Blood Pressure Manager 2.1
Blood Pressure Manager 2.1 by TIS Software (at http://www.tissoftware.net) allows you to enter your blood pressure and pulse readings and sort the records by entering time. It's shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Blood Pressure Manager 2.1 records your blood pressure and pulse.

From the developer's Web site you must download and install the special third-party utility to print out the records. Registered users can export their data onto a desktop PC in the .CSV (Coma Delimited Values) format. The program also includes a medication-tracking feature. In my humble opinion, it could be worth the eight bucks if it offers at least the basic charting capability.

Each company has its own point of view on the optimal price/quality balance. I believe the next program is more balanced. It costs the same, but it includes more features than the previous application.

BP Watcher 1.1
BP Watcher 1.1 by PDAsoftnet (at http://www.PDAsoftnet.com) offers another simple solution to track your blood pressure and pulse. The program supports sorting by date. When entering the reading figures, it displays the numeric pad. This helps enter the readings in seconds. The Statistic Summary screen shows minimum, maximum, and average values. BP Watcher also allows you to export data as plain text to the Memo Pad and to purge old records. The bar-style chart looks a bit confusing because it displays only systolic values and doesn't have a scale on the axis.

I think the interface, pictured in Figure B, could be much more useful if the reading list area were not so small and displayed more records.

FIGURE B

The BP Watcher interface could be improved, but it gets the job done.

The program's eight-dollar price tag is fair enough.

BP Watcher 1.1
Any software review would be incomplete if it omitted the freeware. Frankly speaking, the family of blood pressure trackers has only one freeware member worth our attention.

BloodPressMgr 2.7 developed by Rafael Andres Marin de la Cruz (at http://www.dialectica.com/bloodpressmgr) is the only blood pressure tracking freeware that beats some commercial competitors. The application has a clear interface, exporting capabilities, several types of charts, and statistical reports, which help to analyze your stats from different points. The high blood pressure readings are colored, as you can see in Figure C.

FIGURE C

BloodPressMgr 2.7's color display is very useful to track your blood pressure leaps.

The data can be transferred to your desktop PC in .CSV format. Each screen of the program has an Info icon with detailed help. It's a rare feature even for commercial products. Unfortunately, the program is fated like the majority of free projects; the author has ceased the support and the development. The Web site was put on sale, and the last update was released about two years ago. But you can still find it on many Palm OS software archives.

The next two applications demonstrate a vicious practice that is widespread among amateur programmers. I think these "masterpieces" were developed in one night and weren't properly tested. Nevertheless, they also turn up on software archives, so I've had to test them too.