I did the four hour body diet…and it worked

I’m not a sporty guy, I live in an apartment with a treadmill, weights and an exercise bike. I don’t use any of these things despite the fact I’ve been gaining weight for the last 5 years.
My vices were craft beers, Jelly Belly Jelly Beans and spam and fried egg sandwiches.

I think everyone puts weight on as they get older but it doesn’t help if you’re not actively exercising and you eat and drink crap.

I’ve tried a few diets in the past, none of which I’ve stuck to and I always ended up back at square one until…

My girlfriend got me to read a book by Tim Ferris called “The Four Hour Body” . In short, I’ve now lost almost 2 stone (28lbs). My body fat percentage has been dropping by about 4% a week and I feel and look better than I have done in years. THe key to all this is that I’ve cut out carbs, I’m eating a ton of protein and really nive vegetables, I never feel hungry and once a week I get to spend 24 hours eating and drinking like a total pig. It’s gotten to the stage where Saturday is hard work and I miss the diet food again.

The real test was over the Christmas break, I didn’t stick to the diet and found that I STILL lost weight.

I can’t recommend this enough and after my positive results I’ve got friends and family on the diet now.

It’s really really easy and it’s probably one of the best things I’ve done!

 

Netflix UK

For years I’ve heard nothing but praise from my American friends about Netflix, I’ve wanted to try this service so much and for ages it seemed that nobody in the UK wanted to provide it. I don’t have a TV license because I don’t watch live TV so I don’t have Sky Movies.
I tried loveFilm a couple of times, the disc delivery system is pretty good but the on demand service was pretty unusable. The choice was poor and streaming was always bad, even with my current connection it would be jerky, poor quality or just time out. This is why I vowed never to go back.

Cut to January when I found out Neflix had made its way to the UK, kind of dubious at first because I’d been burned by LoveFilm but with a month free trial I had nothing to lose.
The first thing that struck me is the choice, there’s quite a lot of stuff on there to keep you going for a while. Not as much choice as the American service but it seems there’s new stuff being added every week!

So far I’ve been watching “Box sets” of TV shows, lots of indie and foreign movies and a decent selection of Anime.

The quality is awesome as most of the content is HD and dolby 5.1 surround with no lag or break in stream, I was really impressed by this, it looks and sounds gorgeous through my home cinema and to top it all off there’s stuff on there like Twin Peaks in full HD. AWESOME!!!

At £6 a month, it’s a total steal and it works perfectly on my xbox, PS3, Apple TV, iPhone and iPad (not to mention my laptop and desktop) and with a month free trial I think you should try it out.

 

Jawbone are awesome!

Well, after my previous post about the Jawbone Up I decided to use my refund credit to get the Jawbone Jambox, I have decent speakers in every room in my apartment but I wanted to get something I could take with me on my travels and the fact I can use it as a speakerphone is another plus!

It arrived yesterday and I thought I’d share my thoughts.

Firstly, the packaging is really striking, nice clean design, I’ve attached Engadget’s image but I’ll put my own photo up tonight

The device itself is tiny, it feels solid but it’s really compact, pretty surprising.

It looks gorgeous, very minimalist and striking, very few buttons and the grill detail is really nice, not to mention the clever hidden microphone for telephone calls.

I turned it on, it talked to me and it connected to my iPhone, MacBook and iPad with no problems at all.
The first thing I wanted to do is test how loud it can get so I played various Mastodon and NiN tracks through my phone.
It’s a really nice travel speaker, the bass is pretty responsive and the volume is loud enough to fill a living room, bedroom or office.

The coolest part of all is that when you connect with USB, you can update the firmware, add Internet radio stations, presets and change the voice it uses to speak to you!

Think this will live in my office for music and conference calls!

I guess Jawbone are more than just a headset manufacturer!

 

Podcast Of The Week

It’s back, it’s black, it’s mad as a heart attack, it’s POTW!

XO is really an audio essay, the host, Keith McNally presents a real quality podcast covering a wide range of subjects from movies to dying on an operating table (I dare you to listen to that episode and not cry a little).

Get subscribed to it, you won’t regret it!

 

Jawbone UP (update)

I wrote about this cool little device a while ago

After seeing that video I decided to buy my girlfriend one for xmas, it wasn’t long after this purchase that I started to read about issues with the device, things like trouble syncing, not recording data properly, not coming out of sleep mode etc and naturally, I got a little worried.

What happened next was pretty unexpected, the awesome people at Jawbone acknowledged the issues and offered a no questions asked, money back guarantee. The best part of this is that you can KEEP the device and you’ll still get your money back (PLUS £20) or a store credit for £120 (about £50 more than the thing cost me in the first place).

I decided to wait until I’d given the gift to actually see if there was a problem (I’m honest like that). Cut to 5 days after xmas day and my girlfriend had issues with syncing. We’ve submitted the request and we’ve opted for store credit, hopefully Jawbone will work the problems out and the Up will be the device it should be.

In the meantime my girlfriend is still using it as best she can and it rules when it works.

Thanks Jawbone, you’re one of the few big tech companies that actually care enough.

 

iTunes Match

Back at the World Wide Developer Conference in 2011, Apple announced iTunes Match. This is basically a service that scans your entire iTunes library and makes it available on your iPhone, iPad or Apple TV meaning you don’t have to take up space on these devices, just stream your own music and playlists and still have the option to download them to the device, the beauty being that this works for ALL your music and if any tracks are poor quality, a 256kbps file is waiting for you on the match server.

I’ve had this for a week or so now and I’ve got to say, it’s pretty bloody good, it’s taken everything I’ve got (including all my obscure stuff) and made it available over my 3G connection or Wi-Fi meaning I’ve now got tons more room for apps and videos on my iPhone and iPad and still have access to all 24,237 tracks from my iTunes library.

Here’s how it works…

 

Black Arts Toneworks Pharaoh Fuzz Pedal

For the past 6 months I’ve been obsessing over a fuzz pedal, I’ve NEVER EVER been this way about an effects pedal but an overwhelming number of artists I admire have been using these suckers and the demo videos on youtube convinced me how awesome these things sound.

Fast forward to xmas morning when I unwrapped one of these beauties, due to visiting family and friends I had to wait 3 days…THREE BLOODY DAYS to properly play this but it was totally worth the wait, especially as my brother completely shocked me by buying me a Gibson Explorer(!!!!). This is the guitar I’ve obsessed over for the last 16 years (seriously, I worked it out).

SO…in conclusion, this means I have my dream setup, both these things sound incredible through my Marshall stack!

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The blog is back!

Happy new year kiddo’s, sorry it’s been a while, I’ve had a very, very, very busy few weeks.

Prepare for a shotgun blast of blog posts!

 

Podcast Of The Week

This weeks POTW (Yeah, I’m sticking with that acronym) is pretty inspirational, I look forward to every single, well produced episode. Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, Oink and Milk interviews founders of some of the most successful names in tech like Square, Twitter, Second Life, FourSquare, UStream etc.
This podcast is always entertaining and informative and it’s invaluable if you’re running your own business.

Check it out!

 

Best/Worst movie commentary ever!

I dislike Arnold Schwarzenegger from a political perspective, I do however enjoy movies like Conan, Terminator, Running Man, Predator and of course Total Recall.
This clip just started doing the rounds, it’s basically Arnold trying to give a DVD commentary but due to the nature of his IQ, all he’s doing is literally describing everything as it happens on screen. Moron, entertaining moron.