More Tracking Tools: Health Engage and MyCalorieCounter.com
March 13, 2007
I finally got around to installing Health Engage on my laptop. It shows promise, but a few major issues:
- The user interface is awkward. The food input mechanism would probably get easier as time goes on, assuming you eat the same things frequently.
- It’s a memory hog. If I leave it running on my laptop for more than 12 hours, even if its just sitting there idle, it starts gobbling up virtual memory. 512MB for 2 days worth of data?
- My biggest complaint: the teeny-tiny, non-resizable viewing window. It’s fine for inputting data, but not for viewing reports.
Overall I’m not impressed. I’d be willing to give it a chance if and only if I can import data into it directly from my meter (Freestyle Flash), but I don’t have high hopes that this will be possible since I am still on a Power PC-based Powerbook. I’d be interested to know if any diabetic Mac users out there with Intel-based macs have had luck using PC-only software and data management products with either Boot Camp or Parallels.
Another online tool I took a look at this week was MyCalorieCounter.com. It showed promise, but I never returned to use it because the features that I really needed (nutritional totals per-meal and per-day) are only offered to paid users. How am I supposed to decide if I want to buy your product if I can’t at least have a trial of the features I’m paying for?
So for now I’m sticking with iCal and the occasional FitDay for looking up carbohydrate content. I have a few more tools and websites to try, but I’m losing steam already and will probably just stick with what works, with the exception of giving CalorieKing.com a try for carbohydrate look-ups, and possibly trying the (gasp!) analog Glucograf data sheets recommended by Dr. Bernstein.
Entry Filed under: Macintosh, blood sugar tracking, books, carb counting, diabetes, diet tracking, resources, support, technology, tracking tools, websites. .
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1.
Marston | March 13, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Hrm, good points about HealthEngage. I tried it once and didn’t like it either (A reason I built my own, hah!).
I haven’t seen mycaloriecounter or calorieking before, I might check those out. Thanks for the links.
2.
lancetqueen | March 13, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Hi Marson – your SugarStats site looks really nice! I think it is the first health tracking site I’ve encountered that is Ajax-ified, so I’m excited. I signed up to get an email when it launches.
3.
robot w ashton / bobble | March 13, 2007 at 11:52 pm
I think I am about to cave in and get the paid account for my-calorie-counter.com. I’m a slave to it now…
4.
Marston | March 14, 2007 at 8:14 am
lancetqueen,
I’m glad you like it!
Yeah, the Ajax really helps in the ease-of use I think, makes it much more like a desktop app and helps with speed. At the end of the day we created it to be easy-to-user, simple and efficient. If you like, I can send you an invite to our private beta so you can test it out. Just email me if you’re interested. Have a great day!
5.
Oliver | June 2, 2007 at 1:20 am
Have any of you tried http://www.myfitnesspal.com? I tried my-calorie-counter but liked myfitnesspal better. My-calorie-counter had a few more bells and whistles, but for just the calorie counting functions, I thought myfitnesspal was a lot easier to use. Plus I hate the premium membership stuff and myfitnesspal was 100% free which was nice.