OVER 2 YOU, 129 (06/05/03)

DIABETIC RESOURCES

I am a recently diagnosed type II diabetic. I am fairly disorganised and I wonder if anyone can recommend any software or web resources that will help me to understand and manage my condition.

G. Greenwood, via email

A brand new web site called www.food2live.co.ukis due to be launched in July but you can try it out now. The site has been built by diabetics to help fellow sufferers understand and manage their condition, or in fact anyone who wants to control their food intake.  Because it is important for diabetics to balance the amount of refined carbohydrates and thus control blood sugar levels, this website is ideal as it calculates the levels of fat, sugar, carbohydrates, calories, etc of everything you eat. It can design menus around your favourite foods and produce shopping lists. The site also provides a lot of valuable information and links about diabetes, as well as up to date research and explanations about key concepts such as the Glycemic Index.
Jane Owen

I suggest http://www.diabetesuffolk.com/, which is the home page of the West Suffolk Diabetes Service. The website is a dedicated patient information site which should provide answers to most of his/her queries. We would appreciate any users' comments on the feedback page of the site so as to aid future development of the website.  Some of the information on the site is intended for local users in Suffolk, though the information leaflets would be suitable for anyone with diabetes.

Nishan Wijenaike, Consultant Physician, West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust
Bury St Edmunds.

G .Greenwood may find the following sites of interest:

www.diabetic.org.uk

www.diabetes.com

A very readable book is:

ABC of diabetes Peter Watkins (Ed), BMJ Publishing Group, London ISBN 0 7279 1189 9 

Alex Pleuvry, (Pharmacist and Type 2 diabetic), via email

You have already taken a major step in living with Type 2 diabetes by wanting to find out more about the condition. Knowledge helps understand and control the condition. The web contains many diabetes-related sites but one of the best I have come across is by Rick Mendosa (www.mendosa.com). However, one of the best sources of information I have found on Type 2 diabetes is a book by Gretchen Becker entitled "Type 2 Diabetes - The First Year". Note that both of these are from the USA so some differences do apply, such as the way of measuring blood sugar readings.  

Peter Kilian

Like G Greenwood I was diagnosed as a type II diabetic some years ago. I recently bought a new blood/glucose testing kit marketed by Roche Diagnostics. It is called the Accu-Chek Advantage and is easy and comfortable to use but its best trick is that it records all tests to its internal memory, including time and date.

Using the company's own Accu-Chek Compass software it is a simple matter to download the recorded data to your PC, say every month, but it is up to you when. Once the data is in the computer, using the same software you can plot the pattern of tests, and using the graphs it is easy to see trends appearing before they become troublesome.

Although I had to buy the machine myself (about £15) my GP can and does prescribe the test strips and the (almost painless) lancets. As a diabetic you should not have to pay for your prescriptions.

Bryan Scott

For some years I have been monitoring my wife's blood sugar levels with a program called Glucom obtained from Paramount Software (www.glucom.com). Blood sugar levels can be inputted manually or direct from certain blood glucose meters. The program will produce graphs and pie charts of on –going results together with statistical data referring to your pre-set target range.

Peter Holden

SQUASH LEAGUE

I wonder if anyone has successfully used Excel to automate a simple Squash league system - say 6 players per league with basic points system for scoring (6-1, 5-2, 4-3 etc.)? So far I've tried without much luck.

Simon Dennis, via email

It might be worth checking out www.leaguerepublic.com. This is a free online service where players will see up-to-date tables, schedules, results and player statistics. There are a number of wizards available to schedule and run your leagues. This could save a lot of time.
Stuart Budden

I know little about squash, but if what he wants is to be able to record results of matches between players and then produce league tables from these results, this is not too difficult. I suggest that he sets up a grid for recording results of players' results against each other, with names to the left and a total column to the right. He should then copy the names of the players to a different area (or preferably to another sheet in the same workbook) and copies the totals column using Paste Special - Values.  The resulting two columns can then be sorted in descending order of totals and he has a league table.

