(This topic also includes pointers on e-mailing your records. See "E-mailing Your Records," below.)
Most people install Diet Power on their home computer. The program can be legally copied onto other machines as well, however¾so long as the copies don't violate the agreement made with Diet Power when the program was first installed. (See License Agreement with Diet Power, Your.)
Usually, a second installation is made on your office computer, so you can log the foods you have for lunch or the workouts you do in the company gym. This presents a problem: How can your office computer know what you logged for dinner last night¾and how can your home computer know what you did at the office?
The answer is your "travel disk," a diskette, Zip disk, or other storage medium that you carry back and forth between your computers to keep their records identical.
When you use a travel disk, the last thing you do before leaving home in the morning is to copy your Diet Power records onto it, and the first thing you do when arriving at the office is to update your office computer by copying your Diet Power records from it. Similarly, before leaving the office, you copy your records to the travel disk, and when you arrive home you update the home computer from the travel disk.
You can also use a travel disk as a backup in case the files on your hard drive are destroyed or corrupted.
Besides your eating and exercise records, a travel disk stores your favorite foods and favorite exercises, your daily weight entries, your goal weight and target date, your calendar notes, your personal preferences from the Options Menu, your choice of Home Screen, your password, and everything else that distinguishes you as a user. In addition, it stores all the foods, recipes, and exercises that you and other users have added to the dictionaries.
One Thing a Travel Disk Won't Do
It won't transfer the Diet Power program itself to another computer¾it transfers only personal records between existing installations. To install the program on another computer, you must either download the program from our Web site (www.dietpower.com) or use the CD-ROM that you got from us. (If you don't have the CD-ROM and want to get it by mail instead of downloading the program, you can order from the Web site.)
Caution
Your travel disk won't work unless you enroll in Diet Power with the same first name and birth date on both computers. Because Diet Power uses these to name your personal subfolder, the program won't be able to locate the subfolder if they don't match.
Will a travel disk work in different versions of Windows?
If your home computer uses a later version of Windows than your office machine¾or vice versa¾you needn't worry. Diet Power will pass your records back and forth without complications.
Will a travel disk work in different versions of Diet Power?
Yes and no. Copying records from one version to another can damage them. It depends on which direction the records are traveling. To make sure it's safe:
1. Check the "build date" on both installations of Diet Power, by clicking Help > About Diet Power at the top of the Home Screen. (The build date is the day Diet Power released the version¾not the day you installed it. Build dates may differ even if the version numbers match.)
2. Never copy records from a newer build to an older one. Always copy from the same or an older build…to the same or a newer build.
If this sounds confusing¼
¼just upgrade both installations to the same build, and your records will always be safe. You can download the current build from www.dietpower.com/freedown.htm. It will be a trial copy at first, but you can unlock it for free if you've already bought a license for the same version number and it's being used only by people who live in your household. To unlock it, click the program's Buy Now button and follow the instructions that appear.
What if all my records won't fit on a single diskette?
Diet Power will prompt you to put in a second diskette, then a third and a fourth¾however many you need.
For a typical user, personal records grow at a rate of 200 kilobytes a month, or about two megabytes per year. At that rate, they will fill a standard 1.44-megabyte diskette in about seven months. If you keep a lot of calendar notes or use the same diskette for other files, however, it may run out of room much sooner. Solutions:
· Use a Zip disk, which holds 70 to 100 times as much data as a diskette.
· Use the Purge function described in Options, Miscellanous.
· E-mail your records instead of carrying them on a disk. See "E-mailing Your Records," below.
To make a travel disk:
(Note: This may take several minutes the first time you do it, because Diet Power must copy all of your logs for each day since you enrolled in the program. After that, it will copy only those that have changed since you last used the travel disk.)
1. Put a diskette, Zip disk, or other storage medium (we'll use the word disk as a generic term in these instructions) into the drive where you want to copy the travel-disk records. (In these instructions, we'll assume it's the A: drive.) You can use either a new disk (if it's been formatted) or one previously used as a travel disk. (A travel disk can contain other files besides Diet Power's, provided there is enough space on the disk.)
2. From the Home Screen:
· click the Travel Bag button:
or
· open the User Menu (by clicking the word User) and choose "Travel Bag." The Travel Bag should open with its Export tab on top.
3. If it's not already selected, click the radio button next to "Back up my records by zipping and copying them TO this drive and folder."
4. In the COPY TO field, enter the address to which you want to copy the records, either by typing in the address or by clicking the Browse button and navigating to it.
5. Click OK. Diet Power will zip and copy from the hard drive all of your Diet Power records that are newer than those already on the travel disk. (Two exceptions: The files named PERSONAL.INF and HISTORY.INF are always copied, even if they're older. Their contents are listed in Personal Records, Your.) Then Diet Power will remove the Travel Disk dialog, leaving you back at the Home Screen.
6. If you're on your way home or to the office, don't forget to remove the travel disk and take it with you.
To copy records from a travel disk to a second machine's hard drive:
1. Put the travel disk into the drive from which you want to copy. (In these instructions, we'll continue to assume it's the A: drive.)
2. From Diet Power's Home Screen:
· click the Travel Bag button:
or
· open the User Menu (by clicking the word User) and choose "Travel Bag."
3. Click the Import tab.
4. In the SOURCE field, enter the address from which the records are being copied, either by typing in the address or by clicking the Browse button and navigating to it.
5. Click OK. Diet Power will copy from the travel disk all of your files that are newer than those already on the hard drive. (There are two exceptions to this rule¾see Step 5 under "To make a travel disk," above.) Then Diet Power will remove the Travel Disk dialog, leaving you back at the Home Screen. The program should now reflect virtually all the work you've done on your other computer.
Instead of copying your records onto a diskette or a Zip drive, you can e-mail them from one location to another. On the Travel Bag's export tab, just click "Zip and send my records TO an e-mail address" and follow the instructions that appear.
Last Modified: 3/11/04