Recent Posts by Simon - DAFNE Online

May 27, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries

Ok I'll look at how I might implement an auto calc option, would anyone rather have the current method than an auto calc one? (If so I'll implement both).

Simon

May 27, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Entry type

Hi Lee,

I've added the correctional dose type for you. Your other request will take a bit of time, I'll put it in my to-do list, however I'm splitting my time between my day job, creating DAFNE Online for the iPhone and and maintaining the site. I will work on this for you too and let you know when it's done!

Cheers,

Simon

May 22, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries

Is anybody else experiencing this? It may be that we need to look at a better web host which can handle more people. Amanda - which web browser are you using? It seems to be posting twice for you every time you post a forum message. Also, is it only at certain times of weekend that you experience this?

May 21, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries

Hi Amanda, how do you mean they crash? What do you see when this happens/what are you doing on the site at the time?

May 21, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries

Hi Steven,

I've added the Snack option to the drop down for you. I'll take a look at sorting your other requests over the weekend. How do you currently record alcohol? Units?

Thanks,

Simon

May 1, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / My Diary For First Week Of Dafne

A couple of things here - I sometimes find that if your BG is above 11, then the insulin seems to bring them down by less than the expected 2-3mmol/l per unit of QA insulin, so a bigger correction may be needed.

Also - if you want to share your entire online diary with each other, you can click a user's name and select the 'Share my DAFNE Diary' link on their page.

Thanks,

Simon

Apr 30, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Online Diarys

Hi Marie,

Try entering the correction without spaces, e.g. '8+4' rather than '8 + 4'.

Thanks,

Simon

Mar 23, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Iphone Apps

Not sure you can test it as I have to get it approved on the app store, so you can't test until it's available for download, if you see what I mean. The exception to this is getting an 'Enterprise' developer account which costs Â£300 with Apple so it's something I just can't afford. Plus - if it's on the app store it will be advertising for this site.

Let me know what other features you guys need and I'll try and get them in. Those already mentioned seem pretty do-able. In the meantime you are able to access this site's CP list through the browser on your phone, especially formatted for display on small screens (obviously you need an internet connection for this though)

Mar 23, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Iphone Apps

Hi Marc, I'm currently working on an iPhone version of DAFNE Online, which will contain the site's carb list and diary functions - this should be arriving in the next couple of months so watch this space!

Mar 17, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Bayer Contour USB Meter

Nothing really to comment on the changing meter debate - my UltraSmart is looking pretty tired now, but I'd probably just exchange for a new one of them. Though I do like gadgets, so given something more high tech I may change my mind ;)

On Ruby - yes the site is coded in Ruby so both Mark and I have some experience in it. I wonder how we would package a Ruby app - there is an interpreter that needs to be installed before it can be 'run' so would users need to install this to run it? I've not had experience of making Ruby desktop apps so can't comment on that... Yet.

On the Contour USB meter - I'm sure they have some sort of API (Java, Proprietary or Otherwise) to interface with a meter, it's just a matter of getting hold of it (legitimately or otherwise).

Mar 12, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Bayer Contour USB Meter

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programming/Serial_Java#Using_Java_for_Serial_Communication

I've only skimmed this page but it seems you can use javax.comm which is platform independent, and rxtx which provides the platform-specific libraries.

Mar 7, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / DAFNE Online iPhone application - help with content/design needed

Hi all,

I'm currently finishing my learning with regard to making iPhone applications, and am looking to start making an iPhone app for DAFNE Online very soon. As I'm starting from scratch I'd like to ask for your help in how it should look and work.

First of all - I think the two key features are the Carb Counting list, and Diary. Does anyone have anything else that they would like to see in the first version of an iPhone application?

Next - iPhone users are all familiar with the User Interface of the phone, and I'd like some guidance as to how you'd like to interact with the CP List and Diary on the phone - what navigation mechanisms have worked well in other applications, and what makes it easiest for you to get around (if you have any application examples you really like then let me know too).

Finally - if anyone have iPhone development experience and would like to get involved, by all means drop me an email ([email protected]) or private message.

Let iDiscussions commence!

Simon

Mar 4, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Forum improvments

It depends on which web browser you use - Firefox and Google Chrome both have this feature, whereas Internet Explorer doesn't (I don't think). I'll have a look into what we can do to help though Paul.

