his intentions.  I have been a Manchester United fan since my father took me to my first game in 1979 and they were the number one reason I played football as a child and still play each weekend to this day.

My dream is that Malcolm Glazer can take Football (soccer) to the next level in the US through his marketing experience.  The action plan for me would be as follows:

1. Wrangle the rights to the English Premier League from the grasp of Setanta. They have done nothing to promote the sport in the US.  Charging extorionate fees to bars to show the game discourages anyone who can't see the business advantage from showing the games.
2. Subsidize or work with the major US TV networks like FOX, NBC, ABC or ESPN to win the contract. Show the games each week for free across America and take advantage of the obvious ratings soccer would pull in.  Saturday morning is when millions of American children get up and sit in front of the TV to watch cartoons.  That is when the games are shown (9am CST).  The most compelling reason this makes sense is that Soccer is the number one sport played in America by children.

Why should this be a dream for Malcolm Glazer to execute?  Marketing dollars.  To the lucky network that wins the contract there would be a vast loyal following which means more marketing dollars for them too.  So come on Setanta.  Give up your hold on the English Premier League and let a network who can advance the promotion of the sport in the US take control.

Cubs vs Red Sox June 10th Bleachers!

Wahoo. Just 12 minutes in the virtual waiting room at Cubs.com and I was able to secure 6 seats in the bleachers at Wrigley to see the Red Sox vs Cubs opener. Go Cubbies!

Two for the bus

Since I started at Duo Consulting as Senior Developer I've been able to recover some of my precious reading time by replacing my commute with books. I have a 20 minute bus ride to work so that's 40 free minutes of reading a day. It's been great letting someone else get the road rage while I kick back to enjoy my iPod Mini and read.

First out of the blocks has been "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris. I read (or rather listened) to "Me talk pretty one day" over a year ago on a road trip so was pretty excited to pick this book up. It was better than I expected but with a couple of revelations I didn't expect to see in print. It's unfortunately one of those laugh out loud books so if you do read it on the bus, take some gum.

Next it's on to I'm a stranger here myself by Bill Bryson and it's shaping up to be better than the other books of his. I say this because he is approaching America looking through the same eyes that I used when I came over here. He lived in the UK for about 25 years like me, so he describes a lot of the things I thought nobody else noticed. The only thing I don't like is his disturbingly accurate description of the Chicago Cubs who, despite a promising run, have managed to surrender a wild card lead and now face a real risk of missing the play offs. Good to see the Red Sox reducing the Yankees' lead.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

They had their axes ready for the Braves Chop but it was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre as Kerry Wood (Texas) pitched 8 fine innings before being replaced by Tom Goodwin as pinch hitter.

I'll put some pictures up at MyPhotopia later today from last nights game in Atlanta. It was great to see history in the making and such good humoured rivalry from the fans. Typical cat-calls of "Corky" were yelled at Sammy Sosa while the Braves multimedia crowd management system cranked out the Chop over and over to drum up some enthusiasm. Overall, I still think the majority of fans at the game were fair weather Braves fans. Last night was the best crowd in regular or post-season history because many of the cubs fans came back down from Chicago to see the game. Other Cubs fans, like myself, live in Atlanta and were priveleged enough to see history being made as the Cubs further buried the legend of the Goat. I know that the only thing that stopped "Wrigley South" from having more Cubs fans in attendance was the prohibitive cost of a last minute ticket to fly down.

Well done Cubbies, lets take down the Marlins. The Cubs have a 4-2 record against them (2-1 Home, 2-1 Away) from two series in July so statistically we are stand a good chance. Heck, even against the Yankees the Cubs are 2-1 from the Interleague series...

Go Cubbies!

I'm exhausted. I've got tickets to see my Chicago Cubs meet the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night and that was only part of a crazy sporting weekend that started on Saturday morning and is set to end on Wednesday or Thursday night depending on the state of the world.

Football/Soccer. It started with a 10am game with me playing midfield for the Tigers in the US Club Sport Intermediate League. We were up by three goals when I made a challenge in our penalty area before dribbling the ball up the field to pass to Irving. He saw me go on the overlap at full speed and threaded the ball through to my feet and from about 8 yards out I fired home a goal before subbing off to feel sick.

