Dr. Spock Would Be Proud - Tracking Your Baby with BabyTracker [Archive]

Ed Hansberry

07-18-2003, 01:00 PM

<a href="http://www.mantiev.com/">http://www.mantiev.com/</a> That is Dr. Spock, not Mr. Spock, although he would be proud too if he had any emotions. ;) "If you want to be a better parent and you want to keep, organize information about your baby, track his/her development at anywhere and anytime. The BabyTracker for Pocket PC is right solution for you. BabyTracker is the first line of parenting tools designed to easily capture and track the important information of baby. With BabyTracker parents and caregivers can easily organize care information about their baby." <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20030718-babytracker.gif" /> Any expectant parents out there? This would be a good substitute for the typical baby book. There is a trial version and you can buy it for $19.95. It requires an ARM processor to run, so it should be ok on iPAQs with Pocket PC 2000 and any 2002 or higher device. There is no limit on the numbers of babies it supports.

Reza

07-18-2003, 01:47 PM

This is so well-timed! We are expecting our first baby in about a month… so I'm gonna give this software a try! :D Thanks Ed!

Jimmy Dodd

07-18-2003, 02:04 PM

I would have loved this about 4 1/2 years ago. We had spiral bound notebooks, calendars with little stickers, and baby books to log stuff in. Trying to organize the info for trips to the doctor or just looking up info was such a pain.

SassKwatch

07-18-2003, 02:13 PM

Given that this one seems like it could be duplicated with Syware, HanDBase, or any of the other db building apps w/o too much difficulty, $20 seems a little pricey to me.

And maybe it's just me and the products that pique my interest, but has inflation hit the PPC s/w market in recent times? Seems like most everything I've run into of late is in the ~ $18-24 price range...whereas when I 1st purchased a PPC device (fall 2001), I seem to recall the majority of apps I looked at being in the $10-15 range.

ferraris

07-18-2003, 02:33 PM

Obviously a must have application for any PPC :wink: but will the means to review the data be around in 5, 10, 15 years time?

Simon

Birdman

07-18-2003, 02:37 PM

I agree with the pricing comment. I can appreciate that the relatively small PPC market may require developers to charge higher amounts for their products, especially given the amount of time and effort they expend on creating the products. However, while I have done no research at all and cannot cite any studies to support my thoughts, I feel that they would sell a lot more copies of their software if they charged in the $9.99 to $14.99 range rather than the $20+ range.

This piece of software is a good example. I have 3 kids, (2 older and one baby) and I think this software would provide quite useful. For $10 or so, I would buy it and I am sure I would be very happy with it. But for $20, (and all of these "specific use type" pieces of software seem to be $20+) I will keep using a notepad.

I find that PPC software tends to be very use specific. This baby tracker is good software, and it would likely be easier to use than ListPro or some other database software, but I really feel that developers are pricing these specific use type pieces of software too high. Just my $.02. (Let the flames begin.)

uvahoos

07-18-2003, 02:38 PM

I can only imagine what my wife would say (or rather scream) if I show up in the delivery room with my DV cam, digital camera, and PocketPC to record the memories! :lol:

We're not due until the end of the year, so hopefully I can start warming her to the idea that technology really has to be instilled at birth. Just think, the baby's first sights could be mom and dad with all of his gadgets!

rtrueman

07-18-2003, 02:43 PM

I can only imagine what my wife would say (or rather scream) if I show up in the delivery room with my DV cam, digital camera, and PocketPC to record the memories! :lol:

Mine just shook her head when I showed up with the Nikon film camera, Digital camera, digitial video camera and the PocketPC. She's getting use to me! :)

I agree with the comments about pricing. Seeing as we have a 6 week old, I'd like to give this software a try. I hope there's a demo.

Rob

JamesM

07-18-2003, 03:06 PM

Showing up in the delivery room with my Pocket PC was one of the best things I did. I have a great audio recording of Lily's first cry (and my wife crying for joy).
-J

FredMurphy

07-18-2003, 03:14 PM

I thouht from the title "Tracking your baby" that this would be some sort of GPS that you implant so you can find the baby if you leave it on the bus, etc. What a let down! :(

beq

07-18-2003, 04:05 PM

so you can find the baby if you leave it on the bus, etc.
:)

dean_shan

07-18-2003, 04:08 PM

I thouht from the title "Tracking your baby" that this would be some sort of GPS that you implant so you can find the baby if you leave it on the bus, etc. What a let down! :(

Yeah same here. That was the only reason I went to this topic.

Brad Adrian

07-18-2003, 04:17 PM

My youngest child was born over 11 years ago, and I could have really used this back then. My biggest challenge was keeping track of my immunization records and knowing what updates my kids were due for.

