With the Calgary Marathon running this weekend, thousands of people are fully into the running season. If you’re a fair weather runner, and just getting started, there are many apps, gadgets and wesbites to help you do your best.

First up you have to get your training done properly. Runners’ World Magainze’s Smart Coach [.99c iPhone] is my go-to every time I start up training for a race. You give it your recent run times, how hard you want to train, when your upcoming run is, and it will populate an entire schedule you can keep on your phone or email to print off and hang on the fridge.

Once you know how far you need to run, you need to measure that distance and there are a number of ways to do that. Nike+ GPS [$1.99 iPhone] turns every training run into a race. It can automatically tweet our your times to friends. You can compare times on routes with friends via Nike’s social forums, and it keeps track of your totals to encourage you to go further. You can get audio queues during your run at intervals to get your splits.

RunKeeper [free iPhone] was one of the first apps to offer this sort of GPS tracking, it was a paid app for a long time and it’s a great deal now that it’s free.

iMapMyRun+ [$2.99 iPhone] offers a chance for people to follow you virtually. It does all the GPS tracking of pace and time and distance, but also posts the information on the web. Doing a big marathon and friends and family want to track you to know where to go to cheer? If you want, this app will broadcast your exact distance online so people can chase you down. The Map My Run forums online are also a great way to find new routes to run. People break them down by distance and location.

If you’re wanting to run with your iPhone, you probably don’t want to carry it around on each trek. Armbands are a great, easy, comfortable way to keep your iPhone with you to measure your distance, and also let you listen to the music or whatever. While I like the comfort level of things like the Belkin Armband, I find they make it difficult to use the iPhone. If you want to pause your time, or switch your audio, the plastic screen is not a simple one to use. Also, it’s hard to tell your pace when you’re running because the screen is facing outwards on your upper arm. You can’t tilt it to view.

The inability to see the screen is why I still run with a GPS watch. My choice is the Garmin Forerunner 405CX. It’s a small watch, and while the bezel is a little finicky to use, once you get used to it, it’s fine. You can track time, distance, heart rate, and you can upload your runs to the web for tracking. For me, it’s the best way to do training or races and see all the information I need in just a glance.

When it comes to headphones for a run, I’d recommend Yurbuds. These ear buds have little bumps on them so they click in to your ear and won’t slip out as easily (especially if you’re a sweater). They also don’t get stuffed right into your ear (like the white iPod ones), they sit on the outside of your ear canal so they are very very comfortable.

Facebook is now public. The more than 900M users of the social network can now each claim ownership (should they choose to buy stock) of the site they have made.

It is the information that is poured into Facebook daily that makes it so valuable. From where we live, to where we work, who we’re friends with, parties we go to, movies we like, and more, some have suggested that Facebook has more intelligence about people on the planet than the CIA.

We’re hooked.

300M photos are uploaded to the site daily. 526M people hit the site each day. 400M people are active on Facebook at least 6 of 7 days a week.

Now that Facebook is public, something Mark Zuckerberg didn’t want to do but was forced into by investment rules, it’s the perfect time to take your profile more private. A third of female profiles, and more than half of male profiles are totally public, no privacy settings whatsoever. Everything you do online is visible by anyone, friend or not.

I like to play a game I call “Facebook the Bad Guy”. When you see a terrible person in the news, put their name in Facebook and look at their profile. More often than not it’s not a shock the person was busted.

Social networks are filterless, what we post is stream of consciousness, and they really do give a sense of who a person really is.

It’s hard to keep tabs on the constantly shifting privacy settings. Just this Monday, they were holding a Q&A on yet another set of information use changes. Last week they took the many different bits and pieces of the privacy document and made it one item. One 7 000 word item. Who’s going to read that?

Still look how privacy on the site has changed over the last 8 years. What used to be locked to the site, is now open to the internet

Here are 3 privacy settings you should check, and lock down.

FRIENDS WITH ONLY FRIENDS
First things first, cull your friends list. Jimmy Kimmel started National Unfriend Day to run every November, but if you’ve never celebrated it, don’t wait. You don’t have to be friends with every person you met at a club, dinner, charity event, high school, etc. While it may seem social norm to accept every friend request, not every friend request is worthy of knowing everything about you.

