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Diet Analysis Version 8.0 (Basic Concepts in Health) ( Wadsworth Pub Co )
Release Date: 2006-10-30
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $37.95
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 Poor Interface ( wild_arkie )
It would be nice if this thing actually worked well, because it could be a very helpful tool. Unfortunately, it is not well thought-out and more difficult to use than it should be. First of all, if you use a Mac you should be aware that this software requires System 10.3.3 or better, not the 10.2.8 stated on the box. I have the older system, so I had to go to my school's library to use it on a PC. Not that big a deal, just slightly irritating. I installed it without any problems, but the really irritating part came when I actually started trying to enter foods. You enter the food you're searching for in a search box, and it's possible to get several screens of foods you then have to look through to find the right one. AND, the search results have no rhyme or reason to them. They don't provide the best match first. For example, if you are looking for a simple egg, and you type "egg" in the search box, you will get 10 screens of brand-name products that have "egg" in the title, but good luck finding the plain egg. It doesn't help to type in "large brown egg" or anything like that. I found "poached egg" on page 7. What a waste of time!
On that same note, I had a heck of a time finding some simple, common foods like bananas and apples. I typed in "banana" and searched through screens and screens of baby food and weird brand-name products with the name "banana" in the title, but no plain raw banana could be found. Same thing for the apple. I am not stupid and I know how to use a computer, and if I can't find these things I don't know how anyone can. You can create your own food, supposedly, but you have to know all the nutrient values to enter it.
The next annoyance is this pop-up screen that keeps showing up all the time when you're trying to search for foods, and you're constantly having to close it because it's in the way. It asks you if you're having problems finding something and offers you "tips" which don't help because, again, they didn't think this thing through very well. Maybe they didn't think beta testing was a good idea. I hate to be sarcastic, but I really haven't used a program this cumbersome and unnecessarily annoying for a long time. Oh yeah, and several of the packaged foods I looked up had nutrient values that conflicted with what the actual packages stated. How do you know who is right?
It was easy to install, and it did have some nice features like a favorites list for foods you use all the time, so that was good, but the cons outweigh the pros. I had to use this for a class and I'm glad my assignment is done because I really don't want to go there again. Look around before you waste your money on this. There has got to be a better dietary analysis program out there.
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 Beware is you are running Vista! ( balletgeek )
If you are running Vista, you must run the program in administrator mode. Not a problem for the average user, but if you are istalling it for your kids to use on your computer, you must give them administrative rights or assign an administrator password for this program to work.
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