My Word with Douglas E. Welch

High-Tech Fitness Monitors

After some recent surgery my doctor gave me an ultimatum. “Get the weight off NOW!”. I was/am having some health complications due to my weight and while I have known I needed to lose the extra weight for years, his order finally got my off my butt and back out walking and working out.

Once I started working out, and monitoring my calorie intake, I wanted to apply some high-tech to the process. It is great to be able to track your actual activity level and calories burned on a regular basis so you can use it in calculations about what to eat, when to work out and how to work out. All three of these devices fit the bill by providing not only a large amount of data and stats, but they also provide social media linkage to share your results, and compete with, your friends and family. In some cases, these devices can also track your sleeping habits and provide some help if you are having issues in that regard.

As is always the case, the easier it is to grab data, the more likely we are to do it. All these devices connect to your computer and the Internet automatically to download and process the data created.

I haven’t made my decision about which device to get just yet, although the BodyMedia FIT LINK Armband comes with a high recommendation from a good friend who is using it. Check out the options available and find the one that works best for you. More importantly, of course, get out there and DO something — TODAY!

More 2012 Gift Guide Items:

1. Do the Work by Steven Pressfield
2. Bulb Planting Tools
3. Blue Snowball Microphone
4. Seagate Backup Plus 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive
5. Logitech C920 HD Web Cam
6. We Are All Weird by Seth Godin
7. Sunset Western Garden Book – New Edition for 2012
8. The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings
9. Garden Mysteries by Anthony Eglin
10. The Creative Habit/The Collaborative Habit by Twyla Tharp
11. Moleskeine Journals
12. Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening (3rd Edition): Month by Month
13. Podcasting for Dummies/Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies
14. Wacom Bamboo Splash Pen Tablet
15. Radical Careering by Sally Hogshead
16. The $64 Tomato
17. Blue Yeti Microphone
18. BioLite CampStove/HomeStove
19. Getting Things Done by David Allen
20. The Curious Gardener
21. Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
22. GoPro HD HERO 3
23. Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart
24. The Starfish and the Spider by Orj Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom
25. Microphone Boom Arms
26. The Information by James Gleick
27. Handy Farm Devices And How To Make Them (1909)
28. Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas
29. Apple iPhone 5
30. Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod
31. Killer Ratings by Lisa Seidman
32. Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It by Karen Solomon
33. Zoom Portable Recorders (H1, H2, H2n, H4n)
34. Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
35. My Teenager’s Favorite Games
36. The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness
37. In a Mexican Garden: courtyards, pools and open-air living rooms
38. Fields of Plenty: A farmer’s journey in search of real food and the people who grow it
39. Apple iPad/iPad Mini
40. The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam
41. Cucina Rustica
42. The Great Potato Book
43. Rode Podcaster Microphone

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From my technology blog, TechnologyIQ…

Make yourself a note to remind you about the batteries in your wireless keyboard and mouse. I regularly get calls from my clients that their keyboard or mouse is dead…or their computer has crashed when it is simply the batteries that have died.

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Douglas presents what he has learned about troubleshooting over nearly 25 years of computer consulting and how it can be applied to many life situations outside of technology.

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Every quarter I make a point of closely reading each regular bill I receive. I should probably check my bills closely each and every month, but quarterly is a more realistic goal. If I noticed a bill has changed dramatically, I will deeply inspect it to find out why no matter when it occurs though.

Over time these regular bills can slowly creep up (and sometimes jump up) due to increased fees as well as unneeded or unwanted additions to the bill. Cramming — the unwanted addition of services to telephone bills — is especially common.

In some cases you will find that the bill has simply increased dramatically over the previous month. This recently happened with my Time Warner Cable bill and it was a significant factor in my decision to turn off the television portions of my cable and retain only the Internet service. In my case a special offer had expired and my bill jumped from around $86 to over $108 in about 3 months. This was entirely too much to pay for the most basic digital cable and Roadrunner Internet service.

Tracking my expenses in Quicken and Quickbooks allows me to easily see bill averages over time, so it is much more obvious when something changes suddenly. There are lots of free and inexpensive financial management tools you can use to help you track your expenses including Mint.com and GnuCash

If you want to keep your personal finances in check, join me in this quarterly review of all your bills to make sure companies are making off with more of your money than they actually deserve!

Do you have financial hints that can help out your fellow readers? Share them in the comments so that everyone can benefit.