MANAGE WHO SEES WHAT
There are two parts to this. If you do have many different people, you can sort them into lists to manage the privacy settings of each group. When you add a status, say baby pictures, you can touch a corner of the status box and set the level of who sees what. The lists also help you sort what you see, so you don’t get inundated with updates from people you barely know but need to be connected to.

MANAGE APPLICATIONS
The privacy page will also let you manage applications. When you access sites that let you login with Facebook Connect, you’re often giving them access to your profile. Have a look at which sites you’ve let access in the past, see if you’re still using them. If you’re not, delete them. Don’t let it become a junk drawer.

Facebook also has frictionless sharing now. That means if you click on a news story from an app, like Yahoo! or Washington Post, everyone can see that you read it. Check to see if you have those apps and make sure you are fine with everyone knowing everything you read online.

The entire privacy settings page is much easier to understand and should be reviewed. You can set the levels of your visibility in search, who sees your posts, who can friend you, who can tag you, and more.

Facebook went public, but it’s okay for you to still be private.

Now that the weather is turning for the better, it’s time to get out and explore Calgary. One of the best ways to do that is by geocaching.

Geocaching is a game of hide and seek that combines GPS coordinates with real-life treasures that kids (and kids at heart) can find.

Start by visiting geocaching.com and typing in your home address. Instantly little flags will pop up showing you where geocaches are. There are more than 1.7 million around the world, and hundreds in Calgary, so finding one near you won’t be tough.

Once you know where the caches are, getting to them is the next step. You can get the geocaching app for your smartphone [$9.99 iTunes].

Just open the app when you want to find a cache and it will use your location information to show you all the caches around you. You can then zoom in to navigate directly to the cache. Some of them are small, and cleverly hidden, so you might need the hints and description found with each cache.

You can also use GPS devices, the kind you might use to navigate the backcountry with. If you don’t have one, you can borrow GPS devices from any City of Calgary library. They have 34 of the units spread across the 17 libraries and anyone with a library card can borrow one for a week for free.

The City of Calgary has gone into the geocaching game the past year or so. They celebrated the Parks and Recreation’s 100th Anniversary by hiding 100 caches around the city with coupons for community facilities.

This year, they’re back at it with a fun intro to geocaching event this afternoon at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. On May 26-27, there’s a huge event to start the season called Calgary Cache and Release.

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll start hiding your own caches. They can be as clever or as obvious as you like. My son and I have hid some in and around our favourite neighborhood playgrounds. It’s our way to introduce people to our area. It’s also a great way to explore the city, and find the secrets of parks, pathways, and more.

If you missed the segment, here it is:

As you would expect, when I go Mother’s Day shopping, I go to a place like Future Shop. Check out these gift ideas that are both old school, and new school.

NEW SCHOOL:

Griffin Survivor iPad 2/new iPad Case [$79.99]
Independently tested and certified to meet US Department of Defence Standard 810F, Griffin’s Survivor Extreme-Duty Case is designed to protect your iPad from extreme conditions… dirt, sand, rain, shock, vibration, and a host of other environmental factors (like toddlers).

Init Laptop Bag [$89.99]
This laptop bag fits up to 16″ laptop. It’s durable polyester fabric with metal feet on the bottom for better protection. It comes with short and long detachable shoulder straps. A trolley slit pocket is also included.

Sony Swarovski In-Ear Headphones [$39.99]
Swarovski crystals and a silver cord are the perfect complement to an extraordinary level of sound quality and comfort.

iPad Folio [$69.99]
A full iPad cover is much more professional and protects the screen and the back. This folio is elegant, and professional.

iTunes Gift Card [$40] – You can get $50 iTunes gift cards until May 10 for just $40 at WalMart. Great deal!

Apple One on One [$99] – if you’re helping Mom make the switch to Mac, getting some One on One lessons is a great way to help her do that. When you buy your Mac, you can, for $99, get one year of one-on-one time at the Apple Store. They’ll help you learn whatever you want. My mom has been going and is now teaching me tricks.