We just got a puppy (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12594), though, so maybe I'll put this to use for him!

gorkon280

07-18-2003, 04:38 PM

There are SO many of these apps that on a PC are normally handled by a Excel spreadsheet or a Access DB. If they just would IMPROVE Pocket Excel and Pocket Word, we would not need any of these special programs unless we were clueless! There are still a lot of special purpose programs that are out there on the PC but folks like us don't buy em unless we need something REAL easy(automated) or unless we have problems creating it ourself....this may be because we aren't that artistic! :) These are cool and all, but how many special purpose apps do we need to see that Pocket Excel and the other Pocket programs seriously need an update? We have all the power and the word processor is still designed to work fine on a 30-40 MHz chip. When are we going to get:

Images in both Pocket Word and Excel
Graphing in Excel

If I had those, I could DO what these apps do and more. I don't want VB extensions on Pword and Pexcel cuz I don't want to have to deal with macro virii.

Other than these off topic beefs, I think this is a cool idea.

Jeff Rutledge

07-18-2003, 04:41 PM

We're not due until the end of the year

Same here. We're due Dec. 28th. That gives me plenty of time to work on my wife. To help me out, any advice from the experienced? What are the selling points that would convince her it's the way to go? (She's not techie, but does user her 1910 reasonably often).

Sunnyone

07-18-2003, 05:18 PM

I would definitely have used this with my kids. I was terrible about keeping up with all of the milestones. But my youngest is 9 and of course I didn't have a PPC back then!

(Hey and this is my first wireless post from my PPC. I am finally trying out the mobile forums. Fun!)

Jeff Rutledge

07-18-2003, 05:20 PM

Someone made a good point earlier. Will the information be easily retrieved, say 10 years from now?

I haven't had a chance to check it out yet. For anyone who has: is there a way to export the info to something more universal?

MBaas

07-18-2003, 05:21 PM

This is so well-timed! We are expecting our first baby in about a month… so I'm gonna give this software a try! :D Thanks Ed!
Same here, I totally agree :)

Cheers

Michael

MBaas

07-18-2003, 05:24 PM

I can only imagine what my wife would say (or rather scream) if I show up in the delivery room with my DV cam, digital camera, and PocketPC to record the memories! :lol:
I recently saw an birth-announcement (or whatever the correct english word might be) in the newspaper where the husband had taken his GPS into the delivery room to measure the exact coordinates (which were also noted in the announcement).

Real geeks never stop :D

Cheers

Michael

SassKwatch

07-18-2003, 06:02 PM

I recently saw an birth-announcement (or whatever the correct english word might be) in the newspaper where the husband had taken his GPS into the delivery room to measure the exact coordinates (which were also noted in the announcement).

Real geeks never stop :D

Now *THAT* guy qualifies as a 'Uber Geek'! :D

I am surprised he was able to get a signal.

lurch

07-18-2003, 06:07 PM

That gives me plenty of time to work on my wife. To help me out, any advice from the experienced? What are the selling points that would convince her it's the way to go? (She's not techie, but does user her 1910 reasonably often).
I have found that if I can SHOW my wife how it's practical (and not just by emphatically saying "but I/we NEED it!!!") :) then she'll be more willing to give it a shot.

A while back I wanted us to each get a cell phone with the family plan, and ditch the home phone all-together, so I put together some handouts, slides, etc... with some research -- pricing, cost-savings, etc.. :) I ALMOST had her!!!! She mostly just laughed at me though.. :)
We almost signed up, but then life-circumstances changed it, so we didn't.

Kati Compton

07-18-2003, 06:25 PM

MBaas

07-18-2003, 06:27 PM

I don't suppose this was in San Jose, was it? I have a friend that recently had a kid and he's likely to do something like that.That was far away from San Jose, in good ol' germany :D

Cheers

Michael

i_spock

07-18-2003, 06:54 PM

Obviously a must have application for any PPC :wink: but will the means to review the data be around in 5, 10, 15 years time?

Simon

My thoughts exactly. That's the problem with all of these "tracker" programs. I'm afraid of spending considerable time and effort to enter this information only to have it shackled by the application! I'd much rather use pocket excel and be able to do anything I want with the data.

I agree that, of all the things one can track, baby info is one of the most useful. Thank goodness my wife keeps all of that info safe and sound :)

Now, please excuse me, I need to open my tracker tracking program so that I can track another app that I'll be using to track things.... gotta keep track of what I'm tracking, otherwise I'll forget to track something, which is another thing I'll have to keep track of.... :rotfl:

Barak

07-18-2003, 06:57 PM

Well, my wife claims she has no time to update our son's baby book. :roll:

He's 5 months and already we've missed documenting some milestones.
I think she'll be excited by this program and will probably hand me the money to buy it today: - as long as I am the one that inputs all the info. 0X

She's a Palm user - what do you expect! :mrgreen:

PeterLake

07-18-2003, 06:59 PM

Obviously a must have application for any PPC :wink: but will the means to review the data be around in 5, 10, 15 years time?

A great point I learned the hard way. I happened to record my daughter's second word on my Cassiopeia (which is why its good to always carry one around). However, the Cassiopeia stored it in some sort of WAV format that I still haven't figured out how to convert yet (although I haven't spent that much time, either).

Jeff Rutledge

07-18-2003, 07:04 PM

I have a feeling that she'll be all for me doing it, but she'll probably keep a traditional baby book herself at the same time. And really, that couldn't hurt eh?

Ed Hansberry

07-18-2003, 07:39 PM

That's the problem with all of these "tracker" programs. I'm afraid of spending considerable time and effort to enter this information only to have it shackled by the application!
Someone could actually download and test this app and see if it is in a proprietary format or if it is easy to export the data. There is a free trial. :)

Jeff Rutledge

07-18-2003, 08:18 PM

ctmagnus

07-18-2003, 10:18 PM

There is no limit on the numbers of babies it supports.

Good for some people. :wink:

http://www.atmo.ttu.edu/conder/new/cletus.jpg

Jeff Rutledge

07-18-2003, 10:28 PM

There is no limit on the numbers of babies it supports.

Good for some people. :wink:

http://www.atmo.ttu.edu/conder/new/cletus.jpg

...Tiffany, Heather, Cody, Dylan, Dermot, Jordan, Taylor, Brittany, Wesley, Rumor, Scout, Cassidy, Zoe, Clo, Max, Hunter, Kendall, Caitlin, Noah, Sascha, Morgan, Kyra, Ian, Lauren, Q-bert, Phail...

Jeff Rutledge

07-18-2003, 11:26 PM

Well, I gave it a quick look. There doesn't appear to be any way to Export the data (no menu item, no mention in Help), so that's a little disappointing.

As for the app itself, with the exception of the ability to graph the Height and Weight over time, I think I could do everything else in a List Pro list. I've never used HanDBase, but I'm sure you could do everything there too (don't know about the graphs).

Still, it's a 1.0 release. I think there is a market for this. I'll give it another look closer to our due date to see if there are any updates out.

madbart

07-19-2003, 12:35 AM

For those expectant parents that think it is expensive get used to it! Anything with the word baby in it is now going to cost you an extra 20% :lol: [/b]

bhkien

07-19-2003, 04:26 AM

Hi all,

Thank you very much for your opinions about the BabyTracker.

BabyTracker will be able to export data to CSV file in next version.
Free for registered users.

Any comment? Contact me [email protected]

Ed Hansberry

07-19-2003, 04:32 AM

BabyTracker will be able to export data to CSV file in next version.
Free for registered users.

w00t! :D

Gotta love support like that.

Jeff Rutledge

07-19-2003, 04:46 AM

Five hours to the minute. That's a fast response time!

Thanks bhkien!

Jeff Rutledge

07-19-2003, 04:54 AM

Since you asked for comments... 8)

Have you considered a Desktop companion? Twopeaks has had good success with this approach. I really like it. They've taken a few approaches with synching the data. My personal preference is to not sync. I like how they do it with FlexWallet. Both the desktop and PPC versions use the same data file. I put this file in my synchronized My Documents folder as I've never had cause to edit the file on both platforms at the same time.

How about the ability to add pictures? Not a baby album, but you could include small snapshots every few months (or whatever).

Someone mentioned they used their PPC to record baby's first words (I think it was second word actually). So it would be great to be able to store this in the app as well.

Like I said, I think there's a market for this (one I was totally unaware of until a couple months ago :D ). Good Luck with it!

PS: We've seen some companies offer short term discounts to readers of this site. Something to think about... :wink:

bhkien

07-19-2003, 01:15 PM

Thank you very much for your suggestions!

I will plan to integrate adding pictures and sounds to future version of the BabyTracker.

About desktop companion? I have never thought about it, but that is value to consider.

Thanks again,

PeterLake

07-20-2003, 05:06 AM

If they just would IMPROVE Pocket Excel and Pocket Word, we would not need any of these special programs unless we were clueless!

Amen!

disconnected

07-20-2003, 05:53 PM

There actually is a tracker of the GPS variety -- in the form of a watch, though, not an implant. You pay a monthly fee and can track the child via the internet. I can't remember what it's called, but I saw it at a Microcenter.

Kati Compton

07-20-2003, 08:03 PM

The "w00t" discussion can be found here (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15315&highlight=w00t). ;)

atco22

10-20-2004, 02:14 AM

Darius Wey

10-28-2004, 10:01 AM

Wonder if this forum on this topic is still active? I tried the 1.5 version on my WM 2003 device, and encountered this problem :

When I tried to input a new baby name, and entered information on all fields, it tells me Unable to update record, please check your data.

Up till now, I am not able to use the software, not even once.

Have you updated to the latest version, 1.5.1 dated Aug. 23, 2004?

The link for it is here. (http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?productType=2&optionId=1_2_2&jid=85352AFA56CD66AAA336935DCB934XF4&platformId=2&siteId=1&productId=86078&sectionId=0&catalog=30&txtSearch=babytracker)