She ships the granola to anywhere in the world, as long it’s Canada.  Sorry, everyone else.  You will have to move to enjoy it.

Thanks for your help Pam, and thanks for feeding us!

Pam’s website: Cascadia Gluten Free Foods

Once we had a working version on Windows 7 (only thanks to Gerry’s patience and help), he kindly asked if he could send a donation. I said he is welcome to, that it’s fully up to him. He then asked if I had kids, and suggested he send a gift to the kids.  Great idea i thought, since all donations to this point have been monetary.

A few weeks later we had a package arrive from Australia. My kids were rather tickled by receiving a package from across the globe and quickly tore into it. It was 2 books on Australian wildlife and a Calendar. I have posted pictures in this post. Thanks for the gift Gerry and thanks for all the assistance!

Get the latest copy here!

Some minor bug fixes were made as well and some significant changes under the hood to eventually support multiple users and diets.

Get your latest copy here!

Well, thanks to a sleepless night, I have restored Silvertriad to it’s former glory with a new theme (thanks Cordobo).  I moved the hosting of the website from my house to godaddy.com and so far their services are near perfect, regardless of how inane their advertising is.

All the download links are working again.

The USDA has released a new food database.  In the next few weeks I will try to update NutritionFacts with this latest data.  Stay tuned to the mailing list or RSS feed for updates.

Google is always tweaking the system so you get the most relevant search results. Unfortunately, when they change their algorithm, some web sites drop in their ranking, meaning Google sends fewer visitors their way. While Google certainly has the right to make changes as they see fit, I can somewhat empathize with those who drop in rank.

Case-in-point, below I have the list of search engines that sent visitors to Silvertriad.com in December. Notice how substantial Google’s referrals are. Google sent 223 visitors my way. While not a substantial number in itself, it dwarfs the other search engines, by a long shot.

If I depended on Silvertriad.com for a living I would probably be upset if that number dropped due to Google dropping my rank. What exactly is my rank? Well according to the last search I performed, Silvertriad is 10th, which means it is on the first page of search results when searching for “Nutrition Facts”.

Links from an Internet Search Engine

I will keep everyone posted as I near completion.

My next project after Nutrition Facts 1.0 is released will be writing software to transfer files back and forth from Amazon’s S3 service.  Although this may have little appeal for most, S3 is an unlimited storage service that costs pennies a month.

I actually use it as a backup for family pictures and other important documents.  I also use it as storage for the Nutrition Facts install.  When you download Nutrition Facts, it is downloading from Amazon.  My bill for using this service was 23 cents last month and I am up to 25 cents so far this month.

The New York times uses it for their news archive as does numerous other companies.  Google is also rumored to have a similar service in the works.

If you have family photos and want to ensure they never get lost, back them up to Amazon S3.

The hardest part is finding good software to transfer files, hence I hope to improve that situation.  Currently, a plugin for the firefox browser called S3Fox works best.

• Improved the update check (prevents slow down during start up)
• Added Fatty Acid data to nutrition label
• Minor database improvements
• Minor bug fixes

I would recommend upgrading for the first feature in the list.

I have improved the update check, preventing slow downs during the start up of Nutrition Facts. I also corrected minor spelling errors and a bug or two. The next step will be to complete the Fatty acid/Amino acid tabs on the nutrition label.

Once i complete that feature I will release version 0.9.3.5.

Barring defects or other pressing matters, the next version after 0.9.3.5 will be 1.0. This will include user profiles, which will be something completely unique to any desktop software I know of. It has already eaten up hours of my time in research, mostly with USDA publications and charts.

As I have mentioned before, user profiles will customize the nutrition label to your nutritional needs.  The recommended daily allowances will be customized for you based on several factors including BMI and caloric demand.

After 1.0, I will take a small hiatus from Nutrition Facts to concentrate on another project that desparatly needs completion.

The post 1.0 features I am looking at are:

1. The ability to add foods and submit them to Silvertriad for distributions
2. Optional ingredients list for certain food items
3. UPC codes for user entered foods
4. Displaying additional information on each food item, such as source, etc
5. Providing links to Wikipedia for many of the nutrients
6. Providing other diets beyond the USDA’s.
7. Collecting search stats (which will be voluntary and shared on the website)
8. The ability to combine existing foods into new foods
9. The ability to add new food sizes (such as cup, pound, ounces, etc)
10. Customizable Nutrition Facts label, so you can remove the items you don’t care about
11. Additional food items, including fast food restaurants
12. Ability to bookmark food for quick pull up.
13. Ability to create log of food eaten to track caloric and nutritional intake.

Did I miss anything? If there is a feature you are interested in, send me an email. I am always interested in new ideas. michael@silvertriad.com