OLD SCHOOL:

Dyson DC37 Vacuum [$599.99]
It’s light, it’s portable, it cleans under beds and tables easily, it goes up and down stairs no problem. It sucks, it’s great on floors, it works on carpet.

Cuisinart Blend & Cook Blender [$159.99]
Soups to Smoothies in one Blender! This multifunctional machine sautés, cooks and blends homemade soups and sauces right in jar. Simply add pre-cut ingredients and machine sautés, blends and keeps the soup warm until serving. Three temperature settings (low, medium & high) and four blending speeds, plus a stir function, lets you blend ingredients to perfect consistency.

Keurig Single Serve Coffee Maker [$99.99]
This single serve brewer allows you to make always fresh coffee, tea or Hot Chocolate and offer a wide variety of brands and flavours. Select your preferred cup size from 8 & 10 oz.

If you missed the segment, here’s the video:

Alberta goes to the polls on Monday in an election that has been fought in the trenches of social media. What sailed along as a simple campaign for the first few weeks, descended into chaos when Twitter users started to dig through candidate backgrounds and the viral nature of sharing spread the message.

If you’re undecided, and want to keep track of some last minute volleying for support, the #abvote hashtag is the hub of the discussion on Twitter.

You can access that discussion forum without a Twitter account, it’s free to sit on the sidelines and see the links and discussions fly. Head to search.twitter.com and simply type in #abvote to see all the tweets talking about the election. Hashtags for the leading parties are #wrp, #ndp, #abparty, #ablib and #pcaa.

If you want to branch out from the Twitter website and have a detailed comparison of the debate as it happens, you can use apps like TweetDeck or HootSuite. These applications can create side by side windows of hashtags that automatically update so you can compare things in realtime.

Once you’ve decided where you’re going to place your vote, it’s easy to find where to vote at elections.ab.ca. You can check if you’re registered, make sure you have the ID requirements handy, and find your polling place.

APP OF THE WEEK:
It’s going to be gorgeous today, sunny and 20 something. If you’re not in yard, you will be outside, so why not wander the trails and pathways of the city. Better yet, go and head to an area of the city you’ve never been to before.

Pick the opposite quadrant and go and get lost. Actually, don’t get lost use the City of Calgary’s Pathways and Bikeways free app to find some new places to explore.

Here’s video of the segment:

Facebook bought Instagram for $1B this week. For a company that was barely 500 days old and had only 13 employees, that’s a lot of money.

Instagram had something Facebook needed – a mobile strategy. Facebook had something Instagram needed – a monetization scheme.

The general consensus is Facebook bought Instagram to get a hold of the user generated data that accompanies our pictures. Many photos are geotagged with the exact time and place they were taken. Facebook has struggled with its Places function to get people to “check in”. Now, with something like Instagram in the fold, Facebook will know exactly where and when you were. Why? To better service you ads, of course.

People love Instagram for two reasons: photos are easy to share, photos are easy to make beautiful. You can create and follow a social network on Instagram to browse photos, but you can also add all sorts of filters and frames to your images to make the otherwise low light, blurry image something more artsy

So now that Instagram is in Facebook, if you don’t want Facebook to know the where and when you are, but still want to easily share images that look great, here are 3 alternatives you can use:

Hipstamatic [$1.99]
This app emulates an old school camera. You dont see a full screen when you’re taking a picture. You have to load film, and choose lenses and flashes. Unlike Instagram, you dont get to do much editing after the fact, the picutre you take is the picture you get – the app even takes some time to “develop” your image, so it’s not an instant gratifier. The images it produces are artsy, much like the Instagram shots, but each “pack” is an in-app purchase for 99c.
There’s also a print option, where you can order your images to be printed, right from the back of the phone.

Camera+ [99c]
This app has become my camera. Taking a picture is simple, and the post photo editing has many options. From dozens of filters, to cropping, and editing – this lets met quickly and easily do everything I want with my photos. It also has easy sharing to your favorite social networks

Camera Awesome [free]
This recently released app from SmugMug falls along the lines of a camera bag replacement. You can access 36 filters for free, and in-app purchases can expand your editing capabilities. The app also features an “awesomize” button which promises to do all the heavy lifting for you and process a perfect image if you dont want to edit on your own. A ‘time machine’ is included in this app that brags it records video for 5 seconds before you press the button. Full export to social networks is supported.

