I recently installed Nutrinote 2010, a diet/nutrition organizer program. Having now explored its capabilities while running it on a PC (Windows 7, 64-bit) for several days, this review outlines the results of that experience. I am using the Premium version 3.5.0 edition of the software. The review will be brief and direct, listing pro's and con's and then closing with a few summary comments.
Pro's:
1. Although the initial database is small (7,500 items), the program allows for it to grow and also allows the user to identify those nutritional components of food that are to be tracked. This database flexibility is nice and contrasts with some other programs (such as Perfect Diet Tracker) that have extensive databases but very limited (to a subset of the items on a standard nutrition label) capability to keep track of different nutrients. For example, calcium cannot be kept track of in Perfect Diet Tracker.
2. Fairly extensive analysis capability to checkout the breakdown of foods eaten as well as individual components.
3. Runs from a USB flash drive if desired. This makes for great flexibility to use the program on a work computer, or while out of town, etc., as long as any PC (apparently not with Win 8, however) with a USB port can be accessed.
4. Search function works quite well when looking for foods and the filter setting for "Favorites" is extremely useful (i.e., only foods marked as "Favorite" will be shown for whatever search string has been set).
Con's:
1. After setting up a "Recipe" (think, "typical meal or group of foods eaten together"), it's very easy to insert that into the day's food consumed, but if you have any variation(s) in the quantity of any of the elements of the meal (for example, 10 oz. of milk instead of 8 oz.), you cannot just change it in the meal foods that are available right in front of you from the entry just made. In the milk example here, you would have to add 2 oz. of milk as a separate item. Very clumsy and quite shortsighted.
2. Backup of the database is apparently allowed only to an external USB (including flash) drive. Not the neatest thing and liable to become like so many other backups... neglected. Much better would be to allow backups to any drive in "My Computer". For example, I have several network drives that are always connected when I'm at home... that's where I'd like to do backups. That way I'm not having to connect/disconnect flash drives. Result: it will be much more likely to get done. Also nice would be an "autobackup" option, especially with a network drive, that would copy the database out on a regular basis (multiple times per week). See also #4 for an additional backup option possibility.
3. Program support is sparse or non-existent, at least in my brief experience. I have yet to receive an answer to my question regarding how to make the program backup to a network drive (and I don't think it can).
4. Does not integrate with DropBox. See also #2 on this. Using DropBox would be a great way to automatically backup the database while the computer is connected to the internet, always auto-syncing when re-connecting. This would also make for a nice way to ensure current data when going from a fixed base PC to a traveling laptop.
5. Price is a bit high ($49.95). There is a (free) demo version, but the demo program is hamstrung rather than having all capabilities with a (say) 1 week time limit for functionality. There are some things you really cannot figure out if you are unable to, for example, add/edit foods in the database (and you cannot add/edit foods with the demo version).
6. The layout is a bit cartoonish looking (strictly personal preference).
7. After opening the program, dragging in its window edges to the desired size and then locating it appropriately on the screen, it is a bit dismaying to find that the program *always* re-opens in the middle of the screen and at the same fixed size as before it was set up for my screen configuration. Better for it to save the size and location information and just load up that way as long as the same size (in pixels) screen is being used whenever the program is re-started.
8. For exercise (i.e. calories burned) data entry, there is no way to enter your own calories burned value (for example, from a heart monitor calorie counting system) except by creating a completely new exercise every time you make an entry (because your monitored value entry will almost surely *not* agree with any of the canned exercise table entries from the database). A more efficient "I know the calories I need to enter for this exercise" method would be very much appreciated.
9. Although the list of nutritional elements that can be monitored in the database is extremely extensive, every element of the list (yes, including those that the user is not keeping track of) is listed and must be scrolled through, in alphabetical order, to get to the item that is to be updated. This makes for very tedious scrolling to input some of the items. An improvement would be to automatically display items selected for tracking *first* with the remaining (untracked and unused) items following.
10. When entering nutrients for a "new" food, the program requires the user to manually convert input data to grams, micrograms, etc., rather than allowing for a "percent of daily value" input (for example, if calcium supplied in a food is 35% (per the food's nutrition label), the user must first, from an independent source, look up the Daily Value (DV) for calcium (1000 mg) and then go multiply that number by .35 and enter the value in milligrams into the program's food database. It does seem better to allow for entry of the 35% value from right off the nutrition label and have the program convert that to (in this case) 350 mg. This process gets even more onerous when dealing with multiple conversion steps for such things as International Units to milligrams.
Summary Comments
In summary, this program has many good elements at its core but on a 1-10 basis (10 being best), I would have to rate it at about an 8, especially for the price. The best adjective for how it feels to use the program is "tedious"... although it basically gets the job done. Furthermore, it doesn't have the feel of being fully supported as it is not spec'd for operation on Windows 8 (although that does not mean that it won't work with Windows 8, it very well might), it is not familiar with cloud type interfaces (such as DropBox) and I've not received any response to my email support request (yet). In a more up-to-date program, I also feel that a key function like database backup would be handled more efficiently and flexibly and would not be so tightly intertwined with USB flash drive technology... especially for the price paid. Given these shortcomings, I'd estimate that this program would be much more accurately valued at a price of $20 to $30.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
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