This is our last major release before the end of 2010 and we have three very exciting announcements to make. The holiday vacation season is right around the corner, and we’re releasing new features to help you stay on top of your fitness goals for the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011.

New Year’s Resolutions: Set up your goal and put some money on it!

We want to help you make exercise a big part of the new year, and when you update to CardioTrainer v3.4, you’ll immediately have the chance to set up a New Year’s fitness resolution.

How many times a week do you want to exercise for the next months? Something as simple as five minutes of walking counts! Choose a goal you’re comfortable with, and you if you want to give yourself extra incentive, stake some money to be donated to the charity of your choice if you don’t keep the resolution. After you’ve chosen the amount, you will be quickly redirected to the Android Market to purchase one of our donation modules (you can also continue without staking any money on the resolution).

Once you’ve purchased the donation module, you’re done! The app will tell you how much time you have left and how many workouts you have to do. As long as you keep up with your resolution, you’ll be refunded your original stake at the end of two months. If you don’t keep your resolution, the amount of money will be donated to the charity you chose.

CardioTrainer Twitter Integration

Twitter integration is here! After you’ve exercised with CardioTrainer, you can send a tweet with the details of your workout. All tweets are automatically tagged with the #cardiotrainer hash tag. To share a workout on Twitter, click the Twitter icon at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen (see below).

Brand New CardioTrainer Facebook application!

Following our completely updated Facebook integration, it’s now possible to post workouts to your Facebook profile right from your computer. When you visit apps.facebook.com/cardiotrainer, you’ll see the workout entry screen (seen below) where you can enter your details and immediately post the workout to your Facebook wall. This is a great way to get all of your friends and family to share their exercise activity, even if they don’t have an Android phone!

Since this is a very early version of the CardioTrainer Facebook application, the workout will not be saved to your CardioTrainer account but we’re going to be improving this as we keep working on the feature.

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Download the latest version of CardioTrainer from the Android Market, and share your feedback below!

Happy holidays!
The WorkSmart Labs family

We just released updates to CardioTrainer v3.3 and Calorific v1.3 with some big new features and bug fixes. Here are the details:

CardioTrainer v3.3: Facebook map sharing and Google Health integration improvements

For everyone who has been asking to share their workout maps on Facebook, the wait is over! You now have the option to post your workout to your Facebook wall with a map of your route. Map sharing is optional, of course, and with our new Facebook integration, you can easily pick and choose which workouts you share.

We’ve also improved CardioTrainer’s Google Health integration. Before this update, if you didn’t have service or if there was an error when uploading a track, the workout data was never sent to Google Health. CardioTrainer now knows to resend the information to Google Health, and will retry until the data is successfully uploaded.

We’ve also fixed the bug that turned on GPS while doing workouts that don’t use GPS, like Treadmill Walking and Treadmill Running, to help you save battery life when working out indoors.

There are also new exercise icons for all of the newest exercise types!

Updated CardioTrainer Facebook sharing dialog, new Calorific setings, and new exercise icons.

Calorific v1.3: Logging reminders and Facebook sharing

We designed Calorific as a tool that helps you track how healthy you’re eating. We want the logging process to be painless and quick, but no matter how easy it is, it doesn’t work if you forget to log your food.

With this newest version, Calorific will automatically remind you to log your meals throughout the day. Just open the settings page and select the button to “Enable Logging Reminders.”

Sharing your diet history with friends is also something that we’re hoping will keep you motivated to eat well. Calorific nows gives you the option to post daily or weekly updates to Facebook profile. These updates will show what percentage green, yellow and red food you’ve eaten over the day or week with a pie chart and your 0-5 star rating.

Posting your Calorific progress to Facebook.

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We would love to hear your thoughts on these new features, so please leave us a message in the comments below to share your feedback!

All the best,
The WorkSmart Labs family

“Lunch!” is the rallying cry heard throughout the WorkSmart Labs office everyday at 12:30pm. Since everyone is engrossed in their work, tearing themselves away would be near impossible if it was just typical lunch fare. Luckily, it’s much more than that.

Even when WorkSmart Labs was less than half the size it is now (we’re currently a 10-person team), we recognized the importance of making food and meals available at the office. For that reason, we have always had a chef as part of our full-time staff, someone dedicated to the culinary arts — our own CTO, or Chief of Tasty Operations. At the beginning of 2010, we were very excited to welcome Chef Jane to the WorkSmart Labs family. Over the past year, she has taken the seemingly daunting task of feeding a hungry, growing team and has managed to masterfully whip up something new everyday. Jane is in charge of planning the menu, preparing all of the grocery lists that cover lunch, fruit platters, afternoons snacks and dinner, and then making it all happen.

Having Jane as part of the WorkSmart Labs family is incredibly important to us. Instead of forcing everyone evacuate the office when it’s time to eat, lunchtime is when everyone gets to sit down, take a break from work, spend time together, and even learn something about what we’re eating. Each meal elicits mumbled, full-mouthed exclamations of deliciousness from everyone at the table, always impressed by what Jane has prepared. We want to keep spreading the love and, so we asked Jane to start by sharing two of her recipes, and why she chose them.

We would love for you to try these recipes yourself, and leave a comment letting us know what you think. Please also let us know if you would like to see some more recipes like this in the future!

All the best,
The WorkSmart Labs family

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Vegetable Noodle Soup

Chef Jane says: “This is something I’ve adapted from a recipe from school. It’s simple and soft, but still has lots of taste. Very good for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike. It also helps to cure colds!”

- 2 ribs of celery
- 2 medium carrots
- 1 large onion
- 2 potatoes
- 2 zucchini
- ½ cup of small pasta
- 1 bunch parsley chopped
- 10 cups vegetable stock
- ½ cup lemon juice
- salt & pepper to taste

1) Dice celery, carrots, onion, potatoes and zucchini.
2) In large stock pot combine diced vegetables and vegetable stock.
3) Bring soup to a simmer and cook for approx. 30 minutes.
4) Add small pasta, lemon juice and chopped parsley, then cook for 10 min.
5) Adjust seasoning with sip.

Sweet & Sour Green Bean Salad

Chef Jane says: “This is so tasty because it’s light, fresh and cold. A very nice complement to seafood dishes like shrimp and salmon

Ingredients

- 3 lbs. trimmed green beans
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- 1 fennel thin slices
- 4 tbs. honey
- ½ cup lemon juice
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 bunch mint chopped
- 1 tbs. crushed red pepper flakes
- salt & pepper to taste

How to prepare

1) Place the green beans into boiling water and cook about 5 min., or until tender.
2) Trim root and end of fennel, halve, core and thinly slice.
3) Shred about 2 large carrots (or buy shredded carrots).
4) In a bowl whisk in lemon juice, honey, olive oil and chopped mint and set aside.
5) Mix the green beans, fennel, shredded carrots and pour over the dressing and toss to coat.
6) Adjust seasoning with salt & pepper and sprinkle on red pepper flakes.