Following the game James and I raced to the Brewhouse Cafe to catch the end of the 4-1 thrashing of Leicester by Manchester United while we ate brunch. Back to Mercer University playing fields for the second game of the day at 1pm for our second game of the day as Los Borrachos, again with me in midfield. No goals this time but some useful passes so the day was going well.

After the game I held off visiting Mark and Sarah at their pool party to catch the end of the Cubs game against the Pirates. One of two in a double header, I was really nervous since the critics reminded all ESPN viewers how tough it is to win a double header in regular season, let alone right at the end of the season against the Pirates. The Cubs held out and due to the Astros loss on Friday night, they were left with just one game from two to win to take the NL Central title and be in the playoffs scheduled to play in Atlanta next week.

Over to Mark's pool party to throw an (American) Football around and then back to their apartment to celebrate the Jewish New Year with some Jewish foods prepared (excellently) by Sarah. While we gorged ourselves on the great food the Cubs were rallying strong against the Pirates for the second time for the day. As I tuned into MLB radio to hear the end of the game the Cubs were finishing off the Pirates so we booked seats for Wednesday night here in Atlanta to hopefully see the second game in a five game series where the Cubs finish a sweep of the Braves. I can't wait.

After we all had a chance to go home and get ready we headed to Smiths Old Bar for some Foosball, Pool, Darts, Beer and Golden Tee. It was a surprise to meet a local American guy who was devastatingly good at playing Foosball. After disposing with our entire group of friends he left us to play some others where we recovered some pride. I met a guy called Ian from London who has worked as a self-employed immigration attorney here in Atlanta for 12 years now and we exchanged details. He had some interesting news about my visa situation but until we chat again I don't know enough to explain it.

Woke up late today and had just enough time to make coffee before settling down to some NFL Football and as I write this I'm just watching the last game come to an end late in the third quarter. That is 10 hours of football with 3 more to come tomorrow night when my team, the Chicago Bears meet the Green Bay Packers at newly renovated Soldier Field for their home opener.

I'm gutted that the Bears are 0-2 for the season so far and hope that our first victory will be against the old enemy - the Cheeseheads. It was back in August as I drove up from Atlanta tailing Melissa with a car full of her belongings that I first saw Soldier Field in it's new state and I remember thinking it looked like a UFO settled on top of the historic stadium. It seems I wasn't alone in this observation as John Madden pointed it out this afternoon in some pre-game pre-amble.

After the late night game tomorrow 9pm thru 12ish I will need my rest because after work on Tuesday it's the playoff opener against the Braves and I can only watch the first few innings because I'm playing darn softball for < a href="http://stop-ing.com/tbg/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.schedule&teamid=8">Team Bad Guy. Arg. I've always said I'm that guy who prefers to play sport than watch it but this is an exception. At least I get to watch Game 2 live from section 224. Many Braves fans and sports commentators have expressed their concern that the Cubs pitchers could well overpower the Braves with Wood facing Ortiz and then Prior, Zambrano and Clement waiting to display their best. My pain could be prolonged depending on the number of games required to settle the series but I hope Wednesday night settles it. I'm optimistic. At worst, it will come down to Saturday night and I'll have to get more tickets.

On a slightly different note, check out Coupling at 9.30pm EST on NBC. The script is taken from a British show of the same name and is reasonably well done, although Melissa compared it to watching a High School interpretation of Shakespeare after seeing a major production. Love it. You can get a copy of the first two seasons on Amazon for American DVD players (NTSC) for around $38 for both.

Oh my. Indianapolis now 54-13 up. Poor Little James. He gleefully cheered on Carolina as they took Atlanta apart today and couldn't have anticipated seeing an even bigger romping of his team that I'm watching now. Ouch.

What is Softball?

On NPR this morning Sports Illustrated editor Frank Deford suggested that if Baseball is like Marriage whereas Football (American) is like Sex. What does that make Softball?