Cheers

Mar 1, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Meter Upload Development

Yep - if you click on an entry on the diary display you can edit it from there. Not sure how well it works with our RESTful XML side of things so I'll test it out and let you know.

Cheers

Mar 1, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Meter Upload Development

NiVZ,

Re problem 1 - the diary should merge the data, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Problem 2 - it may be worth adding an 'updated at' field to each diary entry so that we can record when it was last updated - will this help?

Simon

Mar 1, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / exporting diary entries

Thanks for the info Karl - it may be worth us adding a CSV export function onto the diary too to make things easier, rather than requiring a download of something else.

John - not sure about this, I'd assumed as it was an HTML table excel would handle it nicely, obviously not so my apologies. I'll work on the above to make it simpler.

Simon

Feb 27, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / exporting diary entries

John - you should be able to copy and paste the results from the summary view into an Excel spreadsheet, rather than typing them in. I'll put an XML export for the summary on our to do list as well. It's quite difficult to do an Excel (.xls) export as the way Microsoft structures its data in Excel is hard to create without using Excel, if that makes sense.

Feb 26, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Rationale - Please read

I'm currently learning how to make iPhone apps - requires a different programming language which I've not used before. I'm getting more familiar though so hopefully you'll be seeing a DAFNE iPhone app in the coming months.

Feb 14, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / DAFNE strapline poll

Hi, the results are available now and have been shared with the DAFNE Executive. You can see them on the poll page or via this link

Feb 12, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / Is life expectancy limited for diabetics?

Hi Mike,

I'd add to Peter's comments too - you mention that a radio show stated that most diabetics die from the complications. I know when I was diagnosed a large proportion of diabetics (90%+ I think) were Type 2, and Type 1s were definitely in the minority. Type 2 diabetes is often diagnosed as a result of finding complications, which means they are already there and affecting the person, e.g. neuropathy, retinopathy, heart problems etc., whereas people with Type 1 are diagnosed with the symptoms of high blood sugar (chronic thirst, tiredness, etc.). The good news there is that Type 1 people can guard against and avoid the complications by keeping their blood sugars under control - something DAFNE definitely helps with.

I guess the bottom line here is don't worry too much - the media seems to lump all people with diabetes together which is simply not fair - we are all different, with different types, different regimes, complications and lifestyles. If you take care of yourself and look after your blood sugars you should live a long, happy and complication free life.

Simon

Feb 9, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries

Good news - you now have a drop down next to the ratio selection box with your previously used ratios - hope this makes things easier for you.

Also, you can now specify an injection site - if i've missed any then let me know. You can't currently see any graphs for this or it represented on the diary display (would you want to), however in time these will come too!

Let us know if we can do anything else/differently.

Simon

Feb 8, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries

Done - 15 it is! Good luck with the pregnancy Smile

Feb 7, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries

Hi Guys, thanks for your requests. With regard to the ratios, it seems people want more automation there, whether it's a drop-down box or using the last entered ratio. Whilst we're happy and willing to add functionality, we want it to be of use to everyone, so we need to get this right. Some things to think about:

If it's using a drop-down box we need to cater for everyone, as whereas I might input my ratios as 1:2 say, john may input them as 0.5 instead so that could prove difficult. One possibility may be to have a drop-down box which has all of the ratios that you personally have already used, with the option to enter text manually thus adding a new ratio. How does this sound?

I'd also be happy to add a calculation that automatically populated the ratio field based on the contents of the QA and CP fields. Not all people would want this though so we'd have to make it optional I guess. Would people want this?

A final option is to use the last used ratio. The problem here is if it's based on the last ratio for a specific type - what happens when you change the type in the dropdown box, will it automatically update the ratio based on this?

Just some things to think about on the ratios - this is your site though so let me know what you want and we'll make it so! Smile

With regard to the injection sites - sure thing, shouldn't be too hard to put on the entry form, may be trickier to ad a 'graph' but we'll do what we can there.

RachelA - how many entries per day are you in need of? The limitation is there because if there's too many entries in a day this might make the diary display look a bit dodgy, but if you can live with that then so can we!

Thanks for reading,

Simon

Feb 7, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / DAFNE strapline poll

Yep sure thing, if you vote again you'll just overwrite your previous vote!

Feb 6, 2010

Simon 578 posts

Topic: General Discussion / DAFNE strapline poll

We've just modified the poll to allow you to vote for the original one being kept. Also, you don't have to use all four ranks now, so if you only had 2 favourites you could use ranks 1 and 2 (you can't have duplicates though).

