Celebrating Two Years at the Gym

Its weird to think that I am "celebrating" two years of hard slog at the gym. For most of my life I have thought of myself as a "weakling", a "nerd", or and "intellectual", but never as a pserson of "normal" strength, let alone a "sportsman". But two years ago that changed. I decided to get serious about getting strong and fit. I just wanted to feel normal for once.
It's difficult to describe just exactly how different that feels. When I was in junior school I could count all the ribs on my chest. I had no muscle tone to speak of. Boys who punched me on the upper arm learned not to do that, because they encountered bone not muscle, and it hurt them as much as it hurt me. Sport was never intuitive or easy for me. I sucked at it, and focused on intellectual activities at school.
So now when I fold my arms across my chest to do decline abdominal crunches, I rejoice in feeling my chest muscles, and not just ribs or body fat. My legs and arms are no longer flabby, and my overall body fat percentage is moving downwards, but very slowly. Its still around 20%, which is high.
My best flat barbell bench press was less around 45% of my body weight. Now its closer to 80% of my body weight, with a target of 135%. 100% is considered respectable. In the last 9 weeks it has only progressed by 5kg to 65kg for 6 reps, but my form is much better, and I have also learnt to do the incline barbell bench press, and manage 50kg for 6 reps. I can also do 15 push-ups as part of my warm-up routine, whereas before I could hardly manage 5 reps without a lot of puffing and panting, and 10 reps was completely out of the question.
Two years ago I couldn't do the squat at all. It took me several months to get my leg and back muscles strong enough just to do the movement (mostly) right, with no bar at all. The first time I tried using the empty 20kg bar, I couldn't manage it, and we had to use the lighter 10kg bar instead. 9 weeks ago my best barbell squat for 6 reps was 60kg. Now it's up to 74kg, which is about 85% of my body weight. I'm aiming for 175%, but even 100% is considered passable to good.
My biggest gains have been with the deadlift, where I got to 100% of my body weight, but with bad form and a bent back. I'm just glad I didn't hurt myself. So I have dialled back to 75kg and focusing on proper form so I don't hurt my lower back. That would be a disaster.
The other big change for this year has been that I now exercise 4 days a week, usually Friday through Monday, leaving Tuesday to Thursday for my job, as well as Monday and Friday afternoons. Before then I was only exercising one day a week, and doing some swimming on one or two other days. That helped with my fitness and general strength, but progress was slow. Probably a good thing so I could get my form right. That's what personal trainers are for, after all. They can advise on technique and form, but don't expect them to motivate you. They can encourage and support you, but you have to motivate yourself.
I have found some excellent advice in the book "Bigger Leaner Stronger" by Mike Matthews, and I'm following his workout program outlined in the "The Year One Challenge for Men" workout diary. I started doing the standard 5 day course, which is intended to be done in 5 days per week, but I was doing it in 4 days and carrying over one day to the following week. After 2 months of this I changed and used the slightly reduced 4 day program, which seems to be working a lot better. My weight has gone from 82kg to 84kg in 4 months, and I'm definitely not fatter than I was, so I can safely assume that most of that is an increase in muscle and a decrease in fat. I certainly hope so.
I have posted some spreadsheets on my Fact Reviews web site which cover the 4-day and 5-day program for Bigger Leaner Stronger. You need to read the book before doing the exercises, however.

AudibleManager: The "cure" is worse than the "problem"

I buy and listen to a lot of audio books from Audible. I have accounts with both Audible.com and Audible.co.uk, because some book publishers refuse to sell me their titles because I don't live in the USA. Weird. I have lost track of how many Audible books I have, but it is probably between 300 and 400 in total.
Recently the following message started appearing every time I open the AudibleManager player on my PC. I ignored it the first few times because I was busy, but eventually clicked on "Yes" to "update" whatever components needed to be updated. Previously this process worked fine. That was in 2010. Fast forward 5 years and it doesn't work. You can go through all the steps in the process, allow it to download all the updates, and you return to the error message above. Thanks for nothing.
So, naturally, I tried the first logical step: uninstall, download the software again and reinstall. I started becoming concerned when the "new install" software was precisely the same as the original that I installed when setting up my Windows 7 machine. It downloaded all the stuff it needed and the "new" AudibleManager was exactly the same as the old one, with exactly the same message (see above).
Next, I contacted tech support at Audible. They are generally pretty good. This time they gave me a 12-step procedure that included deleting a whole bunch or registry entries. Thanks, but no thanks. I asked the tech support person to please ask for a new installer that does those 12 steps so that I don't have to. Fiddling with the registry is not for the faint of heart, since it is very easy to break your entire Windows installation.
Today I received a note from the next level of tech support, repeating the 12 steps. For what it's worth, here they are:

Below you'll find the process to perform a clean uninstall of Audible Manager, removing all components.

