Johan Degraeve

HelpDiabetes is a carb counter application that runs on a cellular phone.
The application has built in the Food Composition Table from food-info.net from the Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
It’s also possible to make your own foodtable in Excel and transfer it to the GSM (not all phones will support this).
The application also calculates the amounts of insuline needed.

GSM Phone System Requirements :
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The phone must support Java MIDP 2.0 and CLDC 1.0. To transfer an own version of the foodtable, support of JSR75 is necessary. A version for phones that don’t support JSR75 is available.
All recent cellular phones will support these requirements (and a lot more
The application will not work on phones without keyboard (like Qtec,..), Palm, ...

Installation :
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Three possibilities

First possibility : use a cable (USB), InfraRed or Bluetooth connection to copy the application from your PC to your phone and install it.
You can download the application here : http://users.skynet.be/GTbiker/HDEN/HelpDiabetes.jar
(Phones that don’t support JSR75 : http://users.skynet.be/GTbiker/HDBEN/HelpDiabetes.jar)

Second possibility which doesn’t work on all phones :
Use your phone’s WAP browser and go to http://users.skynet.be/GTbiker/HDEN/HelpDiabetes.jad (phones not supporting JSR75 : http://users.skynet.be/GTbiker/HDBEN/HelpDiabetes.jad)
To avoid having to type the complete URL in your phone, you can also use an SMS Web application (if your operator offers this), copy the URL and send it as an SMS to yourself. Open the SMS and open the link.

A third possibility if the second doesn’t work :
Download the application (you need the file ending on .jar - Hyperlinks above) to your PC. Go to Phone Uploader
In the section 'Upload Java midlets', enter the location of the application on your PC and then choose ’Upload Midlet’. You will see a 'jump code'. Use your phone’s WAP browser and go to http://rumkin.com/tools/sprint/jump.php, fill in the 'jump code' and choose 'Get File'.

First use of the application
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The first time you use the application, it will read the complete food composition table that is built in. This may take a minute.

Use the application :
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The first screen displays the list of all food items, starting with the first in alphabetical order.

Search an item :
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You can search an item by entering the starting characters of the item’s name, as you would type an SMS.
You can scroll with game keys 'UP' and 'DOWN' . Only characters a..z can be entered, but the application also recognizes variants for example é è ë are all found as 'e'.
To select a food item press the 'SELECT' key or choose option 'Choose'.

Note : some food items may have special characters like 'Macaroni cheese - Tin'. All the letters can be entered in the search box, and also the spaces by clicking the game key 'RIGHT' . However '-' can’t be typed by pressing numeric keys. One possibility is to get 'Macaroni cheese – Tin' displayed as first item in the list, and pressing the game key ‘RIGHT' .

Letters can be removed from the search box by pressing keys 'C', 'BACK' of 'LEFT' (not all phones support the 'C' and 'BACK' key).

Count the amount of carbs and add to a list
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After having selected a food item, you can choose the amount. The units are shown and is always ‘gram’ for the standard fooddatabase.
Example, suppose the selected food item is ‘Bread White’, press on numeric key ‘6’ and then ‘0’. The application will immediately count the amount of carbs (gram) for 60 grams of ‘Bread White’ and shows the result.
Also the amount of proteins, fat and kilocalories are calculated. For these elements, only the total amounts are shown, being the total for all the food items that have been selected by you and added to the list with your chosen amounts.
If not all information can be shown on one screen, a scrollbar will appear on the right. Use keys 'UP' and 'DOWN' to scroll.
Remark : Total amounts are shown rounded to the lower Integer value. The calculation keeps into account the correct figures.

It is also possible to enter digits after the decimal point (eg 0,5 piece of apple, assuming an apple would be there with unit ‘piece’ – which is not the case in the standard table). Choose 'RIGHT', and the cursor will move to the decimal part, choose ‘LEFT’ and the cursor moves back to the Integer part. Chosing 'LEFT' also removes already entered digits.
Once you’ve chosen the amount, you can add the food item to a list by choosing option ‘Add’.

Show total amount kilocalories, fat, proteins and carbohydrates and calculated amounts of insuline needed.
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From the first screen, using option ‘Show current total’ you can see the total amounts of carbohydrates, fats, porteins and kilocalories for the chosen food items and amounts in the list.
Remark : whenever the source fooddatabase contains no value for proteins, fats or kilocalories for one of the items in the list of chosen items, then the totals are not calculated.
The amount of insuline needed is also shown here , this value is calculated based on personal settings.

Show Current list of chosen food items
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With this option you can view the list of food items selected so far with the amounts.
It’s possible to modify one of the amounts : scroll ‘up’ or ‘down’ to scroll to the item you want to change, press ‘select’, now you can change the amount. Choose ‘Save’ to store the new amount or ‘back’ to cancel.


Empty List
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With this option you remove the food items that you selected and have added to the list. You do this typically at start of a new meal.

Reload fooddatabase
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You can make your own version of the food composition table on a PC using Excel. Use fooddatabase.xls and add your own items at the bottom on the first empty row. The application will stop reading when the first row with column A empty is found. You can also modify existing items.
There’s no limitation to the characters used in the names of the fooditems.
Choose the unit which can be any free text and the standard amount. Example : unit can be "gram", standard amount can be "50". You then enter the amounts of carbohydrates, kilocalories, fats and proteins for 50 gram. Unit could also be "slice" with standard amount "1". Both field can also be ampty.

The amounts of kilocalories, fats and proteins is optional.
When the list is ready, press ctrl+h or click on 'Press here to prepare the worksheet for transfer to the GSM'. The Excel table will be saved and a second file will be generated named foodfileuk.csv and stored in c:\temp (c:\temp must exist on your PC !)
Copy the file c:\temp\foodfileuk.csv to your cellular phone using USB/Bluetooth/Infrared. Then you can use the HelpDiabetes application on the phone to load foodfileuk.csv using ‘options’ ‘Reload’.

Important :
- You should put excel macro security to low. In Excel chose ‘Tools’ – ‘Options’ – ‘Tab Security’ – ‘macro Security’ – ‘Low’)
- if you want to enter digits after the decimal point, use the decimal which you would normally use in Excel. The table attached uses ‘.’ as decimal point (example 2,5 is written in the table as 2.5). If you would normally use ‘.’ , use it here also.


Settings
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- Set the amounts of required insuline : what je enter is the amount of grams of carbohydrates you can have per unit of insuline. This you can do for breakfast, dinner, supper.
- Set the times you switch from breakfast to supper, supper to dinner. The application will use these times to use the correct value of amounts of carbohydates per unit insuline.
- font size
- speed : this is a setting which allows to take into account the different capacities of cellular phones.
Nokia phones seem to work faster than Sony Ericsson. The standard value is 50. For Nokia phones you can set it to 1000. For Motorola phones even to 2000.

Important remarks :

The application will automatically close after 20 minutes of inactivity.

I have written the application myself and it’s available for free.

Disclaimer :

Please verify the food composition table (attached) and experiment with the application before you start using it. Note that this program is only a help. I’ve written it for myself because I want to be able to do precise calculations without having a PC next to me. This is also how you should use it.
I do not take the responsibility for the consequences of misusing this application.

Have fun with it and let me know your feedback, I'm especially interested in spelling errors
Also if you think there's a better food composition table, just let me know.

More info, latest updates can be found on www.johandegraeve.net

My e-mail address johan.degraeve@gmail.com

regards,

Johan

Johan Degraeve

Now also available on getjar.com

To download via wap :
Open wap.GetJar.com with your mobile -> Quick Download -> enter Quick Download Code 27902

regards,

Johan

Johan Degraeve

More information available on HelpDiabetes