Kibbles & Bytes Blog

While my favorite website always has been, and always will be, “*Warner Brother’s promotional site for the hard-hitting documentary Space Jam*”:http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm there have been many changes to the features and design of websites since 1996. The underlying programming language is still basically the same though: HTML.

“*HyperText Markup Language*”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML is a programming language that tells your web browser, such as Safari, how to render the text and images that you see. This very newsletter uses HTML (unless you are one of our plain text readers, who are of course the very best readers!) that is generated via Textile, a simpler markup language that allows me to write this article more like a normal document. Most websites now also use “*Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)*”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets to define the look of the page, embedded scripts for interactive elements, and embedded media files as well.

If you would like to take a look under the hood, Safari has an option to view the code that makes up any website. In order to enable this feature, you will need to go to *Safari Preferences > Advanced* and check the box that says “Show Develop menu in menu bar”. Now, you can open that menu and press “Show Web Inspector”. This will open a box on the bottom of the window that has all of the code that makes up the page. If you click on the target symbol next to the word Inspect, you can mouse around the page and see the specific code that makes up any one element of a page.

My favorite thing about this is the ability to remove an element of a website by deleting the code that generates it. I am a big crossword fan and generally do the “*Los Angeles Times crossword online.*”:http://games.latimes.com/games/daily-crossword/ I find the animated ads on the side distracting, though, so the first thing I do every time is to inspect the code and remove the ads. I then put it into full screen and it is almost like doing it on paper.

Last year I upgraded from the iPhone 4s to the 5s, and among all the other new features, the M7 motion coprocessor, to me, was the least interesting. After a few weeks, a friend suggested I track my daily steps through “Argus”:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/argus-pedometer-run-cycle/id624329444?mt=8&at=11lb7k and since she was also using the app, we could compare progress through their “Friends & Followers” system. I thought that was an interesting way to connect with friends you may not see every day and competition is the easiest way to trick someone into pushing their limits.

The “M7 motion co-processor”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M7 came in handy when I first launched Argus. It had stored the past week or so of steps taken, which was a bit surprising to me. Even if you don’t have a fitness app installed, the newer iPhones will still remember how far you’ve walked, and backlogging to Argus was done automatically. From there, I started to take note of my step frequency, and set a goal of 8,000 steps per day. The suggested goal was 10,000, but seeing as I rarely hit that goal in the backlogs, an achievable number seemed like a more effective strategy to me. Argus has a beautifully designed user interface that playfully refreshes in a vertical tower of various hexagons. Certain metrics can be adjusted from the hexagonal badge, and this metrics off expanded options upon selecting the icon. I know there are many other apps like this one, but Apple has been endorsing Argus for the past year or more, and I believe for every type of app out there, you’ll always see a clear leader in style and functionality. Apple’s new take on fitness and health tracking came in the form of the “Health”:https://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/health/ application, though most of us can agree that Health hasn’t exactly spread its wings yet.
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In addition to step tracking, Argus allows you to add and subtract beverage intake, enter different forms of exercise, and it even calculates how many calories you’re burning based on your height, weight, age, and sex. My favorite thing about this app is how specific the exercise options are. Entering your mileage from a treadmill or elliptical is pretty obvious, but I did not expect things like Badminton, Dragon Boating, Table Tennis, Kitsurfing, Housekeeping…the list goes on and on. Not only does this give the world’s most active human being a lot of options, but it shows lazier folk like myself just how inactive my world can be.

I have seen an increase in my overall actively since I started tracking steps. I may be the last person to realize this, but I’ve always kept my eye on that self-imposed goal, and go out of my way to achieve it each day. This might mean walking to get my lunch instead of driving, or taking a few laps around the house while brushing my teeth. I may not be “Dragon Boating”:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdgWj54ndbU my way to work, but I’ve increased my daily goal to 10,000 for the new year, and for me, that’s progress!

_Hello Friends,_

It’s Emily, taking over for Don this week while he is checking out new gadgets at the “*2015 Consumer Electronics Show*”:http://www.cesweb.org in Las Vegas. While Don is perusing the latest and greatest in electronics, the majority of the team is back in Vermont just trying to just “*stay warm*”:http://i.giphy.com/5ZdW3tadQFppS.gif and it seems like most of the country is as well! I have lived in Vermont my entire life, but that doesn’t make it any easier to get up in the morning and see 20 below zero and know you still have to feed horses before going to work. Complaining aside, I love my horses dearly and have learned that when it’s this cold, it just means I need to move a little quicker through barn chores. This past morning was particularly chilly. In fact it was so cold I thought it best to lug my frozen water buckets inside to thaw by the fire rather than trying to bang the ice out of the buckets and have them crack. Don and I often give each other a hard time about temperatures…well mostly it’s Don bragging about it being sunny and 75 in Key West. I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a little pleasure hearing it was in the 40s in Las Vegas earlier this week. It’s good for him to not become too soft when it comes to colder temperatures!

As many people have predicted and anticipated, home automation is one of the big attractions at CES this year. Countless companies and developers are rolling out new products and expansions to “*Apple’s HomeKit*”:https://developer.apple.com/homekit/ are no exception. Schlage has updated their smart lock system, allowing iPhone users to unlock their home with just their voice. iDevices is another company that’s been working on accessories to Apple’s HomeKit and released a switch that allows users to control appliances, lights and more. With this switch you can even use Siri to to tell your switch to make a light brighter! Other cool products coming out of CES this year are new Bluetooth headphones from Sennheiser: the Urbanite XL. These headphones have a built-in touchpad that allow users to skip songs, take phone calls, and adjust the volume. You can also pair these headphones to two devices at once, so you can listen to music on your computer and not miss a call on your phone! Of course one of the drawbacks to seeing and hearing about all of these new gadgets is that they all aren’t available for purchase just yet, but we expect in the coming weeks and months to see more of these products readily available. In the meantime, it leaves us all plenty of time to map out and plan where all of these gadgets will go in our homes and offices!

In honor of home automation, this week we have some great deals on products from WeMo. Wirelessly monitor your home from afar, turn on the lights before you get home and control the brightness of your room, all from your iPhone!