Please note; These instructions assume you had Audible Manager installed in the default directory. If you have changed the installation directory please adjust the instructions accordingly. Before proceeding I would recommend saving any audio books that you have downloaded to your computer to another location to avoid losing your audio books. You can import these titles back in to Audible Manager later.

1. To start, make sure Audible Manager and/or Audible Download Manager is not running. To check this: Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete on the keyboard to launch the Task Manager or right click on the system tray and select Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab. You can click on the Image Name heading to alphabetize the processes to make it easier to find the process you are looking for. End the processes: Manager.exe and/or AdHelper.exe and/or AudibleDownloadHelper.exe if they are running.

2. Now click on the Windows Start Menu usually on the bottom left hand corner. Choose Programs -> Audible Manager -> Uninstall Audible Manager.
You can also go to Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs (If running Windows Vista or 7 64-bit, select Programs and Features.). Highlight Audible Manager and click on Change/Remove.

3. A few prompts will be presented at this point. The first will ask if you are sure you want to uninstall Audible Manager. Click Yes.
4. The next prompt will ask if you would like to remove all your Audible audio files. This is very important. Click No. Should you click Yes, the Audible content will be deleted and would need to be re-downloaded.
5. The last prompt will indicate that the uninstall process is complete. Click OK.

6. Next go to the following directory: C:\Program Files and delete the Audible folder. (If running Windows Vista or 7 64-bit, the location may be C:\Program Files(x86))

If, when attempting to delete the Audible folder or any of the files with in the Audible folder, you get an error message that says Access is Denied. This can be caused by one of two things, found on steps 7 and 8. If you are able to delete the Audible folder proceed to step 9.

7. Go to the following directory C:\Program Files\Audible\Bin.

8. Delete the Plug-ins folder and delete all the files within the Bin folder with the exception of the AudibleExt.dll file. You will not be able to manually delete the AudibleExt.dll file.

9. Next go to the Windows Start Menu, choose Run and type Regedit.

10. On the window that comes up, click on the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Then click on the plus sign next to Software and delete the Audible Folder. Next, click on the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, and then click on the plus sign next to Software and delete the Audible Folder.

11. Next, click on the plus sign next to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. The lists of subfolders that appear are alphabetized. Scroll past the folders that begin with the "." dot symbol, and locate the folders that begin with the word "Audible". You should see the following Audible folders grouped together. You may not see all of the following folders, delete only the folders with the word Audible in the name:

Audible.ActivateDevice
Audible.CFIO
Audible.DeviceTransfer.1
Audible.DeviceTransfer.1.1
Audible.PgmSchedMgr
Audible.Player
Audible.PlayerControlCtrl.1
AudibleManager

12. Once all of the Audible files and folders are removed, please reboot your computer before re-installing Audible Manager from www.audible.com/sw

This is all well and good up to point 5. After that I'm sorry but they are going to have to try a little harder. For now I am content to just click "No".
Such are the joys of trying to enforce DRM when it is unenforceable and the only people who don't understand this is the publishers who sell DRM-free audio CDs without realizing the irony of also selling it as a DRM download.

