I spent the last week up in Derbyshire with some friends, although it mostly comprised an entire family clan. The weather was perfect for lots of walking and biking.

Stupidly I pushed myself too hard on one of the days and ended up with some eye trouble. Many hours in various hospitals later I was diagnosed with a Branch Retinal Venous Occlusion - essentially a small stroke leading to haemorrhaging - by the fantastic people at Sheffield Hallam's eye casualty. This isn't in any way normal for someone that isn't crusty so I'm now being seen by Moorfields. Hopefully the haemorrhages will clear in the next couple of weeks and restore the vision in that eye.

It'll teach me to be an early adopter but I've had nothing but troubles with my Nike+ Sportband since I bought one a few months back.

My first one suffered a "bleeding" crystal display:

I sent this back to Sweatshop and they sent me a new one. A week ago, lo and behold, the bleeding display was back. I dropped them a quick mail and they replied saying that there was a known issue with the very first batch of devices and would I like another one or my money back.

So, I've gone for third time lucky! I can't say enough how good Sweatshop have been in sorting all this out.

The Nike+ utility also seemed to have difficulty in realising that not everyone used Pacific Time on their computers, which meant the time on the device was always -8 hours out. v1.1 seems to have fixed this though.

I've heard some other complaints about the calibration not working, but I've not had much trouble with that.

Anyway, I shall hold onto my wallet next time :)

I went to the London Marathon expo last night to check out the Garmin 405 primarily. I have to say that I wasn't impressed. Even though the actual diameter of the bezel is quite small, the initial part of the strap (closest to where it joins the bezel) is rigid - I'm guessing to hold some electronics or the GPS antenna. So, on someone with small wrists like me, it looks pretty stupid as it sticks out the side of your arm!

Also, the touch sensitive bezel seems overly sensitive and a bit clunky to use and reacts to you brushing it (I'd probably knock it against my leg a few times a run!).

All in all, I wasn't impressed so I didn't splurge.

All was not lost though, as Nike were there in force and I had a nice demo from a lady on the stand for the new SportBand which interfaces directly to the Nike+ foot sensor, so no iPod needed. And at £40, I couldn't resist so I've bought one. They do look very sexy indeed and definitely suit the more petite of us.

Pictures of the police presence in the gallery...

So, it's not guide the Aero+ we were expecting, but Nike have released a device that neatly sidesteps the need for an iPod Nano to use Nike+ foot sensors with.

Looks like fun, but I think the Garmin 405 may well be the one for me when it finally arrives.

[via engadget]

I'm liking this lots:

Garmin's new Forerunner 405 puts the 'watch' back in 'GPS watch' - Engadget

I saw the AMP+ in the Nike Town on Oxford Street this afternoon, but I didn't buy it. I figured £60 was a bit too excessive and it doesn't look quite as good in the flesh. Plus, I'm holding out for the Aero+ that has a proper display...

It seems to be on the UK Nike Store, albeit out of stock.

However there only seems to be only the one colour option (unlike the 4 in the US) and it's hugely overpriced: £60 compared to $80. Thanks a bunch Nike wankers.

In the US at any rate - $79 seems pretty good value to me. I'm still waiting for those other Nike+ watches though...

It seems that there have been a few tweaks to the Nike+ UI on the new iPod Nanos. I don't believe that there are any new features, although if you own any of the rather lovely Nike+ running gear the new Nano isn't going to fit in any of the special compartments.

You have to love the FCC - these are the first pictures of the Amp+ along with its manual and other goodies.

I just hope the Flight+ (or Aero+, or whatever it was supposed to be called) with its proper screen appears soon too.

Well done to Linda, Ben, Mark & Piers! It was a scorching day, but I think everyone just about survived!

Pictures in the gallery:

Some pictures in the gallery for you...

I realised that they did (obviously) have support vehicles, just not as many!

As I happened to be passing Niketown on 5th Avenue this morning, I popped in and enquired when I'd be able to get my mitts on the new Nike running watches (Aero+, Flight+ etc.).

The guy there told me "within the next two months, but I'm not supposed to tell". Oh well :)

Two months to wait then!

I'm now a fully fledged author on CPAN :)

My first contribution - WWW::Nike::NikePlus - a module that interfaces to the Nike+ running site which allows you to pull out all your run/goal/challenge data.

Go me.