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Anyone who’s had to assemble a large piece of IKEA furniture knows who LONG it can take. To make things more interesting I decided to capture it and share my IKEA expertise with all. So here’s how to build an IKEA bed in under two minutes:

1. Get a GorillaPod for your iPhone and download GorillaCam (free) or iTimeLapse (paid).
2. Set it up somewhere to capture the “assembly zone” and start the capture.
3. Curse and swear at the IKEA parts and instructions for hours
4. Stop capture, assemble video and post to YouTube so everyone can make fun of you.

It’s that easy! Here’s the result:

I’m a big fan of unobtrusive technology -  software, hardware sitting in the background quietly performing some profoundly useful task without blinking, beeping or generally acting like your average 3 year old doing anything to get your attention.  Even in the classroom, I think less is more – smaller laptops, iPods, etc. – devices that don’t make the classroom looks like an aisle in Best Buy but make it look and function like what it’s suppose to be:  a classroom.  I would love to see less devices and more embedded technology like this (though I’d hardly call that “background”).

Now, because of this inclination, I love minimalist interfaces and, of course, the iPhone which has tons of very simple apps that make your life easier, better or generally more fun with very little input.

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time on my road bike.  I’ve been cycling since I was a teenager and never have I seen a sport so over techno-fied (except maybe golf).  Cycling computers can report all kinds of information these days:  your heart rate, speed (in a million different forms), cadence, power, elevation, grade, etc, etc…. it goes on and on.  This information is absolutely critical to professional cyclists riding in the Tour de France, but I’m definitely no Lance Armstrong.  I mostly enter races for fun and to have a goal to train towards.   I always want to get better but for me that usually just involves getting off my butt and riding more.   But of course I, like many others, just can’t help analyzing every ride to see whether I was a tiny fraction better than I was the last ride no matter how irrelevant that information actually is to my amateurish, squeeze-in-between-wife-3 kids-and-job workouts.  My problem is that if I have all that information constantly being reported to me, I obsess over it and forget about enjoying the ride.   But can I let go of that information?  It is useful and motivating in the long run to see where you were and how far you’ve come.

Enter my trusty iPhone and the app iMapMyFitness.  With this app, you press Start and put it away in your jersey pocket.  You can ride, run, mountain bike wherever and however you want, and it records everything:  how fast you went, what route you took, elevation gains, and all kinds of other tidbits.  This way, I can just ride, enjoy the fresh air, great scenery and general burning of my lungs and legs.   Once I get home, I hit Stop and my ride is uploaded to Mapmyfitness.com (a.k.a mapmyrun.com, mapmyride.com) and their legendary training analysis and fitness social networking service.  There I can obsess about it all I want when I’m back in front of my blinking, blipping computer.

2 buttons to press, TONS of value… my kind of technology.