I set up a listing for 4 hours of visual facilitation (the paper kind, not the iPad kind) for any organization holding a meeting in the Bay Area or North Bay. No bids yet, but there’s still time to get in on the action! The auction, if it sells, will benefit the Mt. Diablo chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) — I spoke at their meeting in March, and they are doing a fundraiser for their annual conference.

Charities and other organizations can register with Allthis.com and then ask supporters to list auctions, as well as spreading the word that the auctions are there. It’s an interesting solution to the problem of how to organize a fundraiser, and it seems a lot more painless than some of the ones I ran when I was a teacher. I remember the year I boycotted candy sales and had my students sell photography portrait packages instead. Talk about a market mismatch.

Backstory
I’m hanging out in YVR, waiting for my very delayed flight back to SFO, and reflecting on the whirlwind that was Northern Voice 2010. It was such a wonderful, lively conference, and I got such a kick out of meeting people whose blogs and tweets I follow. The sessions were really quick and packed with information — which made it a challenge to take notes on my iPad, but that’s what I did.

A couple of weeks ago, Scott Leslie started to actually organize an AltMooseCamp, because MooseCamp wasn’t going to happen this year (after seeing the program for NV10, I understand why — so many great sessions — they needed both days!). I took one of the AltMooseCamp spots and said I’d talk about how to do graphic recording on an iPad. I had recently talked to Fred Lakin about visual recording on iPads, and he had tried it, so it was almost like I knew what I was talking about. At the time, I didn’t even HAVE an iPad, but I had one on order, and a lot of faith that it would all work out.

It did. My iPad arrived about a week before NV, giving me enough time to play with it a bit. I also ordered a stylus (this one) and I played with that too. I didn’t actually do any visual recording, but I bought a sketching app and played around with it to learn the controls. Then my iPad, my stylus, and I got on a plane for Vancouver.

I figured it would be best if I had something to show during my talk, so I recorded Bryan Alexander’s opening keynote on Friday morning. That’s it up at the top of the post. I was really pleased with how easy it was, once I had the hang of the controls. During my talk, I showed two apps and let a couple of people actually hold the iPad (it’s true, and I have witnesses). I was expecting about four people to turn up but there were at least 20 in the room. We talked about visual recording and what’s different, worse, and better when using the iPad. After my session, I went on to record almost every session I attended on Friday and Saturday.

Here’s What I Learned
Software. I tried Autodesk SketchBook Pro ($7.99) and Adobe Ideas (free). All the notes in my Flickr stream were done with SketchBook Pro. The controls in SBP are very easy to access while working: 3-finger swipes and taps get you to the brushes, the layers, undo, redo, and the menu; 2 fingers let you zoom and pan; and 1 finger is used for drawing. There’s also a handy “puck” that lets you change brush size and opacity quickly. To switch colors, you swipe down with 3 fingers (this brings up the brush palette) and tap the new color (30 swatches are displayed, or you can tap the color wheel to pick a custom color) — you can also change brush type, size, opacity, and other options here if you want — then tap once on your drawing and you’re back in business.

The controls in Ideas are a little harder to master and are a little too fiddly for me to use quickly while recording. They are housed in a panel on the side, and one button is used to change the context of the panel (color, opacity, or size). So to switch colors while drawing, you tap the brush button, tap the color button in the fly-out panel, and then either use one of the four default colors that appear in the context menu or tap the color wheel to access other colors. I’ve seen a screenshot of a larger palette of swatches, but I haven’t worked out how to make it show up yet. If you also want to change the size and/or opacity, it’s a few more taps to do that. I usually missed the button and had to tap more than once to get the fly-out panel, but that would probably get easier with practice.

Drawing Feel. Both programs have a good drawing feel. Ideas auto-smooths lines, which is nice (sometimes) and a PITA (sometimes) — if you’re a sloppy letterer, it’ll end up changing your a’s to circles — but the sensitivity is very good compared to other auto-correcting applications I’ve used. Mostly it just smooths out your writing, which is actually nice. SBP does no smoothing at all, so what you sketch is what you get. I didn’t have a problem with it.

