OnTrack Available for Download

Monday, June 29, 2009

I blogged yesterday about my first Android application called OnTrack that enables diabetics to track various statistics. Well I wasn't getting much feedback from beta testing so I decided to go ahead and make it generally available for download here. To download the application visit the new OnTrack product page. The application will also be available on the market later this week.

Posted by Gerald Nunn at 7:52 PM | Categories: Android | Permalink |

Android and Diabetes

Sunday, June 28, 2009

As I discussed in a previous post, I have diabetes and require several injections of insulin a day to control my blood sugar level. When I mention that to people they invariably cringe but trust me, it sounds worse then it actually is as the process of testing your blood followed by an insulin injection quickly becomes old hat and routine. Having said that, for a diabetic it is important to track various statistics such as blood sugar level in order to ensure that treatment is progressing well and no untoward trends are occurring. Without historical data it is pretty easy for your blood sugars to creep up on you over time without realizing it.

I recently bought a Google Android phone, the HTC Magic, from my carrier here in Canada, Rogers, and one of the things that attracted me to this phone is the ability to develop applications for it using Java. Considering I have diabetes, a natural first project was to write a program that would allow me to keep track of my statistics on the phone. I previously had a Windows Mobile phone and used a purchased application on that platform but I had several issues with that application such as its inability to remember settings. Now that I could build my own program I could get it working exactly the way I wanted and if it didn't work out I had only myself to blame.

So with that in mind, I sat down and started developing my application and learning Android. Overall, I found the process of developing an application for Android quite painless as the APIs are for the most part quite logical and straight forward. Any experienced Java developer should have little difficulty in learning this platform. There are some areas that could use some additional documentation however a bit of poking arond on the web and some posts to Android forums usually turns up the answer you need.

After a couple weeks worth of work a basic version of my application is now ready and in use on my phone. For those interested, here are a few screen shots of my diabetes application, I hope to put it on the Android market later this week where it will be available for free.

This screenshot shows the main screen of the application, entries are grouped and separated by date.

This screenshot shows the data entry screen. Like most Android applications, you can save an entry simply by pressing the back button.

Finally here is a screenshot that shows one of the available reports, this graph displays your glucose readings over time.

Posted by Gerald Nunn at 9:31 PM | Categories: Android | Permalink |