Hope this helps!

May 27, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries Ok I'll look at how I might implement an auto calc option, would anyone rather have the current method than an auto calc one? (If so I'll implement both). Simon

May 27, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Entry type Hi Lee, I've added the correctional dose type for you. Your other request will take a bit of time, I'll put it in my to-do list, however I'm splitting my time between my day job, creating DAFNE Online for the iPhone and and maintaining the site. I will work on this for you too and let you know when it's done! Cheers, Simon

May 22, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries Is anybody else experiencing this? It may be that we need to look at a better web host which can handle more people. Amanda - which web browser are you using? It seems to be posting twice for you every time you post a forum message. Also, is it only at certain times of weekend that you experience this?

May 21, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries Hi Amanda, how do you mean they crash? What do you see when this happens/what are you doing on the site at the time?

May 21, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries Hi Steven, I've added the Snack option to the drop down for you. I'll take a look at sorting your other requests over the weekend. How do you currently record alcohol? Units? Thanks, Simon

May 1, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / My Diary For First Week Of Dafne A couple of things here - I sometimes find that if your BG is above 11, then the insulin seems to bring them down by less than the expected 2-3mmol/l per unit of QA insulin, so a bigger correction may be needed. Also - if you want to share your entire online diary with each other, you can click a user's name and select the 'Share my DAFNE Diary' link on their page. Thanks, Simon

Apr 30, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Online Diarys Hi Marie, Try entering the correction without spaces, e.g. '8+4' rather than '8 + 4'. Thanks, Simon

Mar 23, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Iphone Apps Not sure you can test it as I have to get it approved on the app store, so you can't test until it's available for download, if you see what I mean. The exception to this is getting an 'Enterprise' developer account which costs Â£300 with Apple so it's something I just can't afford. Plus - if it's on the app store it will be advertising for this site. Let me know what other features you guys need and I'll try and get them in. Those already mentioned seem pretty do-able. In the meantime you are able to access this site's CP list through the browser on your phone, especially formatted for display on small screens (obviously you need an internet connection for this though)

Mar 23, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Carbohydrate Counting / Iphone Apps Hi Marc, I'm currently working on an iPhone version of DAFNE Online, which will contain the site's carb list and diary functions - this should be arriving in the next couple of months so watch this space!

Mar 17, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Bayer Contour USB Meter Nothing really to comment on the changing meter debate - my UltraSmart is looking pretty tired now, but I'd probably just exchange for a new one of them. Though I do like gadgets, so given something more high tech I may change my mind ;) On Ruby - yes the site is coded in Ruby so both Mark and I have some experience in it. I wonder how we would package a Ruby app - there is an interpreter that needs to be installed before it can be 'run' so would users need to install this to run it? I've not had experience of making Ruby desktop apps so can't comment on that... Yet. On the Contour USB meter - I'm sure they have some sort of API (Java, Proprietary or Otherwise) to interface with a meter, it's just a matter of getting hold of it (legitimately or otherwise).

Mar 12, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Bayer Contour USB Meter http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programming/Serial_Java#Using_Java_for_Serial_Communication I've only skimmed this page but it seems you can use javax.comm which is platform independent, and rxtx which provides the platform-specific libraries.

Mar 7, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / DAFNE Online iPhone application - help with content/design needed Hi all, I'm currently finishing my learning with regard to making iPhone applications, and am looking to start making an iPhone app for DAFNE Online very soon. As I'm starting from scratch I'd like to ask for your help in how it should look and work. First of all - I think the two key features are the Carb Counting list, and Diary. Does anyone have anything else that they would like to see in the first version of an iPhone application? Next - iPhone users are all familiar with the User Interface of the phone, and I'd like some guidance as to how you'd like to interact with the CP List and Diary on the phone - what navigation mechanisms have worked well in other applications, and what makes it easiest for you to get around (if you have any application examples you really like then let me know too). Finally - if anyone have iPhone development experience and would like to get involved, by all means drop me an email ([email protected]) or private message. Let iDiscussions commence! Simon

Mar 4, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Forum improvments It depends on which web browser you use - Firefox and Google Chrome both have this feature, whereas Internet Explorer doesn't (I don't think). I'll have a look into what we can do to help though Paul. Cheers

Mar 1, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Meter Upload Development Yep - if you click on an entry on the diary display you can edit it from there. Not sure how well it works with our RESTful XML side of things so I'll test it out and let you know. Cheers