Zoom. Both apps let you zoom in to do small writing and fine detail. Ideas has an infinite canvas, or something really near it, which is really nice. SBP does not; the canvas is the size of your iPad, and you can zoom in to make better use of the space, but it’s meant to be small. I found that one screen was perfect for an hour’s talk.

Stylus. I didn’t use mine to take notes. I found that when I held it, I wanted to rest my wrist on the surface of the iPad, as I would if I were writing on paper. Since the iPad is multi-touch, this resulted in really interesting but unwanted lines on my notes. Instead I used the tip of my finger, as if I were shading with chalk or pastel. Both programs gave me a satisfying variety of line widths. Neither is pressure-sensitive, so I had to adjust the width when I wanted it to change, but I found it worked fine. If you *do* rely on a stylus, I recommend Ideas over SBP, because it’s easier to switch tools with a stylus in Ideas and it’s easier to switch with your fingers in SBP. You have to put the stylus down or hold it awkwardly to do the 3-finger swipes in SBP.

Here’s a video of an actual artist (Dani Jones) using the same stylus and SBP to actually draw something really cool, just so you see it can be done if you have mad skillz. She also uses a lot more of the brushes and tools. It’s worth taking a couple of minutes to watch just to marvel. You can also get an idea of how SBP’s brush/color palette works. (Note: I initially, and mistakenly, attributed this drawing and video to Erik Mallinson, who had reposted the video on his blog. My apologies to both.)

Layers. SBP lets you add as many layers as you want, quickly and easily. Yay! Ideas has two layers — the one you draw on, and the one you can put a photo into to draw over. I couldn’t see a way to add additional layers.

Posture. Obviously this is something that will vary quite a lot from one person to another. I had the opportunity to try out a number of different kinds of seats during the conference. I found that the easiest way to take notes was to have the iPad resting on my knee, tilted slightly up from horizontal, when I sat with one leg crossed over the other. This worked best in chairs with no arms, and in right-handed student desks. When I used left-handed student desks or those long curving desk things in large lecture halls, the iPad was too high up for me to draw comfortably and it was difficult to keep it tilted at a slight angle (see “Glare” below). I also found that sitting cross-legged on the floor or on a bench with the iPad on my lap was a good way to draw, although it was harder on my back and rear. TMI? Sorry.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

Notetaking Experience. Brilliant. I loved it. It’s still a little slower than using paper, for me, and still a little sloppier, but I really liked having different colors and shades and not having to cap and uncap pens, or keep them from rolling off the desk, or cart them around. I really liked having my notes digitized and ready to post on Flickr in a couple of taps, too. With SBP, by the way, all drawings are portrait by default, so if you turn the iPad horizontally (as I did), you have to rotate the image before you post it or it’ll be sideways. I’m hoping they’ll fix this somehow. I could not find a way to rotate it cleanly in the app, so I saved the layered version to iTunes and opened it in Photoshop. It was an extra step, but a quick one.

Glare. The Life Sciences building at UBC is gorgeous. Lovely wood, lots of light, the ceiling is entirely glass — just beautiful. It reflects perfectly in the shiny screen of an iPad. The glare in any kind of light is very pronounced — you can use the iPad to check your hairdo when it’s turned off — but in the atrium where the keynotes were held, it was astounding. If you’re recording in a dark lecture hall, you’ll have no problem at all, but if the room is lit or you’re in a lovely natural light setting, it can be challenging to find a way to tilt the iPad so that you can both see it and draw on it. Not impossible, just challenging.

Battery life. Awesome. I started with a full charge in the morning, recorded six talks (a one-hour keynote and five 45-minute sessions), checked email, showed the iPad off to anyone who looked even remotely interested or couldn’t outrun me, passed it around after dinner so people could play games, and ended the day with 20% charge. I didn’t have to plug it in at all during the day (which is good since the cord is really really short).