The copying and sorting can be automated by copying the procedures into a simple macro (no knowledge of Visual Basic required!), which can be allocated a key combination, so that every time this key combination is pressed from within the Results worksheet a new league table is produced.

David Beever

RECIPE DATABASE

Can anyone suggest a database for storing recipes (without the need for programming skills) or an adaptable ready-made recipe program? I want to be able to scan in recipes from magazines, books, etc, to retain images, and sorting or searching by type, category etc. e.g. Starters, Main Course etc. Ideally it would also provide thumbnails of scans for easy identification, recall and printing.

J. E. Skeldon, via e-mail.

Believing that simple is best, I have made just an index on Database. Simply number your recipe pages (V1...= vegetarian, S1..=sweet, M1..= main course, etc.) then type the list of recipe numbers and names plus whatever other column headings you need to look for i.e. type of meal, or main ingredient.  The database can be added to easily and sorted into any order as required.   The actual recipes can then be kept in a loose-leaf file in the kitchen where they are needed.

Doreen Berry

TWO INTO ONE

I work from home and have for some time rented two BT lines. One for incoming voice calls; the other for Internet and a dedicated fax machine. I would like to reduce to just one line, whilst retaining the discrete fax (rather than switching to a computer-based fax function). I tried a 'fax switch' some years ago but it proved useless. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can successfully manage phone, fax and answering functions on a single line?
Robin Wager, via email

Lightening struck my modem and fax in Cornwall. Needing a new fax I was
limited to those available locally. I bought a Samsung SFB200, the best I could find. The manual mentioned teaching it to answer a 'distinctive ring'. BT call sign and five minutes work leaves me with a system whereby the fax line, diverted from my own office fax number, is answered in one ring, which we can recognise.  The other ring tone is always the telephone, and it is all on one line.
Peter Saywell

Your correspondents almost have the answer. The 'fax switch' combined with BT's 'call sign' service does the trick. I've been using this for the past three years. You used to be able to get a fax switch for £7.50 from BT shops and then, when they were sold, The Link. Obviously they are such good value for money that you can't get them there any more and, bizarrely, the only supplier in the UK is the Royal National Institute for the Deaf! Look on RND.com (or maybe RND.co.uk). They are still £7.50 and this includes 3 months subscription to BT's call sign package, worth £4.50. All in all an excellent investment, easy to install and easy to use.
Sue Ibbitson, Dorset

EXCEL MORTGAGES

I believe there are functions within Microsoft Excel that deals with various mortgage calculations. Can anyone tell me the correct one to use for calculating how much is left outstanding after a certain period?
P. Mylam, via email

Excel offers two main mortgage/loan related functions, though the word "mortgage" is only used in the Example given for each.  The description of each function uses the word "loan", which may be why P Mylam didn't spot it.

CUMPRINC "Returns the cumulative principal paid on a loan between start_period and end_period"
while the intriguingly named:CUMIPMT "Returns the cumulative interest paid on a loan between start_period
and end_period."

Bear in mind, though, that: "If this function is not available, you must install the Analysis ToolPak add-in macro."
Bill Well

CAN YOU HELP

In early July my son and I are doing a sponsored bike ride around the circumference of Essex in aid of the Air Ambulance Fund and we are anticipating taking a laptop computer with us so that we can update details of our progress on a couple of web-sites. What would be the best, most reliable way of transporting the laptop? Take out the hard drive, carry the unit in our back pack, or securely suspended on a bike rack? Has anyone else gone down this road?

Peter L. Parker, via email

My colleagues and I work from home or in hotels but regularly need to meet in person. How do we determine the best place to arrange to meet if there are more than two of us (for which I use Microsoft Autoroute) taking in to account individuals' travelling times/distances and the aggregate distance travelled?  Sometimes the journeys are not straightforward return trips which means that while I may drive more than my share of the distance to a meeting it is only part of my longer overall trip and it may be better for me to drive further on day one to have less to drive on day two.

Walter Ego, via email

Does anyone know of a database program to catalogue a collection of classical music CD's in such a way that I can than access any piece by:composer/conductor/orchestra/soloist, etc.
Allan Morriss, via email