Mar 1, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Meter Upload Development NiVZ, Re problem 1 - the diary should merge the data, so that shouldn't be an issue. Problem 2 - it may be worth adding an 'updated at' field to each diary entry so that we can record when it was last updated - will this help? Simon

Mar 1, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / exporting diary entries Thanks for the info Karl - it may be worth us adding a CSV export function onto the diary too to make things easier, rather than requiring a download of something else. John - not sure about this, I'd assumed as it was an HTML table excel would handle it nicely, obviously not so my apologies. I'll work on the above to make it simpler. Simon

Feb 27, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / exporting diary entries John - you should be able to copy and paste the results from the summary view into an Excel spreadsheet, rather than typing them in. I'll put an XML export for the summary on our to do list as well. It's quite difficult to do an Excel (.xls) export as the way Microsoft structures its data in Excel is hard to create without using Excel, if that makes sense.

Feb 26, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: DAFNE Online Mobile / Rationale - Please read I'm currently learning how to make iPhone apps - requires a different programming language which I've not used before. I'm getting more familiar though so hopefully you'll be seeing a DAFNE iPhone app in the coming months.

Feb 14, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / DAFNE strapline poll Hi, the results are available now and have been shared with the DAFNE Executive. You can see them on the poll page or via this link

Feb 12, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / Is life expectancy limited for diabetics? Hi Mike, I'd add to Peter's comments too - you mention that a radio show stated that most diabetics die from the complications. I know when I was diagnosed a large proportion of diabetics (90%+ I think) were Type 2, and Type 1s were definitely in the minority. Type 2 diabetes is often diagnosed as a result of finding complications, which means they are already there and affecting the person, e.g. neuropathy, retinopathy, heart problems etc., whereas people with Type 1 are diagnosed with the symptoms of high blood sugar (chronic thirst, tiredness, etc.). The good news there is that Type 1 people can guard against and avoid the complications by keeping their blood sugars under control - something DAFNE definitely helps with. I guess the bottom line here is don't worry too much - the media seems to lump all people with diabetes together which is simply not fair - we are all different, with different types, different regimes, complications and lifestyles. If you take care of yourself and look after your blood sugars you should live a long, happy and complication free life. Simon

Feb 9, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries Good news - you now have a drop down next to the ratio selection box with your previously used ratios - hope this makes things easier for you. Also, you can now specify an injection site - if i've missed any then let me know. You can't currently see any graphs for this or it represented on the diary display (would you want to), however in time these will come too! Let us know if we can do anything else/differently. Simon

Feb 8, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries Done - 15 it is! Good luck with the pregnancy

Feb 7, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: Site Development / Online BG Diaries Hi Guys, thanks for your requests. With regard to the ratios, it seems people want more automation there, whether it's a drop-down box or using the last entered ratio. Whilst we're happy and willing to add functionality, we want it to be of use to everyone, so we need to get this right. Some things to think about: If it's using a drop-down box we need to cater for everyone, as whereas I might input my ratios as 1:2 say, john may input them as 0.5 instead so that could prove difficult. One possibility may be to have a drop-down box which has all of the ratios that you personally have already used, with the option to enter text manually thus adding a new ratio. How does this sound? I'd also be happy to add a calculation that automatically populated the ratio field based on the contents of the QA and CP fields. Not all people would want this though so we'd have to make it optional I guess. Would people want this? A final option is to use the last used ratio. The problem here is if it's based on the last ratio for a specific type - what happens when you change the type in the dropdown box, will it automatically update the ratio based on this? Just some things to think about on the ratios - this is your site though so let me know what you want and we'll make it so! With regard to the injection sites - sure thing, shouldn't be too hard to put on the entry form, may be trickier to ad a 'graph' but we'll do what we can there. RachelA - how many entries per day are you in need of? The limitation is there because if there's too many entries in a day this might make the diary display look a bit dodgy, but if you can live with that then so can we! Thanks for reading, Simon

Feb 7, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / DAFNE strapline poll Yep sure thing, if you vote again you'll just overwrite your previous vote!

Feb 6, 2010 Simon 578 posts	Topic: General Discussion / DAFNE strapline poll We've just modified the poll to allow you to vote for the original one being kept. Also, you don't have to use all four ranks now, so if you only had 2 favourites you could use ranks 1 and 2 (you can't have duplicates though). Hope this helps!