I got my first Fitbit for Christmas 2013 and set it to work on Jan 6 2014.
​That is exactly 4 years ago today. Since then I have amassed a wonderful array of statistics. The Fitbit has been an amazing addition to my quality of life. I retire it with some sense of sadness. It is only fitting that, if only for myself, I record some of my thoughts about 4 years of Fitbit.
I set my initial goal to 10,000 steps per day on Jan 6 2014. Since that day I have managed over 10,000 steps every day except for long haul flights and a month of illness. Otherwise not one single day has been less than 10,000. 

After 12 months I cranked this to 12,500 where it remained for most of the next 3 years.
I toyed with a goal of 16,000 for 3 months in 2017 and managed. But I discovered that walking was all I did for 3 months. I cut back to 12,500 where it has remained ever since.
In 4 years I have walked a long way.

• 5,000,000 steps in 2014
• 4,500,000 in 2015
• 5,500,000 in 2015
• 6,500,000 in 2017.

21 and a half million steps with a Fitbit in 4 years. I am no athlete but I did OK. I reached the distance around the earth in May 2017. Today I am over 15,000 km according to the stats.
My biggest day ever was a day walking around Geneva. I managed 38,000 steps that day. I have topped 30,000 3 times. I have topped 20,000 steps about 150 times. 10,000 is more than 1400 times.
I don’t state this to brag. I want to record the numbers before I move to another tool. I want to put the numbers down for any who have followed my Fitbit regime.
At various times, I have had up to 30 Fitbit users following my statistics as I follow theirs. Today, as I review my stats for the last time, there are only 3 users left. In a week, I will disappear from their listings.
My original Fitbit One died in 2017. Its battery started to hold charge for less than a day. I found a new Fitbit Charge 2 at a special price and jumped right in. I did not miss a day of stats transitioning from the One to the Charge 2.

The Charge 2 offered me sleep tracking. That has been the most wonderful diagnostic tool.
I thought I was having many sleepless nights. I would recall looking at the clock at 2 am and 4 am. My mind leapt to the conclusion that I was awake for 2 or more hours each night. The Fitbit charge 2 taught me that I was in fact awake AT 2am and AT 4 am but only for a moment each time.
​I have a wonderful record of my sleeping. I know I sleep very well for an old retiree.
So, the Fitbit has reached its end of life. I have nothing negative to say about it. I commend it to all. It has changed my life habits for the better. Little things like parking all the way across a carpark before shopping. This is now a normal thing for me. Horrifying every passenger I have of course. It has to be good for my long-term health – and theirs!
The big question.
Why would I give it up? If you know me well you will guess of course. It is being replaced with an Apple Watch. The accessory I chose to add as I upgraded to my iPhone X.
The Apple Watch will track different things.

• I will need to revisit how I do sleep tracking.
• The battery life can’t come close to the 8 or 9 days of the Charge 2.
• Apple watch concentrates more on KJ burnt than steps.
• I have to learn how to close those rings.

I am looking forward to remodelling how I manage my fitness and health with the Apple Watch.

• Aghhh. The Apple Watch tapped my wrist. I have been sitting for too long. I have to get up and move for a minute. That tells you how long I spend writing these things. Boy will that annoy everyone I meet for a long lunch.

​Quick impressions of the Apple Watch? It is very comfortable. I have the Space Grey aluminium 42mm with the dark olive sports loop. It is light and barely noticeable on my wrist.
I had not worn a watch for many years till I got the Fitbit Charge 2. Getting used to the feel of the Fitbit on my wrist was 'interesting.' I was unsure how I would feel with the much larger Apple Watch.
Well, it is much better. I notice it less. I like that.

• Except for when it taps me on the wrist – aghhhhh!

I will miss the people I have followed with Fitbit. I now need to make links with a new community. The community of Apple Watch users. Community sharing of stats has been a key tool in making my fitness goals work.
Onward!
The Fitbit has been a most important part of my life for 4 years.
I do wonder how the Apple Watch will fare.
​Let’s see what I have to say January 6 2019.

