Re: GaryG To Offer His Weight Tracking Program For Free (was: The Atheist)

From: GaryG (garyg_at_shasta_SPAMBEGONE_software.com)
Date: 10/22/04 

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:30:42 -0700

"Hi_Therre" <Bruce35@Rosebud.com> wrote in message
news:qbsin0573j3v15huna0d4fcuq7vbnnjg4k@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 12:49:00 -0700, "GaryG"
> <garyg@shasta_SPAMBEGONE_software.com> wrote:
>
> >"Hi_Therre" <Bruce35@Rosebud.com> wrote in message
> >news:n4hin0dr609j54c3ramokha98tv7lhbn22@4ax.com...
> >> On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:25:51 -0700, "GaryG"
> >> <garyg@shasta_SPAMBEGONE_software.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >"MU" <munospam@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
> >> >news:8aykg3c25yku.1c0z4dlrdvil7.dlg@40tude.net...
> >> >> On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 08:28:38 -0700, GaryG wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> > What a cute little fairy tale. Thanks for sharing.
> >> >>
> >> >> Welcome. We *give* freely. How about offering *your* weight tracking
> >> >> program, at no charge, to anyone who reads Usenet. Chung even gave
the
> >> >> 2PDiet away to the Governor of Georgia, no fee attached. Never has
> >charged
> >> >> a soul and neither have I.
> >> >>
> >> >> Whaddya say, GG?
> >> >
> >> >Sorry, dear MU. Although I do donate quite a bit of my time and
software
> >> >development talents to various non-profit organizations, my WeightWare
> >> >program ( http://www.WeightWare.com ) is one of my sources of income.
As
> >> >such, I cannot afford to give it away for free.
> >> >
> >> >Do you have a job? If so, do you give away your time for free?
> >> >
> >> >GG
> >> >http://www.WeightWare.com
> >> >Your Weight and Health Diary
> >> >
> >>
> >> My Health software does almost the same thing. Plus my software is
> >> Free.
> >
> >My compliments...for freeware, that's a pretty good looking program
(except
> >for the MSChart control which always seems to produce "muddy" text - I
>
> Boy, are you correct. MSChart has lots of problems which I had to
> learn the hard way. It also produces a crappy graph. It only allows
> me to put up four data lines on one chart, very limiting function.
>
> How much did chartfx cost you?

Can't recall...it lists for $599 but I think you can get a better price from
some of the component vendors. The product is very flexible and very good
(although it does take some time to learn it's peculiarities). Check out
softwarefx.com - the version you want is
http://www.softwarefx.com/SFXComProducts/CfxClientServer/

>
> >dumped that control about a year ago in favor of ChartFX from
> >SoftwareFX.com). Your app seems more focused on diabetes, while mine is
>
> I created it under the theme of diabetes, since that is what I have,
> but is moving in other areas.
>
> >more about understanding and tracking weight loss although there is some
> >overlap (e.g., WeightWare tracks blood glucose, but not A1C - your
program
> >tracks weight, but does not have a goal setting feature, nor does it
> >calculate trends).
>
> Why spend time worrying about Trends with weight loss? A waste of
> time. Weight loss is slow. You use trend analysis for erratic
> movements like BG's and maybe BP, not weight.

I disagree, precisely because weight loss is slow (and because body weight
fluctuates quite a bit from day to day). If I can determine that my weight
loss trend for the last 90 days has been -100 calories per day, that tells
me something important. Successful long-term weight loss is best achieved
by maintaining a small, but consistent, daily calorie deficit. Knowing what
your recent trend has been can help with this process. And, being able to
see changes in the trend can also provide advanced warning for when a weight
loss plan is getting off track. If my 30-day trend has been around -250
calories per day, but now it's moving up towards -100 calories per day, this
tells me my weight loss is getting off track and I need to take corrective
action before I find myself gaining weight.

> >
> >The user interface is also pretty good, if a bit rough in spots (e.g.,
the
> >first time startup questions are pretty confusing, and the use of option
> >buttons to launch the various features is non-standard).
>
> True. But it is simple and very functional.
>
> >
> >I did notice one bug - when I recorded two weight entries, the program
> >truncates the "Weight Change" column to an integer value. With the
> >popularity of digital scales, this seems unnecessary and confusing. For
> >instance, I recorded 175.2 lbs one day, and 173.6 lbs the next day (a
loss
> >of 1.6 lbs), but the program reported the weight change as "-1" lb.
> >
>
> A valid point. An easy fix. Thanks for the heads up.

No worries...it's another example of how programmers make the worst software
testers (and I am definitely NOT excluding myself from that
characterization!).

I also noticed that the summary weight change grid (Last 14 days, Last 30
days, etc.) is displaying 6 decimal places - looks like some sort of
rounding issue (I've had to implement my own rounding functions to deal with
this, as VB tends to do this frequently when displaying double precision
floating point numbers).

Just out of curiosity, have you ever considered selling your software? It
seems to me to have some commercial potential.

BTW - for a real hair-pulling challenge, try adding support for British
units of weight (Stone and Lbs). What a nightmare that was!

GG