Is your tech job killing you?

Even if you love your job, if you're sitting at a desk all the time, it turns out that your job may be slowly killing you. The Washington Post put out an article in their Health & Wellness section titled Desk jobs can be killers, literally a couple of weeks ago.

I'll sum it up for you: the longer you sit during the work day, no matter what you're doing while you're sitting, the worse it is for your health.

I got to thinking about this in regards to some of my colleagues. Many of them are developers. They work long hours and rarely take breaks. Most of them are also overweight, by a little or a lot. But, even if you're not very overweight, if you sit at your desk for hours at a time without getting up to take a break and stand, stretch, or walk around, you are shortening your lifespan by years, according to the study cited in the article.

According to the study, each full hour of sitting may take off as much as 22 minutes from your life. This may not seem like a lot until you consider that six hours per day = five years less on your lifespan.

And, it doesn't matter if you go to the gym for an hour, speed walk for an hour, or go jogging with the dog. None of these things had a noticeable positive effect.

I feared for my co-workers' health a little bit prior to reading this article. Now, I fear for them a lot, especially since I have noticed several of them, some who were previously of a healthy weight, looking markedly wider on web conferences of late.

There is good news, though. If you get up and move around at least once an hour, even just a little and only for a few minutes or so, you can start to halt the problem. Myself, I can no longer sit for much longer than 45 minutes. I can actually feel my butt starting to mold to the seat cushion, and I have to get up and move around a little.

So, here are some suggestions:

1. If you have your Kuerig next to your computer, move it immediately. Move it upstairs or across the room. Just put it someplace where you have to get up to make coffee.
2. If you work in a cubicle farm, set a reminder on your Outlook calendar, iPhone, Blackberry, whatever, for each hour and then go for a walk around the cubicles when it chimes. This also works for those that work from home, provided you don't live in a studio apartment.
3. Do squats, calf raises, or just stand during conference calls, provided a webcam isn't required. If you have mobility problems, use you desk or chair to support yourself.

Point is, there's no real reason that our tech jobs have to be the death of us. Get up, move. Your coding and testing will still be there when you sit down again. You will probably find that a little exercise helps to focus your attention better on the task at hand. I know I do.

The digital media conundrum

How many times have we heard from tech pundits that physical media like CDs, DVDs, game discs, and books will soon be a thing of the past, all replaced by downloadable content? And yet, people continue to purchase all of the above in defiance of these predictions.

Microsoft recently got a particularly bitter dose of the reality that people still love their physical media and will fight to hold onto it. Despite the calls during the XBox One debacle for people to just "get over it" and step into the future of games, music, etc., those of us who still purchase physical media more often than digital content won out.

Are we just old-fashioned? Are we afraid of the future? Maybe to a small degree, but it clearly goes beyond that. I continue to purchase physical media for two reasons: I still like how these physical items, books especially, feel in my hands, and no one can tell me I don't "own" something that is sitting on my shelf.

Maybe it is quaintly old-fashioned of me to still love how a book feels and smells, but I'm ok with that. It's also a documented fact that we absorb information written on a page more fully than information displayed on a digital screen. I don't know why that is - maybe the scroll bar makes it too tempting to skim the digital page - but clearly books and notepads still have a solid market. And, when it comes to a graphic novel, a glossy page in your hands is naturally high definition. Even a Retina display won't top that.

As for games, DVDs, and the like, the idea that I would relinquish my ownership rights of something I purchased in favor of the "convenience" of downloading this content is one that makes me decidely uncomfortable.

In our house, we don't have cable. We cut that cord a couple of years ago, and for the most part, we haven't looked back. We get our TV shows and movies streamed from Netflix and Amazon. But, even so, we still have a large collection of DVDs and BDs. In fact, I just got a very nice boxed-set of all four of the Inuyasha movies that has an honored spot on our bookshelves. (It has a wooden box of all things - SO old-fashioned, but oh-so-nice.)

We've rented a couple of titles from Amazon to supplement the free Prime items and what's available for streaming on Netflix, but so far, we've only purchased one item from the Amazon catalogue. That single purchase was simply because there was no rental option, and we really, really wanted to watch that title.

I have yet to purchase one bit of downloadable content for the PS3, although there are definitely titles that are no longer available as physical discs or supplemental content that I've strongly considered purchasing. I just haven't gotten around to it yet... And, the great majority of music on my MP3 is music that I own on CD. I just like it better that way. These things can't suddenly vanish from my life thanks to a computer crash, a problem with my online account, or a company no longer hosting what I previously purchased.

To anyone or any company who says we should just deal with the idea of physical media going away, I say they need to deal with the idea that that day is not today or tomorrow or any day in the very near future. So, get over that.

5 reasons why I'd be more excited about a Google watch

I think I'm not alone in my apathy toward the media coverage of Google Glass released in the wild to select "lucky" individuals. Personally, I have never once wondered how I could get my own hands on Google Glass. If offered a pair to try out, most likely, I'd politely turn them down.

I am more excited about the Google smartwatch rumors that have been floating about since March. I was disappointed when there was no mention of a smartwatch during the hours-long Google I/O keynote this past week. Of all the best times to announce that a smartwatch product is in the works, that was the best of them.

No such luck.

There are just so many flaws in the Google Glass concept, and so many possibilities with a Google smartwatch concept. Here are my five reasons for favoring a smartwatch over smartglasses: