Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE TURKEY HAS been reduced to bones and there are only wrappers left in the Roses tin, so it’s time now to turn our attention to that old chestnut — the New Year’s resolution.
It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that “lose weight and get fitter” is the number one promise we make to ourselves every time January rolls around, but very few of us actually make it stick. You have to wonder, why not?
I think most people would acknowledge at some level that staying in shape is a good idea, and something we should all be doing. But few truly understand the many amazing benefits of fitness. We all know the basics, that working out strengthens your body and helps you burn fat.
The other benefits to being fit
But did you know that exercise also strengthens your bones, which can help prevent osteoporosis and relieve the symptoms of arthritis? Did you know that it significantly reduces levels of stress hormones while increasing endorphins, making you happier and more resilient?
The effects of keeping fit even spill over into other areas of your life. You’ll find you feel more confident and capable at work, in social situations, and just about everywhere else.
We can all enjoy these benefits, because no matter what your age, gender, current weight, fitness level, physical impairments, personal issues or family situation, there is always something you can do to increase your physical activity. You don’t have to look like a cover model or perform like a sports star. Fitness is for everyone.
I’ve seen this over and over again with my own clients. They come to us in all shapes and sizes — young, old, male, female — and it’s always amazing to be able to help them with their goals and see the incredible transformations they go through. And I’m not just talking about losing a few pounds or shifting a few inches off their waists.
It’s worth keeping your keep-fit resolve
Many of our clients undergo a demonstrable change in attitude as they become fitter. They report feeling better about themselves in general, having a new perspective on life, and even take on challenges they never thought possible.
Case in point: our client Michelle who, despite being an avid swimmer, was slightly out of shape and suffering from back pain. Michelle realised she needed support, and once she reached out to us her fitness immediately began to improve. So much so, in fact, that Michelle ended up competing in the World Masters Swimming Championships in Italy, where she swam personal best times.
Another client, Colette, ran her first 7K after completing her fitness programme — something she would’ve considered impossible the day she joined. Imagine what you could achieve.
New year, new world, no fear
I understand that committing to a lifestyle of healthy eating and exercise might be uncomfortable, overwhelming or even a little scary. But it’s supposed to be — fitness is all about pushing out of your comfort zone and becoming the very best version of yourself that you can be. That’s no small feat, but it’s worth every ounce of the blood, sweat and tears. So here’s my appeal to you:
Many of us resolve to shift the extra few Christmas pounds and keep on top of our fitness in the New Year. The reality is very few make it past the first or second week. This time, be different.
Break the mould. Commit to making fitness a part of your life rather than a means to an end. Stack the deck in your favour by reaching out for the support and accountability you need to make your goals a reality.
You already know what giving up feels like — now see what happens when you don’t.
Carl Cautley is a Certified Personal Trainer, Zest4Life Nutritional Coach and founder of Health & Fitness Together — an industry-leading Private Personal Training Studio in Ranelagh, Dublin. Get in touch with Carl at healthandfitnesstogether.ie or at 01 496 5829.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Redtube! Oh no!
Oh no, now they can look at pictures of my wife’s birthday, for shame internet, for shame.
You do know most people use their computers for more than pics of their wives posing with bingo wings
They don’t it’s the number one usage.
I think thats other peoples wives
Id say your wifes pics are ok. There aint no one that deviant
Bit innocent?
XD So True up with bingo wings down with the rest XD
Got to love how the IT security industry causes fear to spend money. Over hyped this alert.
Anyone like to explain the red thumbs? Sorry if I upset IT security folk with the truth .
Conspiracy theorists are hilarious. Given that the fix for this bug can be applied without immediate cost (excluding the cost of man hours), I don’t see how it could be claimed that the IT Security industry are trying to drum up money. But hey, maybe they should keep their mouth shut and leave the vulnerabilities undeclared, that’d be a lot better
I didnt red thumb it but if a site doesn’t update their protocols then they are effected by loss in traffic and revenue. It doesnt cost us anything.
Ok the bug can be fixed with no cost agreed however most companies will do an immediate security review of their perimeter and intrusion detection systems. Along comes IT security vendor and goes you need this and this and this .
I disagree most sites will lose no traffic as most users will not have a clue of the site is vulnerable or not.
Of course most decent companies will do a security review. That would be the most sensible thing to do. I don’t see how this relates to the IT Security sector drumming up money though. And most large companies would (or should) have in-house security staff on their payroll anyway
The review is nearly always done in conjunction with a security company.
The update is virtually free and there is no way of finding out what data was leaked because of the nature of the bug.
Sure the NSA was using it very happily I bet.
There is an associated cost in fact and a benefit to security companies. Any site that was affected could have had encryption keys for SSL leaked (the bit that gives secure traffic over https) which means that, even after fixing, future traffic is still vulnerable. Hence companies will need to purchase and install new security certificates regardless of whether they know if they have been compromised as this vulnerability leaves no logs or trace.
Apologies for the nerd overload this early in the morning.
Declan, you are seriously underestimating the consequences of this bug. Security companies are as affected by this as are other companies, and security companies don’t stand to make profit from this. In fact, it will cost security companies money to fix vulnerabilities that may exist in the their own security solutions.
Brian… “It doesnt cost us anything.” It does if it’s your data being stolen from the provider.
David, any reputable CA will revoke certs and sign new ones for free. Otherwise the trust model would be broken. The only vendor I know of that is refusing to do this is StartSSL, who wouldn’t be the most reputable anyway.
Yes, in some case the security may involve assistance from security consultants but as has been said below, there is virtually no cause to be charged for new certificates, since it is a flaw in the certificate infrastructure. My (prolonged) point here is that this isn’t a conspiracy by the security sector. They took the time, and probably money to identify this bug. They should be praised for finding it, not accused of looking for extra money. The researchers involved are ridiculously intelligent people, I could only hope to have a fraction of their technical ability someday.
@ Declan – you should quit while you only look like a partial idiot, and not a full blown moron.
Barry I understand the potential consequences but the overall risk is not high. Even the sans dont have it as red in their threat level.
When you have worked as long as me in some of the worlds biggest companies in IT security then you can call me an idiot.
Some day you may work for me :-) in security.
Wow – you work in IT. How exciting. zzzzzzzzz
Overall risk is not high? Are you on drugs? Any application using the vulnerable version of OpenSSL (which is a lot of applications) can have their memory scraped. I seriously doubt you work in IT Security if you don’t understand the significant risk in that.
And of course SANS don’t list it as red. Have you ever actually looked at what the ISC classifications actually mean? https://isc.sans.edu/infocon.html
Careful, Barry – you may end up working for ‘Declan the IT security bigshot’ some day!
“worked as long as me in some of the worlds biggest companies in IT security”
“Some day you may work for me :-) in security.”
Declan, what job did you actually have in the “security” companies? Because I don’t believe you for a second. The level of incompetence you have shown in this thread is astounding for someone who claims to work in IT security.
Where in the Square? ;)
I’d tend to agree with you Declan, most users would not be aware so why should they be cautious. How many people have stopped using ATM machines because their card can be cloned and pin discovered and this is a very well publicised and much understood issue for years.
I was thinking the very same Declan
Re: sites loosing traffic. In the most part they won’t.
Great feature from the Journal where by if you type your password in the comment box is shows up encrypted.
*************
Works very well.
**********
Congratulations you are the 999,999th person to comment on the Journal! Give me all your bank and credit card details to claim your prize!
Oh really?
someonethinksweareallfools999!!
@Emilio
That password is obviously fake.
The are no uppercase characters and 2 exclamation marks together!!
Do you think we are all fools?
But I got me numbers in it!
Love how the journal uses a pic naming a porno site and a torrent site. Who employs these people?
In fairness these sites are used by millions, but yeah creating accounts on them, who knows why?
Considering the cost of SSL certs, and that Heartbleed vulnerability has been present for 2 years, what’s the position where cert providers have been selling something useless?
The CA’s are not responsible for the choice of library that people use in their SSL/TLS deployment. The effectiveness of the CA system is another discussion unrelated to this issue. After all, this bug affects CA-signed and self-signed certs equally if you are using OpenSSL.
And it’s not completely useless if your server will only use ciphers supporting Perfect Forward Secrecy as even if the private key is compromised, captured sessions cannot be decrypted.
Thanks Barry,
Good tip for PFS…
There will be a problem with routers as well as most routers have OpenSSL. So get on to your ISP to update software or if there is a software patch needed for them.
I first learned about Heartbleed from reading thejournal.ie – now I find out that routers are vulnerable.
Thanks 1 Human Being…
This all seems a lot like The Millennium bug affair.I think vested interests are at work
No it does not. You are clueless.
The reason the Millennium Bug didn’t cause the chaos predicted was because of the insane amount of time, money, and resources, spent fixing it in advance. If the fuss wasn’t made it wouldn’t have been fixed and then chaos would have ensued.
And there is absolutely no similarity between this and the Millennium Bug. At all.
The Millennium Bug was a myth that was converted into a money-making scam by certain people in the IT industry.
Absolutely, Barry. The media whipped up a huge fear campaign and when the problem didn’t arise the people who fixed it got all the opprobrium. Should have been the messenger that got shot in that instance!
The millenium bug was real. Systems that had the bug would have presented a whole rosary of issues from minor malfunctions to total breakdowns. They had to be replaced or patched and they were.
You don’t have a clue about IT, do you? Thousands of developers in thousands of companies spent huge amounts of time and effort making sure the Millennium Bug was patched, before it became an issue.
The only reason there were no major systems crashes was because they were so good at their jobs.
By messenger I mean the media.
A supplier got hacked this morning, whixh then sent a “invoice” to me, my IT are working to save my pc right now, no joke. :(
This makes no sense
Site: http://www.thejournal.ie
Server software: nginx/1.0.5
Was vulnerable: Likely (known use OpenSSL)
SSL Certificate: Possibly Unsafe (created 1 year ago at Mar 2 14:35:29 2013 GMT)
Assessment: Wait for the site to update before changing your password
have your say