I am excited.
I am not a notable tree hugging greenie. I am not the one leading the fight for global correctness. But I do care. When I have a practical opportunity to care, I am gonna jump right in.
In November 2016 I get the opportunity to jump right in.
AGL have a great idea. They may not have the only great idea. They have the idea that captured me.
AGL Virtual Power Plant
My twitter feed runs all day long in a corner of my screen. On August 5 I saw an announcement from AGL about this virtual power plant. This is a link to the press release.
I had recently installed AGL solar panels on my roof and was feeling eco self righteous. I liked what was on offer. AGL offered a well priced battery pack as long as I joined a groundbreaking electrical enterprise.
So… this is not just a battery pack. I do like the idea of moving some sunshine into my evenings. I know I make about 30kWh of power per day. In 20 days of November I have generated over 650kWh of power. And I have used less than 450kWh. But I am still paying for power. I cant get that daytime power into my nighttime living. Batteries will let me drag some of that sunshine into the evening. That is what I get and I will be happy.
But there is more.
AGL have want to lay batteries all across Adelaide. Perhaps as many as 1000 of them.
In summer, we all turn on our Air Con at 5.30 of an evening. Often the grid can't cope. AGL can draw on that stored power to assist the entire city. This sounds like a wonderful plan to me. Kind of crowd sourced energy. I am a fan of crowd sourcing. 
I like the idea of Waze, the community based traffic map. And I am a big fan of Flight Radar 24 where aircraft fans can share what their equipment shows is in the air all across the planet. Now I can share a bit of the sunshine that falls on my roof with the rest of this city. 
We have so much sunshine in Adelaide. It all slips off the end the of the Glenelg jetty and over the horizon to Perth and Mozambique. Such a waste. If we can keep 1000 batteries of sunshine here, I am all in.
I am quite proud to be the first to join this virtual power plant. Twitter has justified its existence for me.
My batteries arrive this week. I wanna share my excitement.
This is an innovative plan and I will continue to write about it over the next little while as I get used to what it offers. 
I am not too worried about AGL using all my stored power but soon we will know.
I hope you find it interesting. Happy to respond to any questions and comments I manage to see.
As John Lennon once said… “Power to the people right on!”​

We should know by now from watching air crash investigations that an airline incident is a product of many failures at once. I am pretty sure that a single breakdown does not cause hundreds of people to fall into the ocean.
I am also pretty sure from my readings of Aviation Herald that dozens of incidents happen every day. Few result in anything beyond a sensationalist headline and a few lines on twitter.
So yesterday September 20 2013 an incident occurred almost directly over my head. About 38,000 feet over my head actually. That is about eleven and a half kilometers - up!
I saw it happen not in the air but on Twitter a short while later. You have probably seen the headlines that 2 Qantas planes almost crashed over Adelaide.
I'd like to tell you how I followed up what had happened and the tools I used to discover the truth.

It has been classed as a serious incident and will be investigated. The results of the investigation will be concluded in September - 2014. Yes it will take 12 months to investigate an event where everything worked out fine, no one was hurt, no one even knew. That is as it ought to be. The reason flying is so safe today is that we do investigate such - dare I say - non events in such detail.
Flying is safe. Odds of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 11,000,000 compared to 1 in 5,000 in a car. If you are that unlucky also remember that 95.7% of people who are in a plane crash, survive. Much of this is because of the work done to investigate every single incident.
OK this was not a non event but nobody even spilt their coffee. Perhaps a couple of pilots were a little bothered but they did their job perfectly and all worked out well. The flight warning systems TCAS worked perfectly and warned all concerned of the potential for a problem. The ATC, air traffic controller may want a day or two off work, but even the ATC did what needed to be done after what may have been a mistake. Seems the ATC is now on leave as it is investigated.
The story as best I can gather it looks like this. 

• QF581 SYD - PER is close to Adelaide at FL380. That is Flight Level 380 or 38,000 feet. 
  
• QF576 is PER - SYD at FL390. 
  
• They are 1000 feet apart vertically which I believe to be the regulation separation. 
  
• Pilots like to change altitude to give the meat in the back a smoother ride whenever possible. 
  
• QF581 wants to go to FL400 and the ATC clears the climb. 
  
• They get close. 
  
• 581 gets to FL383 when the warnings go off and drops back to FL380 
  
• 576 lifts to FL392 now 900 feet apart.