Taking up the "Bigger Leaner Stronger" Year One Challenge

I first heard about Michael Matthews in August last year, when I found his audio book "Bigger Leaner Stronger" on Audible. Even though I had been going to the gym for a year already, I wasn't ready to try his 5-day-a-week program. I simply wasn't fit or strong enough.
In January 2015 I increased my workouts from one day a week to two days a week (Friday and Monday) instead of just a single day, and made some progress. I could now perform the Bench Press, Deadlift and Squat exercises (mostly) correctly, and lift approximately 50% of my body weight of 82kg. For me this was great progress, since I have always been of way below average strength. I'm 54. My personal trainer at the gym was hard pressed to figure out ways of teaching me these basic exercises from such a weak start. But we persisted and after 18 months I could start recording "personal best" weights that were approaching my body weight.
By then I had read "Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger" and used Mike's "minimum requirements" for that book as my goal to work towards:

• Squats 175%
• Deadlift 175%
• Bench Press 135%
• Seated Military Press 100% of body weight for 4-6 reps.

Ambitious goals for sure, but realistic ones that I can attain in a few years. When the Second Edition of "Bigger Leaner Stronger" came out, I ordered the print versions of both the BLS book and the companion workout diary, "The Year One Challenge for Men". They arrived at the end of April this year. During May and June I worked through all the new exercises with my personal trainer, and decided to aim to work out every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. That makes 4 days for a 5 day program, meaning that every Friday I would be able to do a different workout under the supervision of my personal trainer. I can't afford a trainer more than one day a week.
Next I realized that my normal note-taking procedure when working out wasn't going to be good enough for the BLS program. So I used my HiSense Android smart phone's software that can edit Excel files on DropBox, called WPS Office. I have created a spreadsheet for the first phase of the program. it lists each exercise for each day, and uses the weight and reps used to recommend what the next week's weight should be, based on the calculated one-rep max from the previous week.

Shown here is a screen shot from my phone for day 5. The sets in blue are warm-up sets, with the target weight in the third column, and the actual weight used in the 4th column. The actual reps are in the next column, next to the target reps. So while you are working out you only need to record the weight and reps performed. From that it will use the standard Epley Formula for a one-rep maximum to calculate the target weights for warm-ups and sets for the following week, based on Mike's recommendation of doing working sets in the 80-85% range. In this way you always make progress and know what your next target is.
The next challenge came when I actually tried to do the exercises. In spite of being used to doing much more than 3 sets on the "big 4" exercises, I found it difficult to jump by a full 5kg when doing Seated Military Press and some of the other exercises. The smallest weight in my gym is 2.5kg, so a barbell can only go from, say 30kg to 35kg. Not a problem for Squats and Deadlifts, but definitely a challenge for Seated Military Press. Without a spotter I just can't manage, and a spotter isn't always available at my gym.

The solution is simple. They are called "fractional weights" and I found a local supplier who could sell me four 1kg plates that fit on the Olympic size barbell I use at the gym. I already had two plates that weigh 0.5kg, so now I can choose any 1kg increment between 30 and 35 kg and not stress about whether I am about to injure myself with an increase that is "too big". If the target weight is 32kg, I have no excuse: I can either lift it or I can't, but I can't blame the gym for not having a 32kg barbell.
So far I have found the first phase of the One Year Challenge tough. Each individual day isn't too bad, but the cumulative effect is pretty hectic. On top of that I have been plagued by a bad cold (it is winter in SA) and an abscess that required 2 days in hospital. So I am only finishing week 2, even though I have done week 1 several times as I learn the exercises. I will be glad when all these interruptions can go away.
Update Friday 3rd July 2015: I have posted a more detailed explanation of the Year One Challenge on my Fact-Reviews website, which includes a download link to the Excel spreadsheet I use, and instructions on how to use it.
Update Tuesday 7th July 2015: Finally made it back to the gym, so we are on track again. I also discovered that the audiobook of Bigger Leaner Stronger has been updated to the second edition, which is now almost 11 hours of useful information.

Audiobook Publishing Lunacy - Averted

Every now and then the monumental stupidity of the publishing industry (and its lawyers) gets under my skin. Take the latest example: Christopher Paolini's book "Inheritance", the final part of the Inheritance cycle (originally a trilogy).
The final book has taken some time to come out, and my wife and I were eagerly awaiting the audio book release today. It may be released in the USA, and I can buy it on the Kindle, but not in audiobook form. Idiots!
So now the race is on: do I find it on the file file sharing networks before the sluggards in the audiobook publishing industry decide to change their minds and take my money? Watch this space. If I get an "illegal" copy before I can buy it legitimately, why should I bother when the "legal" copy becomes available? After all, the publishing industry is booming, just like the rest of the economy.
Update 6.30pm: I found the epub version of the book on both BitTorrent and eMule. So much for that. The audio books shouldn't be much longer.