Pinweel [free]
This is probably closest to the model of Instagram. It’s built around social sharing of photos. You’re prompted to create an album and sort your images before you even take one. Once you take a photo you can choose a variety of filters (like on Instagram) and then your images and albums are viewable by the public, or your contacts, depending how you adjust your privacy. There’s also easy sharing to Twitter and Facebook.

8mm [$1.99]
As a bonus, if the artistic filters of these photo apps is what attracts you to them, try 8mm for the video buttons on your iPhone, iPod and iPad.

If you missed the segment, here’s the video:

Okay, you know what an Easter Egg is – a tasty treat hidden by the Easter Bunny, but do you know what an easter egg is? These are usually something tricky hidden by developers for people to find and discover on their own – a special little treat, just like their chocolate cousins.

Here are a few geeky easter eggs you can try to celebrate the season:

GOOGLE
As you saw with last weekend’s onslaught of April Fool’s pranks, Google has a great sense of humour. Here are some of the search giant’s classic easter eggs:

Type “do a barrel roll” into your Google search window and your entire screen will magically rotate. (Note: doesn’t always work in Internet Explorer, so use Firefox, Safari, or Chrome)

Now try “askew” Yes, it tilts your screen, just a little askew.

Good luck trying to find Chuck Norris. Type his name and press I’m feeling lucky and Google responds with Chuck Norris jokes.

Those were easy, but true “easter eggs” require a few mystery keystrokes to unveil the secret. If you have Google Reader, do these cursor keys: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. A ninja then pops onto your screen and into your search box!

Google’s Flight Simulator started out as a fun easter egg, but was so popular that it’s now a full part of Google Earth. You can find it at Tools > Enter Flight Simulator

APPLE

There are many fun discoveries for those who spend hours playing with Apple‘s Siri. The voice commands for iPhone are meant to help you manage your calendar, search for items, and other things while hands free. Still, people are asking Siri to “open the pod bay doors“, “what’s the meaning of life?“, “who’s your daddy?“, “knock knock“, and “I love you.”

Your Mac is also pretty funny, if you open voice controls you can actually say “Computer. Tell me a joke” and have a knock knock conversation. Impressed my 4 year old all afternoon with that one.

APP OF THE WEEK
H&M. Not only does it have previews on the clothes and styles, but every now and again when you shake the app, an Easter Egg will pop up. A discount. I’ve seen it a few times, so grab the app and shake it when you shop to see if you can get a discount.

Or, go old school and get Angry Birds Seasons which has a number of spring and Easter themed levels.

If you missed the segment, here it is:

Each week I join the Sunday Morning News on Global Calgary to talk the latest in tech, gadgets, and to walk you through the ways you can make the gadgets you already own work better.

Here are the segment notes and links from April 1, 2012:

WHAT IS AN APPLE TV?

One of my favourite gadgets in the house is the Apple TV. The tiny black palm sized brick has been called “magic” by many a nerd. It’s a simple idea that turns your tv into an internet connected device, where you can view podcasts, internet videos, original content, NetFlix, or your own library of iTunes media.

That’s the part I love. My TV is now connected to my iPad, my iPhone, my MacBook, and any other device in the house running iTunes and on our WiFi network. I have ripped all our family DVDs to iTunes so the kids can watch them on the iPad, now with the Apple TV, the iPad works as a PVR – it’s the source for the video on the screen.

When we get home from a day out at the zoo, I can do an instant slide show from my iPhone, or my wife’s on our big screen tv with photos and videos of hippos, giraffes and gorillas.

The new Apple TV that was released last month, is almost identical to the previous model but now features HD support and a new interface that Steve Jobs reportedly dismissed years ago.

Apple is said to be working on an actual TV for release later this year, when you hear rumours about that device, it’s usually referred to as the iTV.