How Does It Relate to Visual Practice?
Well… I wouldn’t use it (yet) for visual facilitation, where I’m interacting with a group and helping them work through something. It’s not as natural as pens and paper yet so I would be too distracted, I think. What I was doing at Northern Voice was visual recording, where I’m just listening and making notes. Then there’s the issue of the size; when you’re doing visual practice with a group, either recording or facilitating, you want the group to be able to see what you’re doing. I have not tried projecting the iPad onto a screen while working, so I don’t know how that would work, but I’ve heard that not all apps can be projected yet (some can’t access the video out?). I also have some concerns about sensitive persons in the audience watching my mad panning and zooming as I work. I think this is a great process for personal recording, but not yet for group work.

I’m also very interested in the possibilities for remote visual practice through something like screen sharing, but I haven’t even begun to figure out how to set that up.

Would I Do It Again?
Oh yes, yes I will. All that stuff I said about Why I Need an iPad is actually true — the phone’s too small, the laptop’s too big, and it does what I need to do when I’m away from my desk during the day.

If you’ve used your iPad for something like this, please leave a comment about your own experiences, especially if you’ve tried other apps or if you have a different take on the experience.

Pix or It Didn’t Happen
You can see all the notes I took collected on Flickr. Also take a look at these visual notes from NV10 by Rob Cottingham — he did the same thing, only he’s a cartoonist so his sketches bear a strong resemblance to real-world objects and people. Here’s the one he did of my talk — I love it!

excerpt from a keynote by Gardner Campbell that I recorded in San Antonio, April 2010

Allthis is an online auction where you can donate anything — things you’d sell on eBay, or your time doing something you’re good at — and the proceeds go to a charity or nonprofit. I was intrigued so I set up an auction for half a day of visual facilitation. If anyone bids on my auction and wins it, as long as they’re within driving distance and we can agree on a date, I’ll go facilitate a meeting of up to four hours for them. The money that they pay for the auction will go to the Mt. Diablo Chapter’s fundraising effort. My auction doesn’t open til May 10, which is the date that I guess the Mt. Diablo Chapter auctions start, but there are others that can be bid on now.

I really like the way Allthis makes it easy to give something that you really want to give, and still have the charity or nonprofit receive what they really need (money). From the Allthis press release:

Until now, if someone wanted to support a charity, there were only two options – write a check or volunteer. Beginning today allthis, the marketplace for things money can’t buy, offers a new way to support a cause: by turning an individual’s time and expertise into cash. Allthis is an all new way to give.

People have two options to support a charity – bid on an existing auction item or create a new one. Non-profits, clubs, companies, or any type of affinity group may also create teams to raise money together for a common cause, competing against each other to raise the most. The real winner is the non-profit, which receives the money from all the auctions in the end.

You can browse Allthis to find a cause to support, or if you ARE a cause (well, not you personally, but you know what I mean) you can set up a profile so that people can donate and bid on your behalf. It was very easy to set up the auction — only took a few minutes. It seems like a neat use of social media to facilitate what is essentially a barter system to support good causes.

I need an iPad because the iPad redefines portable computing.
It’s just possible that the laptop has too much overhead, and that we simply never noticed before. If I want to go sit on the back porch and read email, I have to unmount a couple of hard drives, turn on monitor mirroring, unplug my USB headset, and carry the laptop outside. That used to be fine because it was better than lugging a tower and monitor out there. But it turns out there’s another level of portability, almost satisfied by devices like the iPhone — but not quite. The screen and keyboard on the iPhone are too small for anything but really short emails. Forget document review or authoring — it’s really just too painful.

I want something bigger than the iPhone but smaller than the laptop, and I want to be able to pick it up in one hand and carry it outside — or pull it out on an airplane, even if the person in front of me leans back; or on a bus; or in the waiting room at the doctor’s office; or… you get the idea. I need an iPad so that I can overcome “the phone’s screen is too small” or “the laptop is too bulky,” which is true even though there’s no way I would have admitted either until there was a better solution. I need an iPad so that I can really work anytime, anywhere.