Update Wed: The publishers won! I have to pay double, but at least I can listen to the books. I'm glad I was wrong ;-)

Why We Get Fat

This book could not have come at a better time for me. Because of my cholesterol levels, I was told in November to cut down my fat intake and eat a more healthy diet. What I wasn't told was that most "low fat" foods replace the fat with sugar or other processed carbohydrates, which are more fattening that the fat itself.
Gary Taubes explains this in his latest book, "Why We Get Fat", which draws from research over the last 100 years, and debunks many popular myths about healthy eating. It's available from Audible. I wish the narrator would not replace the word "causal" with "casual" or "causality" with "casualty" (they mean different things and aren't wrong in the original text) but apart from that the audio book is very readable and accessible, and I have ordered the hardcover book which should arrive next week sometime. I may even lend it to my doctor. Once I have lost or gained weight as a result of changing my eating habits, I'll report back. I have decided not to have any sugar in tea or coffee, and not to eat any bread until my weight goes down to a healthy level.

If you need any motivation to cut down on junk food, sugar, carbohydrates and so on, you could always watch the movie "Supersize Me". Scary.

The phone is in the washing machine. Not good

Mobile phone design has still got a long way to go: why are they damaged by water so easily? I left my phone in my trouser pockets and then put the trousers in the washing machine. After about 20 minutes my wife rescued it and we left it to dry out for a few days. In the meantime I needed a phone.
I found one from a most unlikely source: the Game store in Cresta. Their shop "assistants" are usually noted for their surely disinterest, but this time I managed to find someone who could help, and R760 later I had a smart new Nokia 5130 XpressMusic phone. Unfortunately it has some built-in Vodacom features, but still works fine on the MTN network. Of course MTN were unable to help, being either "out of stock" or the queues were too long. It took a few tries to get the MMS and WAP settings, but I persevered and I'm back on the phone network.
As a laptop owner I really don't see all the fuss over smartphones, as this phone plays podcasts and audio books well, has 2GB of MicroSD storage, and can make calls, and send text messages. It even has an Opera browser although the screen is tiny. It's still good enough for getting the cricket scores though. And it's about 15% of the cost of a smartphone.
Update Wednesday: Now that the phone has dried out it seems to be working, although the screen flickers a bit. I retrieved all my data from the phone, including some cotacts I had lost. I guess the "old" one (8 months of use) is going to get relegated to being a "standby" phone because the 5130 does a better job of playing music files, even though it is half the price. Weird.

Salander's T-Shirt Slogans

I love Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy for various reasons, such as Salander's hacking abilities. But I also think her T-shirt slogans are amazing.

Salander was dressed for the day in a black T-shirt with a picture on it of E.T. with fangs, and the words
"I am also an Alien"

Then there is:
"Armageddon Was Yesterday — Today We Have a Serious Problem."
"I Can Be a Regular Bitch. Just Try Me"
"Kill Them All and Let God Sort Them Out"
"Consider This A Fair Warning"
"You Have The Right To Remain Silent"
and in classic understatement at her trial,
"I Am Annoyed"
The audio books are fantastic, and are well narrated. I can thoroughly recommend them

Buying Books the "New" Way

I agree with the EFF on this one: buying digital books and audio books shouldn't be any different from paper books. And then there is the question of how copyright law has been extended from 18 years to ... forever