APP OF THE WEEK:
Apple devices all come with little, tiny, simple remotes. While they’re much easier to use than those hundred button devices that come with our tvs, it’s also very easy to get lost. Apple has the Remote App to replace the handheld remote. If you lose the little one, you can still access the features of the Apple TV by using the Remote App on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

If you missed the segment, here’ the video:

It has been 4 years since Barack Obama swept to power on the backs of what many hailed as a mastery of social media. Books have been written on the topic.

It has been 2 years since Naheed Nenshi became Mayor of Calgary employing a similar tactic of openness, and engagement.

NO EXCUSES

In 2012, there is no excuse for a politician NOT to be on Twitter. Social media is not a flash in the pan, it has legitimacy, longevity, and effectiveness. For politicians not to be on Twitter, they recognize an inability to be innovative, open, and engaging.

Still, some try to turn on the social media machine just at election time. They start tweeting out policy platforms, broadcasting appearances for a few weeks while courting votes, only to turn the tap off once they win (or lose).

That is not how this game works. Social media is not something you turn on, it’s something you do. Always. And with that kind of “always on” mentality, there are massive pits that politicians can fall into causing social media backfires that can cost them votes.

Albertans go to the polls on April 23, an election many have seen coming for nearly a year. The social media savvy have been using Twitter to engage in policy discussions and platform debates. Unfortunately, while engaging the electorate in the debate, not all have done it in the best manner.

TWITTER OPENNESS CAN BACKFIRE

I have had no fewer than 4 interactions with members of one party that completely soured me on their reputation. One sitting MLA, one nomination candidate, one candidate, and party supporters all attacked me when debating various issues.

I have argued that political parties need to trust their supporters to spread the message by handing out ‘digital lawn signs‘. Banners, twibbons, and graphics that party faithful can use in blogs, twitter, and facebook to proclaim their affiliation and spread the gospel.

The problem arises when those who take the mantel of the party mantra are not trustworthy. In passionately defending their policy, the undecided voter sees not a supporter, but the party logo. The supporter becomes one with the brand and despite a leaders’ best intention, the branding is set.

I will not be voting for this party that had members, and supporters, attack debate on Twitter. When dealing with an undecided voter, you need to tread lightly, with respect. Undecided voters are valuable property that need convincing, and persuading instead of punishing.

In a parliamentary system, a team is sent to legislate with the team’s captain anointed as government leader. When social media is used aggressively, the team can bring down the leader a very slippery slope.

TRUE COLOURS

While this may cause many politicos to lock up the dogs and dial down the passion of their social media campaigns, I have found it a useful tool to see one party’s true colours. Very often, in politics, the electorate is fed a very tightly controlled message of strict talking points. When candidates, supporters, and leaders go off the rails we get to see the true measure of the Wizard pulling the strings in Oz.

Each week I join the Sunday Morning News on Global Calgary to talk the latest in tech, gadgets, and to walk you through the ways you can make the gadgets you already own work better.

Here are the segment notes and links from March 25, 2012:

LIFEPROOF
The Lifeproof iPhone 4/4S Case [$79.99] means business. The first thing you see opening it up is a serious CAUTION sticker across the back of the case. While $79.99 may sound like an expensive price to pay for an iPhone case, if you live an extreme lifestyle and take your iPhone with you, it’s a small insurance price to pay versus the replacement costs of your iPhone. Heck even if you don’t live an extreme lifestyle, this case will protect you from the everyday accidents that could see you facing almost $200 just to replace a cracked screen.

The Lifeproof Bike and Bar Mount [$39.99] will let you use your iPhone as a bike computer. The bike and bar mount is simple to install and promises to fit everything from road and mountain bikes to quads, snowmobiles, and jetskis.

The Lifeproof Belt Clip [$29.99] is a little old school, from the days when phones were too bulky to fit in your pocket, but if you need it handy and don’t want to fish through a bag or pocket to find your phone, it serves a purpose.

APP OF THE WEEK:
Draw Something [Free] is The Hunger Games of the app store. It’s is the #1 app in over 80 countries. The user base has sky rocketed the past few months, to the point where Zynga (the makers of Word With Friends, Farmville, etc) have offered to buy the app maker for $200M. You draw pictures, friends have to guess what they are. It’s that simple.

If you missed the segment, here’s a recap: