However many years ago it was that Wifey-Ki-Yay and I first got cell phones, I ordered some software from Motorola that was supposed to make it possible to manage the address book and other features of the phone from my computer. I ended up sending the crap back to Motorola for a refund because it wouldn’t work worth $#!t.
When we migrated to Cingular and got our current LG phones, I ordered software for the new phones. It works, but you can get a good idea of how useful it turned out to be by the fact the cable and software now live on Chris’ computer and it’s probably been over a year since I did anything with it. I couldn’t tell you if she’s ever used it, even though I installed it on her computer so she could.
About the only phone-to-PC interaction I do is use my phone’s text-messaging capability as a way to send myself notes and reminders if something occurs to me while I’m away from the computer. Or I might email a shopping list to the phone from my computer.
All of which is prologue to the software I have installed today, and finally just managed to get working, which is supposed to open up the features of my glucometer to the computer. Turns out all I can do is store blood sugar readings on the computer—there isn’t even a useful note-taking capability in this software. I can’t seem to input text comments on a given reading, and there isn’t even a way to input the medications I’m on in the user information section.
But at least I can dispense, now, with writing my readings down in a log book; every few days I can bring the meter to the computer and upload the readings to the database. And presumably I can print the data if I need to show it to my doctor.
Why can’t these gizmo-makers ever figure out what they can do to make software useful? Why can’t they be bothered to find out or figure out what their users might want to do? Say what you like about Microsoft and their bloated code—at least they take into account (or did, before Vista) almost everything the user might conceivably want to use the software for.
To get the most out of this glucometer software, I’m going to need to export the database into a format where I can do more with the data that the software will allow. And I’m not even sure that’s an option.
