Steptracker Blog

I am getting close to turning out a beta for the new Steptracker.  Look for something very soon(this month hopefully).  It won’t have a bunch of bells(graphs) and whistles right away but that will come with time after I get the basics down tight.

I do expect the following functionality.

• Account Management - Register and modify your account settings
• Step entry add, delete and modify - dates default to today but you can go forward/back years
• Publish your step track to the public via web page, rss or xml.
• Forums - For Community and Motivation

Yeah! I have started development. I am using the latest and greatest in web application development, Ruby on Rails. Ruby on Rails is a great framework for developing highly interactive web applications. It supports all sorts of new technologies like AJAX, RSS, XML and more. The latest slang term for this type of application is a Web 2.0 application. Although this is my 3rd redesign of steptracker.com I can reference it as Steptracker 2.0.

Development on Steptracker has been on hold since 6/2 when my wife and I gave birth to our 2nd boy. Baby Luke isn’t walking yet but daddy will be doing lots of walking and step tracking pushing him around the neighborhood in a stroller. Don’t worry about Steptracker though we are making great progress and are very excited about the launch which we hope will be online this summer.

It may not look like much has been happening on steptracker.com lately but there are some new exciting changes right around the corner. I decided to dump the old site and start over from scratch. I have learned quite a bit with the first two steptracking web apps I have built and the next one I am building will walk all over them. Keep an eye on this blog for the latest news and developments.

I am excited to finally have a true web host this time around which gives me lots of new features like this blog. My plan is to offer a free and paid membership to help me cover the hosting costs. Stability and performance should be a night and day difference considering the old steptracker ran on my home dsl line and an old linux server I have.