Car Maintenance and Fuel Economy v2.3
Keep track of your car''s fuel economy and maintenance in general. Maintain records for multiple vehicles. Create reports that will show maintenance, fuel economy, and cost of ownership to-date.
Every time you start the app. and you have no vehicles entered into the database, this notification will be displayed. Tap OK and when the main screen for the app. shows, you can tap on the "Menu" option and then on the "Edit Vehicles". This will open the Edit Vehicles screen that you will use to enter at least one vehicle to track the maintenance to.
Once you have entered at least a vehicle, all you will have to do is select from the Vehicle drop-down to indicate that you are entering a record or "event" for that particular vehicle. Any maintenance you may have performed on your vehicle can be selected from the "Event" drop down. This also includes daily "Gas Top Off" which is the first item in the drop-down. We placed this event as the first one in the drop-down because we assume that it will be the most often used event. This item will let you keep track of your vehicle's gas mileage in a few steps. The calendar field will let you enter the date. Please have in mind that you will be able to keep better, more accurate records if you enter the events as they happen, where they happen. Other pieces of information to enter as well are number of miles the vehicle had at the time of the event, gallons and price paid.
 
By clicking on the item in the list at the bottom of the screen, you can select the record and change one or several fields content. Do this to correct any errors or typos you may notice. Please note that the selection of Vehicle and Event from their respective drop-downs is also used as a filter in the list displayed at the bottom of the screen. If you save an entry to the wrong vehicle or type of event, then you would have to delete the entry and create a new one. After correcting the Miles, Gallons Price paid, you can tap on the "Save" menu option to save the information into the app''s database.
Selecting a new vehicle or selecting a new event type will refresh the table displayed at the bottom of this screen.
Tapping on the "Menu" option will display the app''s menu, you can select to "Insert" a new entry into the current screen or "Delete" a selected entry from the app. database.
In order to keep good track of your vehicle''s Gas-Mileage, you will need to reset the trip mileage counter to zero (usually a knob or a button in your vehicle''s dashboard that needs to be pressed for several seconds). Every time you buy gas, all you need to do is create a new entry with the number of miles in the trip-counter; the number of gallons it takes to refill the gas tank and the price. Then before you leave the gas station, reset the trip-counter to zero again. The best practice for this is to always bring back the trip-counter to zero and always get a full tank of gas.
To get to the reports section, you must tap the "Reports" option in the "Menu" option. This will open a new submenu which will have several items; each representing a report you have access to.
Maintenance will show all events entered to the database for the selected vehicle, or for all vehicles if none has been selected.
Fuel Economy count all the miles driven and the number of gallons used to drive those miles.
Cost of Ownership will display all maintenance events entered and their price totaled for determining how much money has been spent in repairs, maintenance, etc.
Available events shows the events that the app. has in the corresponding drop down and its recommended time interval between each of them.
The Edit Vehicle form allows you to enter, edit and delete vehicles from the database. You have to select the year model, the brand and the model you want to keep records for. Once you have entered the information, you have to tap on the "Save" menu option for the information to be stored in the database.
You can keep as many vehicles as you want.
 
The maintenance report shows all event records in the database for the selected vehicle along the mileage and date at which the event happened. If no vehicle is selected, then the report will run for all vehicles that have a any maintenance entered. To see one row at a time, you can select the row by tapping on the first column of the row you want to see and then selecting the "View" menu option. This will open the "Details" screen that shows only a record at the tume.
The detailed view can be closed by tapping the "Close" menu option.
The Fuel Economy report will display the average gas/mileage for the vehicle in question or for all vehicles if none was selected from the drop-down. Please have in mind that this report is only as accurate as the data entered and that it cannot account for entries you may have forgotten to enter. To see one row at a time, you can select the row by tapping on the first column of the row you want to see and then selecting the "View" menu option. This will open the "Details" screen that shows only a record at the tume.
The detailed view can be closed by tapping the "Close" menu option.
As mentioned before, the Available Events report is a list of items available to you for entry at the event drop-down. For each record there is a recommended maintenance schedule, however; please have in mind that the maintenance schedule for your particular vehicle may be different than those suggested.
To see one row at a time, you can select the row by tapping on the first column of the row you want to see and then the "View" menu option.
The Cost of Ownership report displays every entry that you saved to the app. This report can help you keep track of expenses if you use your vehicle for business and want to claim the expense or want to use the expense as a tax deduction.
To see one row at a time, you can select the row by tapping on the first column of the row you want to see and then selecting the "View" menu option.
Will this app. run on my Windows CE/Pocket PC/Windows Mobile device?
This app. will run in:
• Windows Mobile 2003SE
• Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC
• Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition
• Windows Mobile 6 Classic
• Windows Mobile 6 Professional
Please go to http://www.bluekatana.mobi for instructions on how to install the application and its pre-requisites.
|