Nightmare buying DRM audio books from ClearAudioBooks.com

I really don't mind paying for audio books when I can find them, but this experience has to be the worst so far. I was looking for a J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts book for my wife, but Audible didn't have it, while Borders wouldn't sell it to me. So I found it at ClearAudioBooks.com, an outfit I haven't tried before.
Step 1: The first hurdle was paying for the book. I have resisted using the Verified by Visa system since it was introduced in 2006 because it relied on popups. After going round in circles I was eventually forced to call my bank with an "Error 11" and they enrolled me in the plan, like it or not. So we were off to a good start.
Step 2: Next came the problem of downloading the book. You have to set your download manager to collect only 1 piece at a time, because if you do several pieces then the server gets confused and wastes your time. At 451MB for the 64k version of the book, that's a lot of wasted bandwidth, adding another $5 to the $24.99 purchase price, but I digress.
Step 3: When I tried to play the audio file, I was confronted with yet another hurdle: the Windows Media license nightmare. I'm running Windows Vista and Windows Media Player 11, with all service packs and updates galore. Do it should be a simple case of click on the file to play. Wrong. You have to log in and give a password. It didn't work. See error message at the top of this article. I tried 3 or 4 times.
Step 4: Contact customer support. This is easy because there is a "click here" link hidden away in the bottom right hand corner of the Windows Media login screen. Never mind that the link is for a lost password. Now you have to register on a different system in order to log a support call. Yet another user name and password later, I managed to tell them about the problem. They'll get back to me: Ticket ID: SZQ-150802. No, wait, I have to visit their site to find out the status of the ticket.
Step 5: Keep clicking in desperation. Eventually the verification works on the free The Very Best of BBC Comedy that I also downloaded. I guess they knew I would lose my sense of humour, so they tried to give it back. Eventually it worked, so I tried the purchased book. Another error message:
Step 6: After this message, the book started playing. This is the point that I convert it to MP3 format before the computer changes its mind. Don't you just love how simple DRM technology is? Much easier than buying an MP3 from Simply Audiobooks and downloading it and then clicking "play", don't you think? Now if only they would sell me the book I was looking for ...
Update: When I click on the link to see the status of the ticket, I get an error message: "ERROR: You do not have enough permissions to access this page. Please log in by entering your Email Address and Password." This continues in an endless loop, even though I have logged in with the correct user name and password, supplied by email along with the link. I think I'll have to listen to that BBC comedy again, just to deal with the stress. I think I'll have to send this post as a glowing testimonial for their web site.
Update: I reported the error message to the people who make the "help" desk software, and got the following UNHELPFUL reply:

Yes, you are right, they are using our software but the issue which you have reported could be at their end. There might be a possibility that our client has made some changes in the software settings because of which you are getting this error. Our client will need to report this to us, so that we can take action on it accordingly.
Please note that our software provides both the options i.e. a customer may submit a ticket directly or he/she will need to login to submit a ticket. So, it entirely depends on how a particular client of ours has configured the system.

It's all the client's fault and responsibility to fix the third party software, and there isn't the remotest possibility that the supplier could offer to help, or even express any interest. That's just the kind of service you can expect from the sales team at Kayako Infotech Ltd.

Improve your P2P security

There are a number of reasons why you need to take extra security precautions when using Peer-to-peer (P2P) software. The most obvious is that you are having to trust a whole bunch of people you don't know and can't hold responsible if something goes wrong. Then there are all the P2P parasites, spammers, fake files and poisoners. It's a hacker's dream and a user's nightmare.

Why not P2P?

I'm not trying to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt: but this is a cautionary tale. Especially since many ISPs don't like P2P traffic because it uses up a lot of bandwidth (which we pay for) but they don't want to have to pay for. So they climb on the bandwagon and claim that P2P traffic is mostly illegal, when in fact what they really mean is that P2P traffic is mostly unprofitable. Some ISPs make it a violation of their Terms of Service to do P2P traffic of any kind, others just filter the traffic or interfere with it.
You can download malware or viruses on a P2P network like BitTorrent or eMule. I personally avoid downloading anything that looks like bootleg software, patches or installation CDs. If you can't download it legitimately from www.filehippo.com or from the manufacturer's web site, it's probably not worth using anyway. Most software I buy or test has a free trail period. The only exception I can think of is SpinRite, which has a no-questions-asked money back guarantee. There is also enough Open Source software out there that you can usually find something close to what you need anyway. So software on P2P is a security and quality risk: it's just not worth it, no matter how tempting it may be.
Many people use P2P networks to find music and movies. Again, you have no idea what kind of quality you are getting, and the bandwidth costs can be a factor. Downloading a compressed bootleg DVD can use up anything upwards of 700MB. Since I'm paying R99 per GB and I can rent most DVDs for R25, it just don't see the point. Also, many movie formats can include scripting and other security nasties, so you are taking your PCs health in your hands.
Music is less risky, and the music industry is finally beginning to understand that the sky won't fall in if they sell MP3 files or just give them away. I don't like stealing from the "artists" (actually its the record companies that are robbing them blind) but if I already own the record or cassette tape them I have no qualms about obtaining a digital copy of those songs, especially if they aren't available as an MP3 download.

