The Inside Track » Company News

A Day in the Life of Trixie Tracker

admin — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 03:51:10 +0000

Our lead Trixie Tracker developer, Jason, has shared a frenetic visualization of Trixie Tracker activity for a single calendar day. The first part of his blog post deals with visualizing the writing of software code. However, scroll down to the third video and you’ll see a flurry of activity as babies zip around the screen, and clusters of naps, bottles, nursings and diapers begin to accumulate and swell as the day progresses. He happened to choose December 31, 2010, so it’s interesting to see how Trixie Tracker wraps up the decade.

New Mobile Trixie Tracker Optimized for iPhone, Android, Palm and Blackberry

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 02:41:56 +0000

The latest version of Trixie Tracker baby tracking software has been completely rebuilt and optimized for a fast, easy-to-use mobile experience. The new Trixie Tracker looks great and works well on the iPhone (including iPod and iPad), Android, Palm and Blackberry phones. Matter of fact, it looks great on any modern mobile device, so try it out for free.

Trixie Tracker Mobile has always had a simpler, streamlined screen for entering data, but you can now view all the powerful visualizations that are available in the desktop version. It’s fun to see your full sleep charts and sleep probability charts right in the palm of your hand.

And because Trixie Tracker is a web application, you can view your charts and records simultaneously from multiple phones. That means you and your spouse (or caregiver or grandparents) can all peek in to check when the baby is sleeping.

You can’t do that with standalone native apps where your data is locked up in a single phone. In a nutshell, Trixie Tracker is designed for sharing. We hope you like the new Mobile Trixie Tracker.

Try it for free.

New Version Update

admin — Sun, 17 May 2009 20:37:38 +0000

We are working hard on the new version of Trixie Tracker that was announced on our third birthday, but with all things software, development always takes longer than expected. I don’t have a release date set, but I can share some of the behind-the-scenes details for those who are interested. We’re moving from a PHP environment to Ruby on Rails. (The new version has lots of Rails goodies in it.) Diapers, Bottles and Solids are finished, and we’re making progress on Medicine and Pumping.

Visually, there’s going to be a new look to the application, and some of the details in the new design are actually flowing back into the existing application. For example, today we replaced all image buttons in TT with pure HTML/CSS buttons. That’s a visual detail you may not notice on your desktop, but mobile users will appreciate the cleaner, faster interface.

This is just a quick update. Thanks for your patience as move ahead. More updates to come!

Trixie Tracker is Wired

admin — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:11:06 +0000

Wired launched a brand new UK version of their magazine this April and Trixie Tracker is included in the first issue. Unfortunately, our article is not available online, but if you happen to have a copy, please look for us in the “Your Life Is A Number” story that talks about life-tracking, sharing data online and discovering patterns in everyday life. Thanks Wired! (http://www.wired.co.uk/)

Happy Birthday! Trixie Tracker Turns Three!

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:22:24 +0000

This weekend Trixie Tracker celebrates its third birthday and we’re excited to announce some big reasons to celebrate. We’ve made continuous, incremental improvements over the last three years, but all our improvements had to fit within the existing code architecture. It’s been hard to add major new features because the original code base (from March 2006) wasn’t built in the most flexible way.

The only way around this problem is to rebuild the application from scratch, and design it to accommodate future growth and exciting new features. The downside to a rebuild is the significant time and money needed to simply replicate the existing application, and it’s not always clear if that’s a good business direction.

Last December, we reached a decision point about the future of Trixie Tracker. We’re a small company, but we’re growing every year and we realized it was time to make the financial commitment. So, since January, we have been working on a brand new version of Trixie Tracker. Initially, the new version is going to look pretty similar to the existing application — with a few minor improvements such as improved date and time user interfaces, more sharing, and more averages.

But under the hood, the new version provides a solid architecture for a bunch of neat features coming later in the year including: better dashboard options for twins and multiples, better iPhone integration, and even a daycare version. We’ve also received a ton of great ideas from existing users that have been put on hold because of the Trixie Tracker rebuild. After the rebuild launches, we’ll start tackling those requests.

Thanks so much to all the dedicated parents whose curiosity helped make this site possible. We’re looking forward to the next three years and beyond.

Ben MacNeill
Founder, Trixie Tracker

Trixie Tracker Now Offering a Free Diaper Tracker

admin — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:28:35 +0000

Trixie Tracker is switching to a new business model this weekend. Up until now, you had to use a free trial or an active subscription to track. Starting today we’re offering a tiered service with a free basic option and a premium upgrade plan.

The completely free option, Trixie Tracker Basic, only includes the diaper tracker. This is the simplest tracker on the site, but also one that new parents want as soon as they come home from the hospital. We hope offering a free diaper tracker will help these new parents, and show them just how useful and reassuring good records can be.

Trixie Tracker Premium includes all the trackers, features and sharing. See a comparison between our free and premium plans.

Here’s how it works
Everyone gets a free Premium Trial when they create a site. After the two weeks are up, the site downgrades to Trixie Tracker Basic. Users can continue to track diapers completely free or upgrade to a Premium subscription and get access to all the features.

We hope this new model will encourage more users to try out the site. We know that once folks try it, they love it. Thanks for helping us grow!

A New Parenting Meme

admin — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:00:01 +0000

Two weeks ago I came across a fun parenting blog called Game Theorist which covers “musings on economics and child rearing”. The author, economist Joshua Gans, is releasing a book next year called Parentonomics which is described as “Dr. Spock meets Freakonomics”. As a Freakonomics fan, I immediately wrote him to share my experiences with data collecting, charting and parenting.

Joshua blogged about Trixie Tracker a short time later in a post titled Data-driven Parenting. His title struck me as incredibly descriptive and useful in communicating our respective work. In the weeks since then, I’ve seen several other blogs use Joshua’s description in writing about Trixie Tracker. First the Freakonomics blog post Should You “Ferberize” Your Baby?, and then Kevin Kelly’s Trixie Tracker: Data-driven Parenting.

Three blog posts do not a meme make, but I think the term data-driven parenting may become more popular because it offers a convenient, easy-to-understand shorthand for a concept I’ve struggled to define. The best catch-all I’ve come up with is “baby tracking”, but that doesn’t paint a complete picture. So I’d like to say thanks to Joshua for coining the phrase and wish him luck with his Parentonomics release next year.

Baby Tracker for iPhone

admin — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:28:17 +0000

Today we’re releasing a new mobile version of Trixie Tracker that has been optimized for the iPhone. The new version features a simpler interface which makes it super easy to record a diaper, nap, bottle or breastfeeding on the go (or just sitting on the couch).

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch you’ll see the new interface automatically. If you have a different mobile device, you can try the new site by clicking the ‘Mobile’ link at the bottom of your Trixie Tracker page. We hope you enjoy it!