At 02:13:55z that is 2:13 and 55 seconds UTC or about quarter to 12 in Adelaide the planes passed each other. They were 900 feet apart vertically and a bit more than 10 kilometers apart horizontally. They saw each other and they were too close for comfort. But nobody was in danger at any time.
This is a great story but now let me tell you the best bit.
I know all this because of the tools under my fingers all the time.
I saw the twitter notice

Near miss is a big call and Great Australian Bight is just wrong but I did not know that yet.
I checked the news services and discovered that the plane was soon to land in Perth and all were well so I began to investigate.
What plane from Sydney, a Qantas A330 was soon to land in Perth?
I used an iPad app called Flight Boards to check arrivals in PER and discovered the flight number - QF 581. Then I began my investigation. I launched FlightRadar 24 in a web browser.
I used its time shift feature to look back through traffic over Adelaide that day. I did not know the time the incident happened so it was playing detective. I knew the arrival time in Perth so I tracked back a few hours and began the time shift play back at 2.00 UTC. I ran the play back at 60 times normal so I could get a quick overview of the situation and I zoomed out to see from Ceduna to Mildura to begin my discovery.
I soon saw QF581, then noticed the opposite flight was QF576. I watched them approach and saw the whole incident.
Somewhere over Richmond, Adelaide QF581 turns south a little from its course and the planes pass over the gulf.
I launched QuickTime and created a new screen capture. I selected the area I wanted to record then ran the Flight Radar playback. I trimmed the movie and made it into a 40 second piece to show how air traffic actually does work.
So why write this. 

• I was excited with the investigation. 
  
• I knew the whole story long before the sensationalist press got their teeth into it. 
  
• I am a keen follower of the aviation industry. 
  
• I actually like a big Qantas and hate to see them canned. 
  
• I support the amazing work of the ATC and want to do my little bit from my little perspective. 
  
• The world is not ending because an incident occurred.
• And... it is fun.

Fun to investigate, to see what we can do in this technological world. We never need to sit and wonder what happened. We have all the tools to find out and share what we discover. No longer do the press get to drive the agenda. Sadly I feel they have so badly abused that right. I want to take a bit of perspective back whenever it is something I know a little about.
Hope you enjoy my perspective and the little video.

The story suggests that there are a number of ways in which IT has failed us and goes on to give appropriate examples. Let me deal with them one by one. Oh and BTW, there are a number of comments from others who have found the story to be pretty lame. The author does get some support. At the moment 1 in 18 comments support the journalistic suggestions.

1. Technology does not save us time - like it ought to.

We are so tied to our devices that we can't be bothered to relate to the people who matter. I actually find the reverse, I am more in touch with the people who matter to me anywhere in the world. If I meet with them once a year I still know where they have been and they know enough about me to continue a conversation. If your personal technology takes more time then not having it then perhaps it needs some controls, but you get to choose. Once upon a time it was not a choice. You can now be as in touch and connected as you choose.

2. Record our lives not live them.

hmmm. I actually like recording my life. I have chatted before about new photography and how it has become an instant form of communication. 

I see posts of people's meals and I post a few myself. 

It seems so trite when you say it in words - posting a photo of your tea, but that is not the point. It is a light touch with your friends. It takes no time to post and no time to consume. But, for the one or two of your contacts, yeh I called them contacts and not friends, for whom it was relevant, it was a worthwhile touch. If I don't like the post, I don't need to spend any time consuming it. But if I love the "death by chocolate" you are having for desert, it may just touch me and add to some future conversation. I like it. I get to choose.

3. A password for the thing to store your password. 

Such an easy joke. 

That is actually my point. It is so easy to build a funny one liner on these issues and never dig deeper. I do have one password - the app. It is a password keeper for all my passwords. One password to rule them all. 

Then there is another quick and easy joke: 

"Count the number of apps you have then how many you actually need… I rest my case… "

Such an easy line. 

It is not about what apps you need. It is about the apps you choose. I do not need to have an app for the flight boards at Heathrow airport. I don't know many people traversing that gateway. But I love having it. I love to be able to fire it up and see in real time what is happening on the other side of the world. I get to choose. When there is an almighty plane crash like this weekend in San Francisco I can choose to look at the flight board for SFO and see how it has effected the traffic there. It is part of my hobby. I love it. It has not destroyed my life. I always bought flight magazines and read all that detail - 8 weeks after the event. Today I do it all in real time, if I choose to.

