Since I am using a set of custom tools to track my diet, I thought others might benefit from using them. I present to you my CalorieKing.com Weight Watchers POINTS calculator that generates Weight Watchers POINTS values for all the food in the CalorieKing.com database.

This script will show you the points value directly under the portion widget on the CalorieKing food details page. I have it showing the calories, fat and fiber in a table so I can copy it to my diet tracking spreadsheet pre-formatted. You will need to install Greasemonkey and of course have the Firefox web browser to get this script working. Let me know if you have any feedback. Enjoy!

technorati: Weight Watchers, points, gGreasemonkey, user script, diet, tool

Created 57 weeks, 6 days ago

I have shed about 6 pounds this week. Mostly, I think it is from starvation as my calories were seldom above 1400 per day. I know from experience once you shed the first easy pounds you need to work the rest off with exercise and a more protein rich diet. At seven days I will post my dietary chart showing exactly what I ate to get here.

Get your own graph at skinnyr

technorati: diet, weight, loss

Created 58 weeks, 2 hours ago

I started dieting, which means that the rest of my life has taken a back seat to hunger pains and sleeping until I get over the hump. I again apologize if I owed you something or you were waiting for me to deliver some kind of thing, or a fancy item or a delicate lady finger sandwich cookie, or maybe a juicy Barney's Burger with fries with a frosty-glass-mug root beer float and a little slice of orange and a lettuce leaf constituting the "salad".

Where was I going with this... oh and I am using Google spreadsheets to track my diet based somewhat on the Weight Watchers point program that Ash introduced me to. I am at 208 pounds on Monday. Ill check in with an update to show where I am in 1 week.

technorati: weight, loss, diet

Created 58 weeks, 2 days ago

Back to San Francisco we are. Everything about the trip home was smooth. Mercury was well taken care of by Peter with Fetch! Pet Care and we pick up Winston tomorrow from boarding. I know I have a huge pile of work waiting for me when I get into the office, but I take heart in the fact that we launch a great project I have been working on this coming week, so stay tuned.


technorati: San Francisco, travel, vacation

Created 59 weeks, 4 days ago

After a great trip to SXSWi and four days visiting with friends and family down in San Antonio, Ash and I head back to San Francisco tomorrow.

We all managed to get at least a few hours to play some DnD together at Brad's parents house on Saturday night. Sadly our backup electronic campaign file was corrupted with some HTML notes from the last time we played and we weren't able to import the file when we tried to play. We managed to extract all the important info from the XML within the campaign file, get it into some character sheets and play with paper, dice and d20SRD.org.



We fly out early tomorrow. See you in San Francisco.

technorati: dnd, gaming, travel

Created 59 weeks, 5 days ago

I am down in San Antonio for a few days to see family for detox, now that SXSWi 2007 is all wrapped up. It was a great experience, as always.

Some panels were better than most, and I particularly enjoyed:

The Influence of Art in Design

Keynote: Will Wright Keynote Speech

The Growth and Evolution of Microformats

See you back in San Francisco on Sunday.


technorati: sxsw, interactive, 2007, panels

Created 60 weeks, 1 day ago

I setup a Google group to share notes on the panels. Since there is no way to attend the events that happen at the same time, I want everyone to post notes on it so when I can decide on what podcasts to get post SXSW.

SXSWi 2007 Panel Notes and Feedback from Attendees Visit this group->

technorati: sxsw, sxswi, interactive, austin

Created 60 weeks, 5 days ago

Well, I have a flight to catch in an hour. My big project at McAfee wrapped at (literally) the last minute. I thought I was going to be bringing work with me, but thankfully all seems to be well in change-control land. Once the project launches either the week or SXSWi or just after I will be able to discuss it.

If anyone wants to talk about widgets, XSLT, l10n, javascript and overriding w3c xhtml dtds or other interesting web stuff, drop a line and we can meet up in Austin.

Also, I think Ash and I will be having a small party in the hotel one of the nights. You need to bring booze. Ill have the tunes and drunk laugh.


technorati: SXSW, SXSWi, interactive, austin

Created 61 weeks, 4 hours ago

Ashley and some of her Google coworkers created a SXSWi 07 schedule for Google Calendar. It is far easier to manage than the SXSW version.

technorati: SXSW, SXSWi, interactive, calendar, panels

Created 61 weeks, 1 day ago

The week before SXSW and I have already put in 40 hours at work. All through my career, I constantly have project launch dates intercede vacations and conferences. Argh I am tired.

Created 61 weeks, 2 days ago

Today, I updated the RSS Preview script that powers the RSS Preview FireFox add-on and RSS Preview bookmarklet.

Two fixes that several folks had been wanting:

1. Fixed the font to something easier to read.
   
   
2. Updated the logic to parse the RSS path better. Now relative paths should be converted to absolute paths in all cases [example: Woot!]. The only reason this shouldn't work is if the endpoint RSS is 404 or 500.
   

The fix is already in place for anyone who is already using the script. If you want to install the script, take a look at my introduction post for the RSS Preview FireFox Add-on.

technorati: FireFox, rss, add-on, greasemonkey, userscript


Created 61 weeks, 5 days ago

Lunch was dim sum chicken feet; Lots of bones. Blech! That is all.

Created 61 weeks, 6 days ago

Chinese Simplified example:

http://www.dotssier.com/demo/dossier_cn/



This is an update on my new script in development:  Dotssier.




Created 62 weeks, 1 hour ago

I added support for localization and made a few bug fixes to the Dotssier portfolio script. There are only a few more little tweaks I want to make before I release it.

If you want to see it in action visit the English Version or German Version.
The passkey is the same on both sites: abba2000


The translations are rough, it was the best Babelfish could do Feedback is welcome.

technorati: portfolio, software, asp.net, 2.0

Created 62 weeks, 15 hours ago

We started listening to some Audible books while on the trip; currently we are on The Cell by Stephen King. Since I have an additional 10 minute commute after I drop off Ash at Google I love that I can threaten to listen to more of the book than her. Don't think I won't.

Created 62 weeks, 1 day ago