The FITBIT Sitch

So, about a month ago because I’ve been neglecting my blog, I wrote about how awesome my FITBIT was compared to my Up jawbone band. Well.. It’s still pretty awesome. But there has been a major drawback, well major to me at least.

Two things:

•       The FITBIT was made with nickel by the charger.
•      I am apparently allergic to nickel.

So currently I have this horrendous rash where my FITBIT sits. I have it covered with a Band-Aid at the moment so I can still wear my fitbit but dang. I am so sad. They’re doing a recall on it apparently. I have no idea if I should send it back or not, probably should but I don’t want to give it up.

If you have had an allergic reaction to the fitbit tell me what the heck you did to get rid of it because this Kermit the frog Band-Aid is clashing with my attire. 

FITBIT vs Jawbone UP

FITBIT Mobile app

So , I was an up user for a little under a year. I bought it after a friend had told me Jawbone UP was infinitely better than the Nike Fuel band because of the sleep monitoring tool. The whole sleep thing was the selling factor for me. I had often felt like i didn’t get much sleep , and this showed me how often I would wake up during the night. Which for whatever reason was really cool. I think it might have been because I like statistics and numbers. UP gave me that exactly.

September rolls around and i’ve had my up for 8 months or so, and we had been on load of adventures , St.Patricks day , traveling to DC *twice* , 22 hour road trip, graduation. It was safe to say that i was a very dedicated UP user. Up until mid september when my UP band entirely stopped charging for no reason whatsoever.  I left it on the charger for a solid 4-5 hours and right as i took it off it wouldn’t turn on. I’ve even hit a hard reset and did all that jazz. So I stopped using it entirely.

My family knows how important being active and my health is to me, so they bought me a FITBIT for christmas. I was stoked , not only did it record all the same things as the UP band did , but it also displayed it to me on a cute little screen on the actual band! It even sends the information to your phone using bluetooth instead of having to take it off and plug it into your phone like the UP band.

UP by Jawbone

SO COOL. I am obsessed with these active bands but what made me geek out over FITBIT rather than UP was the design of the mobile app associated with FITBIT. FITBIT just has an overall smoother interface to use and gives me the information upfront instead of me clicking around searching for it. This appeals to me because I am lazy in the sense that I don’t wanna waste time clicking through things, I would rather just see it right away.

Overall, the FITBIT band itself is better fitting , better looking and it has a digital display. FITBIT is the better option for both usability and mobile application. I highly suggest you get the FITBIT :)

Change your life one step at a time

How to BHappy!

Winter is such a cold and stuffy time of year. The weather is dreary , and most of your motivation goes out the window. If only there was something that would give me incentive or remind me to actually go out and live my life happily. OH WAIT! There is.

I came across the application called Always BHappy*It is at the Apple store , and in Google play*. This is an app basically designed to give you tasks to do with friends or family. Today's current task is to bring a group of friends together and do something funny.

Seeing as today I was basically going to stay inside and watch Harry Potter with my cat , I have actually decided to call up some friends and do something.

Right so the concept is pretty cool , what about the application itself? Right , well upon opening the app , you get greeted by log in page , where you can also link it up with your FaceBook , and after logging in , the application wastes no time on trying to get you up and going.

After a couple of minutes of browsing through the application itself I quite like the colors and the actual design of the whole thing. YOU CAN EVEN GET BADGES... this makes my competitive side kick into gear. Which is probably why I am now going out with my friends later. I see you Always BHappy. If the proposals , the tasks the app assigns you, are not enough to satisfy your happy thirst this app has you covered. You can get MORE proposals, which means a chance for more badges and excitement. Cool right?!

Personally, I throughly enjoy the concept of this application because so many people get caught up in the work world , that they forget how to relax and actually "BHappy".  The one thing that I would add to the application is maybe a how to. It took me a few minutes to understand what the actual app was doing , but overall I love the concept and design. I highly suggest you go download the "Always BHappy" app now!

Now that I have a bowling date with my friends I must go get ready!

Happy Saturday!

-Hannah

XML to JSON

Right , so I was going to blog about the fail of a night I had last night. I tried winging the creation of an application, but turns out that it’s really not a smart idea and you become unorganized. Lesson learned!

So instead of informing you about my failures, I’m going to show you my small triumph! Holla! Today work asked me to create a ruby script that fetches RSS feeds from various news sites and create a JSON out of the RSS feeds. Figuring this has a gem out there I googled the situation. All I got in return was a bunch of gems that halfway did what I needed, or made it x10 harder than it needed to be. So I broke it down into individual steps then created the ruby to go along with it.