4. Ungrateful and competitive.

I do almost daily pick up my device of choice and say out loud, "this thing is amazing." I hear people about me say similar all the time. 

I know there are lots of people who are cross about their device because it is not delivering what they believe it ought to instantly. I hear stories from my local Apple Store of the people who believe in magic only to find that the magic in an iPad is still ruled by the laws of physics - and they don't like that.

I do hear people saying Siri is crap. They just do not get that Siri is a learning machine and needs to learn stuff to become perfect. Siri is not perfect yet, but she is much better than anything we had 5 years ago. And in 5 years time she will be a whole bunch more fantastic. And yes to me Siri is a she...

Every evening my family settles down to the TV, with iPads and iPhones about us for when we don't know enough about the story on the screen. We love the great ecosystem that feeds our craving for knowledge about everything. 

Example: We were enjoying the TV show The Newsroom. There was a sequence about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The story unfolded a little differently from how we recalled it. We wanted to know more. Three of us in the lounge, TV show on pause, deep in our device of choice to discover just how the gulf oil crisis played out. Oh and BTW, the TV show was totally accurate.

5. End of General Knowledge. 

It is just not possible to know it all. We see it published often that a student beginning a science degree this year will find much of it irrelevant and or wrong by the time they finish. Knowledge grows so quickly we cannot keep up. 

It is sad that pub trivia nights don't work any more. Serious first world problem folks! 

We are not going to know it all… but we can have access to it all. Isn't it wonderful? You have, at the end of your fingers, the sum of everything everyone has ever known. You only need to choose to unlock all the information. 

Your challenge is to consume what knowledge you want to access and convert it to wisdom. Not a bad challenge really! 

Yes the internet, technology can be a huge time waster, just like Radio was in the 30s and TV was in the 50s; and movies; and Videos; and DVDs; and records; and CDs; and; and; and... 

There has always been the potential to fritter away the hours whether it was whittling or chasing the latest celebrity gossip. Whether it is a waste of time can only be determined by the consumer. The point is the consumer gets to choose. 

In 2013 we have more choices than ever before. And the only thing I can promise is that there will be even more choices in 2014 - 

pending the zombie apocalypse. 

TalkTechnology held its first seminar early this month. I was pleased to have been invited to host the evening and introduce the guests. It was a great night. There were teething difficulties mostly around staging and microphones. The projector had certainly seen better days. All of those things are easily remedied. The core stuff, the speakers, the content, the concept… all good.


TalkTechnology has a strong philosophical basis as outlined by Tania.

• It is important that we know who is behind Talk Technology so we are transparent about where the funds go and to be sure there is no conflict of interest between the organisation and the presentations.
• TalkTechnology has a social conscience and donates profits to an organisation that strives to make the world a better place and uses technology to deliver that message.
• A team made up of Education, Business and Industry representatives builds the program and ensures that the needs of all sectors are covered in a fun learning environment to ensure the best possible outcomes.
• Education delegates all receive a certificate for their continuing professional development.

It seemed to work. About 80 people filled the cabaret style layout of the Promethean as the musical intro, The Gunda Guys, began a little ahead of 5.00pm

15 minutes later Tania took the stage to welcome the crowd. She explained the theory behind TalkTechnology and introduced me as the host for the evening. 

We were away.

I explained the format behind TalkTechnology: a major topic, in June we focussed on Mobility; addressed in 3 strand: personal, professional and industry.

I introduced our twitter hash tag - #TTJune and invited all our guests to take notes and to post the key points to twitter using this #. After the event we can relive the event through the hash tag.

Our first speaker was Gawain Duncan. You can see his CV at about.me/gawain_duncan.

He told wonderful stories about mobility impacting the learning across the state. He had great video to share with us. I noted many big points from Gawain including:

• The success of the programs require three things - The Cloud, A Mobile Device and Willingness. Never forget willingness.
• Gawain works for the Department of Education and Child Development - these projects surely show the commitment to child development.

Gawain’s bio concludes with “What a great time to be in education” His presentation shows why it is a great time.

