For a while Plaxo was having issues syncing with Yahoo! so they removed it from the list.  As of this weekend it looks like the Yahoo sync is back in business.  Which is good because I was actually starting to look in other directions for calendar and contact management since Yahoo! is where I do all my emailing from.  Also looks like they did some UI updates and now I have a pulse icon on the toolbar, don’t know what I think about that yet I will have to let you know after a few days.

So I finally got enough courage to try an actual mountain bike ride.  So I logged into my trail website and looked around for a trail to try.  One thing I really like about this site is it tells you what the temperature is at the trailhead.  After seeing that most Boulder trails were about 36 degrees I decided to go to Deer Creek Canyon which was about 52 degrees.  Of course when I got there, there was a bunch of people there because there was a mountain bike demo going on.  Either way I got all my stuff on and jumped on my bike and road up the mountain.

As the elevation chart above shows its a little uphill…yea a little!  I fell about 4 times because I couldn’t pull my feet out from my clips in time.  TrailCentral.com describes this trail as: Multi-user trail, lush sections, rocky in spots, steep climb west of Meadowlark junction.  Yea Meadowlark Junction is at the trailhead so it’s straight up from there.  Also the trail had a whole bunch of big loose rocks and stuff to navigate.  I made it about 2/3 of the way up the hill and turned around as I wasn’t sure I could ride down.  But I did manage to make it back down no problem.  I then took another trail that went down the hill you park on, across Deer Creek Canyon Road and then up the other side.  From there it just does a big loop on the top.  This was a nice easy trail with a decent up and a big drop-off on one side.

Needless to say after only 6.5 miles I was dead tired and really sore today.  I did however have a blast and learned that I need to work on going up steep rocky hills.  I will just have to keep practicing but the first ride was successful and a blast!  It is pretty rewarding to ride up a hill and then ride down it.  It takes 2 different skill sets to ride up and ride down.  I have the going downhill part alright but going uphill is a little different.  You have to keep your legs moving at all times and you have to stay low on your bike.  I sat there for a while on the trail watching other people do it so I could get an idea of what they were doing.

Trails Ridden: Rattle Snake Trail, Elk Grazing Trail, and the killer Plymouth Creek Trail

So for those people who like to post images in Picasa web album but not enable you to download them this little Java app lets you get around clicking each one and downloading.  This is helpful for people like my father who I have setup a full website for but never uses it and just uses Picasa (which was a feat in itself to get him to do)

Picasa WebAlbumsAssistant

Wow why can’t I like things that are cheap?  These watches are amazing and I really really need one.  The best part is the ad that Tag has on their site starts off with an R8.  What can I say we are made for each other.  Check out the images from Autoblog and then Tag’s site below.

Autoblog 
Tag’s Site

What can I say I am a sucker for good photography/CGI effects.  Some of these are amazing, they say that you are always interested in things you cannot do yourself and art is the perfect example of somewhere where I fall short.

Of course there is always our good defacto standard of DeviantArt.com but it is always fun to see what else is on the net because sometimes I feel DeviantArt.com  gets a little stale.

The Art of 3D artist Andre Kutcherauer

Belkin is notorious for making a good easy idea a very expensive little toy.  Take the iPhone headphone adapter I bought for my car that was $12, $12 for a plug…nice and sadly enough I paid for it.

Amazingly enough this great idea of convergence is only $25 which is very well priced for a Belkin product.  I like the idea of being able to charge gadgets via USB via a power outlet rather than a computer.  The only bad thing I have read about this product is it is a little heftier then the pictures make it look so its not ideal for traveling but I just want something I can charge my iTouch, iPod, and PS3 controllers on.

Belkin Mini Surge Protector with USB Charger

I found another WP Admin Theme that I am a big fan of because for some reason Fluency kept causing me a couple of issues as I found a few pages were dead and in all honesty I wasn’t too keen on the color usage.  Baltic Amber Admin Themes and Schemes is the name of the plugin.  I like this plugin because it works directly with WP’s new color scheme options for each user.  After installing the plugin you just go to users then click on your user and then change the theme color.  It also allows you to easily customize to use any color scheme you want so you are not limited in any way.  I haven’t played around with the CSS sheets too much yet but chances are I will change the fonts around and probably the sizes as I usually like to be different

Since I do all my blogging from Windows Live Writer I am not too worried about the Admin interface as I use it more to just manage and maintain my site. But this plugin makes for some nice effects and colors, currently I am using the Asphalt Color scheme.

As you can see I have changed my theme for my blog.  Well unless of course you only read my blog via RSS…yes all 14 of you!  I am really happy with the look of this new theme with some minor changes.  I had to do a couple of CSS tweaks to fix some issues I noticed as well as changing the header logo to my next car, the reason I am in school, the Audi A5.  I also made some tweaks to the templates to allow the Ajax plugin to work correctly and all seems well.  Overall I am very happy with this template and looking around TopWPThemes website they have a ton of very nice easily modifiable layouts, so I am adding them to the list of templates.  I was also very happy to see that my blogroll from Google looks pretty good with the new layout.

I am trying to keep up with my blogging but lately it has been a little rough running into the end of the semester along with spring it is tough to find time to contribute.  I have a lot in my backlog so you can expect an occasional flooding of new information.

Looks like Sony finally managed to figure out their legal issues with the company they ‘borrowed’ the force feedback technology from and were able to bring it to the PS3.

I went and picked one of these up as soon as I found a store that had them.  Since no one shops at Circuit City they had a whole display of them and for $5 less than retail.  Currently I am playing Devil May Cry 4 which is one of the games that is already rumble ready.  It is nice to have some more weight back into the controller as the regular Six Axis just felt way too light.  The rumble is nice and strong and a happy thing to welcome back.  I am just curious to see what this does to my battery life on the worst rated controllers in terms of battery life.

Oh well whatever I still love my PS3! Where is my GT/5 Prologue??  Working on Condemned 2 and Devil May Cry 4, I may have hit a wall with Devil May Cry but I need more time to play, damn school, work and warm weather keeps getting in my way!

So I finally purchased a cover for my iTouch that I won back in January.  That is one good thing about not having to pay for the original toy is I can buy some accessories for it and not feel too bad.  The case is exactly as described and works very well.  My only beef with the case is that they don’t mention that regular headphones will no longer plug in with this case because it recesses the headphone jack.  It is easily solved by buying an adapter but something I wasn’t expecting to deal with.  Other than that this is a great case and matches a similar one I bought for a 30GB 5G iPod.  The best part about the casing is it doesn’t add too much bulk to the iTouch it still fits in my pocket easily.

Another unexpected bonus was the nice letter that came in the well packaged product.  It was just a little thank you for purchasing our products and how they are a start up company.  Amazing how far a little communication back to the end user can go!

IvySkin.com