I need an iPad because I read and I write, and books are changing.
In this post, Books in the Age of the iPad, Craig Mod addresses the point that print is dying. He says that’s okay, though, and that having fewer books printed will result in higher quality of printed material overall. He also says:

“In printed books, the two-page spread was our canvas. It’s easy to think similarly about the iPad. Let’s not. The canvas of the iPad must be considered in a way that acknowledge the physical boundaries of the device, while also embracing the effective limitlessness of space just beyond those edges.

“We’re going to see new forms of storytelling emerge from this canvas. This is an opportunity to redefine modes of conversation between reader and content. And that’s one hell of an opportunity if making content is your thing.”

I think that’s just brilliant. “Let’s not.” Let’s invent formats that really work on this kind of device, and no other. Making content *is* my thing, or a big part of my thing, and I agree that devices like the iPad are going to change the way writers communicate with readers. I need an iPad so that I can imagine the possibilities for those new forms of storytelling — and so I can help invent them.

I need an iPad so I can use more of my skills in more places.
One of the things I do is visual facilitation (drawing on giant wall charts with big markers while a group discusses something). There are varying levels of portability: Sometimes I can just bring paper, tape, and pens, and tape the charts right to the walls or whiteboards. NMC has a nice set of portable walls for rooms where I can’t do that. But some rooms are just too small for the portable walls and also don’t have a place to tape the paper. I’ve also been in situations where the event was at a restaurant or other odd venue, where it’s just not appropriate or possible to set up the charts. And I’ve been in situations where the need for visual facilitation arises spontaneously, and I don’t have markers or paper or tape.

The iPad, and devices like it, may make it possible to do impromptu visual facilitation on the go. As Fred Lakin* points out in this post on graphic recording, it will depend on the resolution of the software, but if it does turn out to be possible, I could have an always-available set of “markers” and “paper” that I could use anywhere. It could be projected on a screen if one is handy, and the visual record would already be digital when I was done (I always spend time digitizing and cleaning up chart photos after meetings). I need an iPad so I can experiment with digital visual recording and, hopefully, help influence the state of the art.

I want an iPad so I can play games with it.
Okay, this may not be a need — although that could be arguable too, play being as important to learning as it is — but I really want to find out what kind of games we develop for devices like the iPad. Tim Bajarin says in a post on PCMag.com:

“There is some real innovation happening in the games space, as well. I downloaded the iPad version of Scrabble and found that it could be played with iPhones and iPod touches through the Bluetooth feature. You place the iPad down on the table between yourself and a group of friends. The iPad serves as the board, and everyone around the table uses their iPhones and iPod touches to create words, which magically show up on the iPad in the center.”

Okay, that rocks. What else can we do with this device? It reminds me of the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer from Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age (warning: link contains spoilers). This is a device — in Diamond Age, it looked and functioned like a book — that “contains” nearly all the information you could need to know, and lets you access it when you need it — the ultimate just-in-time learning device. I want an iPad so I can play games, watch movies, learn things, and be curious, in addition to reading and working, whenever and wherever I want.

But none of those is the main reason I need an iPad.
The main reason is the same reason I needed to build a web page in 1994 when a friend told me to. (I thought he was nuts, but I did it anyway. It changed my life.) It’s the same reason I needed a Second Life avatar in 2006 and a Twitter account in 2007. I had no idea what they might be good for, but there was a sense that they would turn into something.

The main reason I needed all of those, and the main reason that I need an iPad, is because I don’t know what the best reason is. No one does. But with some things, you can sense that there is a “there” there. You can sense that this train is going places, and that those are places you want to be.

The main reason I need an iPad is simply to discover why people need iPads. Or, if I’m really, really lucky, to help invent why people need iPads.

*Small update: The blog author formerly known as [the author who, despite my best efforts, I can only identify as Visual Raccoon] has been identified. Sorry, Fred!