1.       Get response body from URL *RSSfeed

2.       Change response body from XML to JSON.

3.       Output to JSON file.

---

require 'net/http'
require 'active_support/all'

s=Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse('http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss')).body
response = Hash.from_xml(s).to_json
    file = File.new("feed.JSON", "w")
     file.syswrite(response)
     file.close

---

That’s all I want , pretty simple and not that complex. Other gems were going to have me build my own template and blah blah blah. Nah , so I looked a bit into activesupport ( used this gem in previous ruby scripts I’ve created) and it helps with the .from_xml . I’ve been searching for a while on how to switch xml to json for the web app I’ve helped create here at work. But dang.. It’s just so short and sweet and it makes me excited. :D

Hope this helps if you need it

-Hannah

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwats School of Witchcraft and Wizardry-

  I have such an inner struggle with this. I grew up with Harry Potter and company, went on the adventures with them , experienced heart break ( I still have problems with the fact JK killed Sirius ) and triumph.

As the days approached my 11^th birthday, I started getting nervous and excited for the letter I was sure that I was to receive. My birthday had come and passed and I experienced heart break, much like many other children around the world. But now that I have grown up a bit and actually realized that unfortunately Hogwarts is only a place I can visit in my imagination and Disney World, I got to thinking about the concept of Hogwarts , witchcraft , monsters and magic. To be entirely honest , I have no idea if I could handle it. Let me explain .

Right , so I grew up with the internet.  Literally. The first website was created on the sixth of august in 1991. So the internet is older than me by three weeks.  So there was never a time while I was alive that the internet wasn’t available. By the time I got to elementary school we were learning how to use the world wide web and all of  that jazz. THE POINT , im trying to get to is that I don’t think I would have a clue how the heck to function without technology. My tooth bush is electric for crying out loud!!

Oh , you want to text your friend? No cell phones.

Oh you need to email your family?  Wrong , you’re going to use an owl to communicate.

Although, it would be pretty rad to have the great hall. Such good food and you don’t have to cook.  Honestly, all these kids stating how they want to go to Hogwarts, they’d need therapy after a week. I know I would! 

Do you want to break free from your iOS jail cell?

After seeing all the fancy pictures of what people can do with a jailbroken iPhone gets you thinking " Should I commit to the jailbreak?" "Is it a good idea to jailbreak your phone?". Well here is the low down. By jailbreaking your iPhone, you have the ability to access files that usually would be completely out of reach from you. Your ability to reach these files gives you the opportunity to express your individuality as a iOS user.

Oh , you want a batman symbol instead of your carrier's name? Jailbreak has a tool for that.
Oh, you want different types of icons for your app? Jailbreak has a tool for that.

It can open you up to so many different things that will enhance your iPhone experience. There is a whole community of people that contribute to the tool development for jailbreaking. It's actually honestly pretty cool what you can do with a jailbroken phone.

This question always comes up though... Is jailbreaking legal? 

As of right now , yes , it is legal as long as you don't use it to unlock your phone to different carriers. So , change all the things that you want to change * insert all the things meme* and go crazy. Just stay clear of unlocking different carriers because that's when things become illegal.

Next most common question. Can I brick my phone? 
*To brick - to render unusable making your iPhone become a very expensive paper weight*

I haven't heard of anyone bricking their phone from jailbreaking but I could be wrong. I am pretty sure that you are good to go as long as you back up your phone before you start the transformation. But don't quote me on that because I am not 100% sure.

Overall , it's a great way to express yourself while still having an iPhone. But there are alot of risks that come with it that may not be worth the trouble of actually jailbreaking your phone. So , it is totally up to you!!!

I have been looking into the whole jailbreaking scene ever since seeing this reddit post in r/jailbreak : here

It's just so pretty!! and the add on's are rad. Like the whole flux thing , that's just awesome.

Lemme know if you've jailbroke your phone and if you like it or not.

-Hannah

Technology Diet Status : OVER

Hey guys, sorry it's been so long! I've been ultra-busy, unfortunately not with a new job (they found an internal person). But I honestly just haven't been near a computer other than work. Which is honestly a good idea every once and a while, a technology diet is never a bad thing.

I unplug myself one every couple , when I say couple I mean like 9 months , and I just go out into the real world and do things. I got my hair done , I went hiking , started a new workout regimen with my friend and even started reading a book. *Gasp* It's been decent but I am ready to dive back into the world of technology. I really need to start working on my app. I think I am going to start that tonight before mid-night soccer. 

Also , I am getting ready for a lot of change in my life and having Virgo tendencies it always makes me feel like i am unprepared. Alas, things will work out and change will happen. The latter is inevitable. I will keep you posted on the change that I am going through once everything is confirmed, I am weird and do not wanna jinx it. hehe

I hope everything is well with you! If you stop by let me know and we can talk! 

-Hannah