.KEYWORD pplte0700
.FLYINGHEAD LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
.TITLE Avoid insulin shock and fix your clock
.DEPT
.SUMMARY Diabetes and time traveling Palm devices are the subjects of this month’s edition of Letters to the Editor. PalmPower’s Editor-In-Chief David Gewirtz answers a distress call from a diabetic woman wondering if there’s an application available that can help her track her medication, and Senior Technical Editor Claire Pieterek finds the solution to an undocumented Palm OS bug.
.EDNOTE Diabetes and time traveling Palm devices are the subjects of this month’s edition of Letters to the Editor. PalmPower’s Editor-In-Chief David Gewirtz answers a distress call from a diabetic woman wondering if there’s an application available that can help her track her medication, and Senior Technical Editor Claire Pieterek finds the solution to an undocumented Palm OS bug.
.H1 Diabetic needs help
I’m an insulin dependent diabetic who has to track medication, food amounts, and exercise throughout the day. I carry around a large book to write all this stuff in, as well as to refer to various numbers and sets of data. I think a handheld is the answer to my prayers. However, I don’t know any smart, techie kids, and the local stores can’t answer my questions about what to use either.
I want to find a device with a software program established by the glucose meter manufacturer that I could download to a PC. (When I asked them if they knew what I wanted, they laughed, said they never heard of the Palm device, and wished me well.)
I’m a great touch typist and need to write data quickly; data includes number, food types and amounts, exercise, etc. I also want to be able to track the information, graph it, and use it to manage medication doses.
I would appreciate any advice or suggestions you have.
Thank you so much,
Carole Jay
.H2 Editor-In-Chief David Gewirtz responds
There’s a product that’s designed for diabetes management that runs on Palm OS devices like the Palm IIIe and the Handspring Visor. It’s called GlucoPilot and is available at http://www.dietlog.com/glucopilot.html.
According to the company’s Web site:
.QUOTE GlucoLog is a diabetes management application for Palm devices. GlucoPilot increases your diabetic control by tracking your blood sugars, insulin, and carbohydrate intake. GlucoPilot allows you to filter and categorize your blood sugar records and compile reports, charts, and graphs.
.QUOTE Millions of Diabetics around the world check their blood sugar between four and six times a day and store these records in paper logbooks. A diabetic’s blood sugar records are easily as important to them as their DateBook, ToDo List, or Addresses. GlucoPilot brings this record keeping and logbook functionality to the PalmPilot. GlucoPilot also adds features like pie, line, scatter, and histogram charting, filter by record type and category, and export of records in CSV (Comma Separated Values).
We haven’t heard much from users on the product, so be sure to test it carefully. Let us know if it works for you.
Hope that helps. Have fun and stay young at heart!
.H1 Trouble with a time traveling Palm device
My Palm IIIx keeps reverting back to yesterday’s date. I keep having to go into Preferences to change it back to today, especially after a weekend.
Any idea why?
Denise Amrich
.H2 Senior Technical Editor Claire Pieterek responds
Denise, there seems to be an undocumented bug in the Palm OS. I’ve seen much discussion of this topic on the newsgroups, but I couldn’t find anything more than anecdotal evidence.
Fortunately, there’s an easy and inexpensive way to resolve this problem. It’s called DayLossFix, and it’s available from http://www.rgps.com. For any Palm device user with an amnesia-prone handheld, DayLossFix is more than worth the $5 registration fee.
I emailed DayLossFix’s author, Ronald Goulding, to see if he could fill me in about this problem. This is what he had to say:
.QUOTE I don’t know exactly what bug exists in the Palm OS that causes the problem. Everyone that complained about the problem stated that it occurs when they don’t use the Palm device for several days.
.QUOTE I suspect the programmer that posted the message guessing that the Palm OS must mark a flag as the time rolls past midnight for some other part of the code to later advance the date and that if the device is not used for more than a 24 hour period, then the flag cannot indicate that the day rolled twice so the day is lost. That sounds feasible.
.QUOTE Okay, so you’re asking, "How can you have programmed a fix for a problem that you don’t fully understand?" I fixed it by getting rid of the condition that causes it. I silently wake the device and put it back to sleep once a day to assure that the day is not lost.
I hope that answers your question, Denise.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on GlucoPilot, visit http://www.dietlog.com/glucopilot.html.
For more information on DayLossFix, visit http://www.rgps.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
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