Urgent EVOKE: A Crash Course in Saving the World opened on March 3, 2010. It’s a game, a learning experience, a training simulation, and a journey all in one. It was designed and is directed by Jane McGonigal for the World Bank Institute. For more on the game’s background, see this WIRED article or watch the video interview with Jane McGonigal below:

The Hook
EVOKE has been open two days and already has more than 7,500 members. The game will last 10 weeks, concluding on May 12, 2010, with a new quest unlocked each week. The hook or premise for the game is that players are members of the EVOKE network and have been called to respond — or will be called, in 10 years; the game moves back and forth through time fluidly — to an urgent food crisis in Tokyo. The story is presented in graphic novel form on the main page of site and also plays out in a 90-second trailer:

EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.

The Game
Each week, players get a new mission and a new quest, with three objectives (learn, act, and imagine). This week’s quest was very personal. On the surface, the first mission was to answer the standard “introduce yourself” question that many social networks include. But the format and the questions made me want to really think about what to say, and more crucially, made me want to see what other people wrote about themselves. The quest objectives are categorized as learn, act, and imagine; the “learn” one was to read an outside blog post (the hits for that page must be off the charts) that collected insights about social change, pick one of the insights, and respond to it. The “act” objective was to pick a hero to shadow, write about who they are and why you chose them, and then either follow their blog or Twitter stream, read their research or writings, and/or reach out and tell them you chose them as your hero. The “imagine” one was to write about where you would be in 10 years when the call came from EVOKE.

Players can either remain within the scenario — that is, choose heroes and actions that are consistent with the Tokyo food shortage theme — or make their own path, which is what I did. I’m interested in changing the world through gaming and play, especially in education. So I picked Jane McGonigal as my hero, and imagined myself volunteering in schools to help the kids construct and play games, and help the teachers work them into the curriculum. The important thing is that the quest made me think about the kinds of change I really can effect.

my EVOKE profile

Game Design
The game is essentially a challenge-based learning project, deployed on an enormous scale, where participants can pick their own problems. The game provides a framework, but it’s up to us as players to figure out what we want to learn, how to go about it, where to do research, and so on. The only incentives, unless you are going for one of the World Bank Institute grants, are your own motivation to learn and the comments and points awarded by other players or by the game shepherds.

The first quest was designed to push players past their comfort zones, but only a tiny bit. The questions about who we are were personal, but it was up to us how much to say. The suggestion to reach out to a hero of our choosing was brilliant — for some, that requires a great deal of courage. (My hero hasn’t answered yet, but I can only imagine how busy she is, with upwards of 7,500 people suddenly playing her game!)

Technical Aspects
The game platform is essentially a Ning network with some additions. I could even use my existing Ning ID to log on — yay! no new passwords! — and it had my photo in place already. Players can add blog posts, images, videos, and links very easily. It’s easy to find other players and easy to interact with them.

Community
Participating in the game gets you points in different powers (collaboration, creativity, local insight, knowledge share, and so on). You can award power points to others when you look at their posts (“evidence” in the game). There are also game shepherds; originally, they were supposed to review every piece of evidence and approve each one if it satisfied the quest, but they have recently announced that we’ll be able to do that for ourselves beginning next week. The Leaderboard shows the top point earners and is sortable by power, so you can see who has the most collaboration chops, for instance.

There are active discussions and I’ve found that lots of people are willing to comment on others’ posts. The game also has a Twitter stream and makes it very easy to tweet your progress, which I don’t because I’m sure all my followers could care less.

I’m very interested to see what happens as time goes on. I imagine that some participation will fall off after a while, and I’m curious to see who sticks it out to the end.

I used Illustrator to not suck when I drew this

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at Adobe with NMC CEO Larry Johnson. We talked with folks from Adobe’s higher education division, and we saw some really, really cool stuff. One thing that I loved is Adobe Rome (see the video demo of Rome from MAX 2009 last October). Rome is going to be a fantastic tool for K12 mediamaking and collaboration, I think. It makes it easy to pull together different kinds of media along with text and drawings, and then to output the project in different ways. I really want my son to play with it, because I’m curious about how the tool will feel to a young person. It looked very intuitive to me, but then I’ve been using Photoshop and Illustrator longer than my son’s been alive, so it’s hard to say how a new, inexperienced user would see it. The demo just blew me away because of what could be done with it in schools, if the Big 3 Issues are properly addressed (what does it cost? can I make the kids’ work private? do I need to install and maintain it?). I have high hopes.