Why use P2P?

I do have a problem with audio books. I spend over $50 per month on new audio books, but the book industry just doesn't have a clue about digital media, and they have tied themselves up in arcane contracts as badly as the movie industry. We bought all the Harry Potter books, but the digital downloads are still not for sale in South Africa. I can rent the CDs read by Stephen Fry, but not Jim Dale, and haved one so. But I also admit that I downloaded all the Jim Dale versions "illegally" via P2P networks like LimeWire and eMule. Some of the copies were dreadful, but I eventually managed to listen to the entire audiobook series, whether J K Rowlings' publishers like it or not. I bought the print versions, and I would have bought the audio versions on CD if they hadn't been 5 times the price, and if they had been available for purchase.
Again, there are economics involved. If the size of the book is greater than 1GB then its cheaper to buy a legal copy than download a bootleg one. I always try to find a legal copy anyway, because I'm not a leecher and am happy to pay for my hobby. Audible, Borders Audiobooks, Simply Audiobooks and AudioBooksForFree have all sold me books. The last 3 have sold more because they allow me to download MP3 files more often than not.
There are also legal stupidities involved. Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" series now has 7 titles. You can buy books 1-4 and 7 in unabridged form, but I couldn't find books 5 and 6 for sale unabridged at all. Not even the CDs. But some kind soul on BitTorrent allowed me to download both. If I could pay for these copies I would prefer to. When the lawyers and the publishers decide not to boycott their customers, maybe I'll be able to.

Protect Yourself!

Aids activists all say you should use a condom. There are electronic equivalents for your computer: turn of uPnP on your router/modem, turn on your PC firewall, and use a good antivirus like NOD32. But that's just the beginning. I use a facility that block a whole load of bad web sites in my hosts file. It's called HostsMan and it cuts down on annoying ads and malware in browsers. But it can't block bad IP addresses.
For that you need PeerBlock, another free program. It monitors your P2P connections and makes sure you don't connect to any know bad IP addresses. You can get it to block HTTP traffic too, but it also stopped my NOD32 updates from downloading. This wasn't intentional, and I could fix it by using a different download server. Just weird.
eMule also has an IP blocking facility, but the standard ipfilter.dat file is only updated once a month or so, and doesn't stop the spam and fake files. You can update it more often using BlockList Manager, but it's a bit tricky to set up. It was originally designed to work with PeerGuardian, but PeerGuardian has been superseded by PeerBlock, which works well. I use both BlockList Manager and PeerBlock, to be sure, to be sure (Irish joke).

Beat ISP Filtering

My greedy ISP "blocks" all P2P traffic, usually during weekdays from 8am to 6pm. I'm not sure exactly how they do it, other than that eMule stops working properly and loses all its connections. So much for the "S" in ISP. The only way to get round this is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service, such as ItsHidden. This sets up a secure tunnel between your PC and their servers, and the traffic between these two points cannot be analysed or decrypted, and looks just like any other VPN connection. It isn't illegal to use a VPN, and companies do it all the time. ItsHidden has a free VPN as well, so you can try it out and see how it works. Once you have used it for a while, you'll probably want to upgrade to their $9.99 per month paid service, which is faster and offers additional security features.
Their servers are in the Netherlands, so your PC appears to be operating from there. It's weird because when you do a Google search your default Google server is www.google.nl and the buttons are in Dutch. You can set your Google preferences to English quickly enough.
Don't confuse a VPN with a Proxy service. Proxies don't work the same way, and your ISP can still interfere with your traffic. A VPN effectively "relocates" your PC to another country. Its weird, but it works. The connection is a little slower than normal, but at least there is a connection.
Update 20 Sept 2011: I found a really reliable VPN service called SwissVPN that has been a great help. It can use the normal VPN software that comes with Windows, or you can use their OpenVPN client. Fortunately my ISP is being more reasonable with my traffic at present.