Tristan Haines was the next speaker: about.me/tristan.haines. Tristan is a fringe technology specialist. He speaks from the industry point of view and introduced us to why the cloud is so important. He showed a wonderful analogy of cloud services being like electricity distribution during the industrial revolution. 

It makes sense. Back then every factory needed its own power source. Today power is centralised. Now we all want our own storage. Cloud means we can move to centralised storage. We enjoyed Tristan’s view of the fringe, as the fringe encroaches on us day by day.

We had a special guest to this meeting. Alister Cameron works with World Vision and came to tell us how World Vision is meeting its goals in developing countries using mobile technology. Our Twitter feed showed delegates recognising what World Vision is doing towards a better world exactly like Tania wanted as she designed Talk Technology.

Our Final speaker for the evening was Viano Jaksa, about.me/viano_jaksa who addressed mobility from a personal perspective. Viano’s trip back in time entertained us all. His perspective on mobility for us in our work life as well as our personal life was a delight as shown through the twitter comments.

It was a good evening. I closed with words about the future of TalkTechnology. I mentioned that the certificates would be emailed to all teachers in the audience with reference to the Teacher Professional Standards. 

Tania finished the evening with a few thank yous and an invitation to look out for the next Talk Technology later in the year.

Talk Technology number 1 was a big success. All involved enjoyed drawing it together. We look forward to the next topic for discussion in September.

I love his drive and his genuine excitement about learning. I love the idea of bringing the outside world into classes. This is serious higher order use of technology in learning. He is doing things of real educational benefit that are just not possible without technology.

He posed the question, 

“how would a major studio react to a proposal for a movie called What about Dick?” 

Beyond that, he stated how sick he was of trying to get paid by the studios, 

“how do you get the money out of them?” 

So for this project, created his own download and purchase model. He talked openly, on ABC radio about distribution via Amazon and iTunes saying that he will probably go there eventually but for now he is just selling from a web site - whataboutdick.com.

His marketing plan was equally amazing. No advertising at all. He just asked the cast to use their twitter feeds to tell fans about the show and managed to fill the theatre purely from Twitter. Then he began sales of the movie of the show on line, purely from twitter, and eventually via radio interviews.

Now I was very interested. 

All I knew was that Eric Idle had a new show. I had missed most of the interview so I was not even sure of the show’s name yet. I needed a little sleuthing. This is why God invented the internet. Moments only and I found reference to the show and then the show’s web site.

Go take a look. It is lovely to see this simple website with its vintage look and feel, telling you all about the show. Eventually I clicked buy. I am fascinated by the process of on line sales so I was keen to see how it all worked.

Well - it just worked. It was about the simplest buying experience on line I could imagine. It was friendly and helpful. They made it clear that the file I would receive was friendly for all platforms, Mac, PC and iPads. They made it easy to pay with Amazon or PayPal. They allowed me to stream it on line up to 3 times or download a standard def version or a high def version. It was all so easy and for $6 how could I refuse. I am sure I could have hunted a torrent of it but I was not even interested. The download was too easy.

I carry around a grab bag of axioms for life. They are little word games I enjoy that dictate how I think life ought to be led. One of my big axioms is 

“Make it easy for me to … insert whatever here…”

Make it easy for me to give you money. Make it easy for me to get it right. Make it easy for me to make you happy. Whatever - Just Make it easy. Make it clear what I need to do, and I will do it.

So make it easy for me to give you money is vital in this day of electronic payments. 

Aside:
I just had to buy a license of Adobe products and Adobe just do not get making it easy. Was a nasty process where another axiom almost kicked in. The axiom of “Don’t encourage bad practice.” Adobe sales is bad practice and I do not want to encourage that. 

Eric Idle has it all good and all right. It is too easy to buy it so why steal it.

I have no idea what the show will be like, well I am expecting it to be good entertainment, but I certainly expect $6 worth of fun from it.

I also really like the openness of the website. They encourage you to buy a copy for you and your friends to watch. No big deal about single use and don’t share and this is for personal use. Just please buy it, enjoy it, and tell your friends. Via twitter and facebook.

So, I am impressed. Local radio brought it to my notice. I now follow Eric Idle on Twitter. And I have his latest show sitting on my hard drive to watch tonight. And it was a buying experience I loved. I have had a good morning - and it is not even 10.00am.

Go Eric!