We also saw some of the new features coming up in CS5, but I’m not sure which ones have already been revealed so I’ll just say this: Wow. I am so excited about what I saw. Photoshop in particular has some new powerful features that I look forward to playing with, and there are some other treats coming out as well. Keep an eye out for CS5 and Rome!

I’ve spent a lot of time now with the six topics in the report, but I haven’t forgotten that those six came from a list of twelve, and those twelve, from a list of (this year) 111 different possible topics. One of the topics that made the short list (the list of 12) but not the final cut is location-based services:

Location-based services provide content that is dynamically customized according to the user’s location. These services are commonly delivered to mobile devices, but can also be accessed from other portable computers, handhelds, or any Internet-capable device. Current common applications for location-based services include advertising, news, social networking, and similar services. (2010 Horizon Report: Short List)

My iPhone is loaded with location-based services. I have one whole screen devoted to apps I use when I travel, to give me local information about whatever city I happen to be in. Admittedly, I can’t use most of them at home, since I don’t live near a major urban center, but they’re extremely helpful when I travel.

A sampling of some of my favorites, in no particular order:

• Where – Indicates where to find cheap gas, Starbucks coffee, or the thing I use it for the most: drugstores that carry Nyquil and saline solution, two things I seem to run out of while in strange cities.


• WikiMe – Shows wikipedia articles related to wherever you happen to be. Useful for those spare moments when you want to know something, anything, about wherever you find yourself.


• Come Here – Send your coordinates and a map to another mobile user so they can find you. Very helpful when most of your group has already walked to the bar down the street and the last few folks text you from the hotel asking where you went. (Look this one up in the App Store; the website is not really functional.)


• Layar – Launch the app and pick from a list of layers, such as World Peaks (mountains near you), H1N1 flu shot locations, In & Out Burger locations, and so on. Layar overlays the information on the image from your camera’s screen, showing the name of and distance to nearby features. One tap gets you a Google map from here to there.


• Foursquare – Foursquare’s fun, though maybe not as fun as it could be; I have to agree with some of the criticisms that have been voiced about its bizarre reward system and limited applicability outside of large urban areas. I mostly check in from airports. The idea has potential, though. Essentially, you and your network of friends “check in” from different locations, earning points for doing so. Some merchants offer incentives for people who check in repeatedly from their location, which is an interesting idea because it combines the game with real-life things that people do anyway, like going to bookstores or coffee shops (or airports, I suppose).

Personally, I love the kinds of services and games that are possible with location-awareness on my phone. It’s very empowering to have a BART map that knows not only where all the stations and lines are, but where I am in relation to them: I suffer from public transit anxiety and am always certain I will miss my stop and wind up lost. iBART goes a long way toward reassuring me that I’m on the right track, so to speak. I don’t have a lot of occasion to use BART, since I don’t actually live in San Francisco, but it has come in handy once or twice.

Although it didn’t make the cut for the 2010 report, location-based services *did* make it into two editions in 2009 — the Australia-New Zealand Edition (as Location-Based Learning) and the Economic Development Edition. Interestingly, it appeared on a nearer horizon in the Economic Development edition (mid-term; it’s on the far-term horizon for Australia-New Zealand). It’s much easier to find commercial applications than educational ones at this stage. There are several schools that are experimenting with ways to use location-based services for fieldwork and campus information, and a few that are developing augmented-reality games that have location-based aspects to them.

Based on the amount of development that’s going into apps like these, location-based services are going to be big in the coming year. TechCrunch’s Ten Technologies That Will Rock 2010 lists geo as an essential ingredient for killer apps, and I think they’re right. I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

Except for the Sleep Plan. I’m going to sleep, and oh, it’s going to be nice. I have even prepared a handy chart to hang on my door in case there is any confusion in the house about whether I want to be up for breakfast or anything. I playtested it with my nine-year-old, and he agrees that it’s pretty airtight:

handy chart for deciding whether to wake me or not

Any questions? See you in January — I’m hibernating!

iPhone in the TuneBand

I’m really glad I did. The company really took care of me — they emailed to acknowledge that I had placed the order, and to confirm my order and shipping address, and they emailed when the order was shipped. It arrived quickly and worked perfectly. The iPhone was a little floppy in the case, but it’s a pretty big phone to wear on a smallish arm like mine, and it wasn’t *that* floppy. Overall I was very pleased with it. So when I got the little reminder from Amazon about leaving seller feedback, I felt that a company that cared enough to double-check my order and address deserved a little love, and I left them a good review.

I was surprised a few days later to get an email note from one of the owners thanking me for my feedback. Not only that, but he mentioned that Grantwood has developed a newer version of the TuneBand for iPhone, especially for the 3G and 3GS (I have the 3GS). And he offered to send me one to try out, in exchange for a little feedback. I was so tickled! How cool is that? So, by way of holding up my end of the bargain, here’s what I think of the new TuneBand for iPhone 3G and 3GS.

old TuneBand on the left, new on the right

The case. The case is not very different. It’s made of the same material as the other one, a soft silicone that cushions the phone and keeps it dry even when I’m sweaty. The opening at the top of the phone is a little different in the new one and it’s easier to get the phone in and out of the case, which works for me since I have a different case that I use when I’m not exercising.

The fastener. The velcro fastener at the end of the strap is very strong and secure. It doesn’t loosen as I run, so once I have it in place it stays put. The only issue I have with the new case is that the corners of the end of the strap are a little rougher than the older strap and they dig into my arm when my arm brushes against my side as it swings. I have a theory that tapering the end of the strap would solve this problem. It’s also possible that using a shorter strap would solve it, since then the end of the strap would fall to the outside of my arm rather than right on the underside as it does now. Oh, and when I mentioned that in my feedback to Grantwood today, they put a shorter strap in the mail for me to try. Holy cow, I love these people.

The conclusion. I’ve tried a couple other armbands that people have loaned me, and I really prefer the TuneBand. It’s light and soft and doesn’t get in my way when I’m running. The price is incredibly reasonable and Grantwood’s customer service is out of this world. If you’re in the market, I recommend trying the TuneBand — there’s a version for whatever device you carry when you run. Go get one. Oh, and they also make those really cool envelopes for the MacBook Air, which I would totally get if I had an Air.

While writing this post, by the way, I came upon the product page for Grantwood’s RunWallet. Hmm. Fits on the same band as my iPhone holder, you say? Holds keys and ID… hotel key cards… hmm… I think I just might have to get one of those.

these shoes are made for running

At least, the little sensor hidden in the left one does. As I run (or walk, since I’m still building back up to running after a six- or seven-year hiatus), the sensor keeps track of how far and how fast I’m going. The phone knows how long I’ve been going, where I’m going, and how many calories I’m burning. After the workout, I dock the phone and it uploads all this info to my profile on Nike’s site, where YOU can see some of it too. Just what you needed, I know.

For me, running is great — once I’m out there doing it. Getting myself out of the house, into the world, and moving is the tough part. I have to trick myself into it. One trick is new shoes; I put them on and I can’t wait to get started. Another trick is a great workout playlist. But the best trick of all is knowing that I can come back afterward and see a graph of my workout, look at my path on a map, and track my progress over time. I am so hooked. I feel like a poster child for Nike (or at least Nike+, which is the bit with the sensor). I discovered a little too late that I could have personalized my shoes — picked my own color combination, and even gotten “NINMAH” printed on one tongue and “ROCKS” on the other — for an additional $20, but now I have an incentive to wear this pair out ;-)

The kit’s pretty flexible, so if you don’t need new shoes or you have an iPod and not an iPhone, you can still geek out. You can get the sensor with an attachment for the iPod (whatever style you have), and you can get a little pouch that slips onto your shoelaces to hold the sensor. The sensor is $20 ($30 with the iPod attachment) and the shoe pouch goes for about $5. If you have a Nike+ profile, friend me! I’m Ninmah there too.