black-dog's dashboard

black-dog replied on April 29, 2009 09:22 to the question "Can you recommend a good Site for Info ?" in iMeasure:

Hi DeeCo

Thank you for the great post. I wish my house was as well insulated as yours.

Can I ask you to repost this on the imeasure forum (http://www.imeasure.org.uk/carbontalk ) as we are shortly going to close this one?

black-dog replied on April 16, 2009 10:25 to the problem "What are the units on the graph?" in iMeasure:

The title of the graph gives the units, kg CO2. The key is the short description of the meter being plotted and is definable by you. (meters were given default descriptions when we made the big change).

Simply go to http://www.imeasure.org.uk/meters.php and click the 'add/edit/delete meters' link. Change the short description of your meter to one that suits you best

black-dog replied on April 13, 2009 10:27 to the question "Replaced meters?" in iMeasure:

They will disappear from view. Pressing delete causes the meter to become de-activated, but no data is actually deleted. The meter can, if necessary, be re-activated in the future but at the moment this is an admin function only.

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

Previously we had assumed that a meter showing a negative output was one that had rolled over to zero. However, following Steves comments I have realised that some meters may indeed go backwards. I have had to make some assumptions. 1. that the amount will not be great and 2. that no meter will have less than 4 digits. Given those assumptions I have allowed readings down to -1000 units (should be more than enough). A meter that has rolled over will have a negative reading much lower than that and will be handled accordingly. Can any users see a problem with that? – black-dog, on April 07, 2009 10:41

black-dog replied on April 07, 2009 06:57 to the idea "Average Consumption of All Users" in iMeasure:

We are working on this.

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

I may have found a solution to this Steve, don't change anything yet. – black-dog, on April 07, 2009 06:53

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

That's really interesting, we hadn't considered that that might happen. I'll have to think about how best to handle that. In the meantime, don't enter negative readings or just delete them if you already have) - your overall carbon output will adjust itself once the meter becomes positive again and imeasure will interpolate an average value. – black-dog, on April 06, 2009 17:49

black-dog replied on April 06, 2009 12:58 to the question "Are those Carbon badges correct?" in iMeasure:

Imeasure attempts to create a model of your house over time. When the reading is stored, we also store the current level of occupancy. If your occupancy changes this affects future readings and consequent carbon per person reading.

I assume you are comparing your results with the same number of occupants. Therefore, as the badge is a reflection of the output for one week in the past you would be comparing the results for a 2 person household, with those for a 4 person household as your changes would not yet have taken effect (but your comparison would). 4 person households usually do rather better in carbon per person and so it's not surprising that your rating went down, not up.

The graph is, as its title suggests, the household output.

Having said all that, a lot of this code is new and it's not inconceivable that there may be some issues. I will investigate individual cases if you just send your username to support(at)imeasure.org.uk

black-dog replied on April 06, 2009 12:35 to the question "Results Page Issues." in iMeasure:

We are, as you know, still making changes to imeasure and so you could experience some temporary disruption for which we apologise. Could anyone with issues please email support(at)imeasure.org.uk stating your username. Thank you.

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

The key has to be in the plot but can be positioned in any of the four corners. I'll look at making it movable and also increase the transparency. Can't do anything about the months because that's controlled by the graphing software. Hadn't thought about a monthly option but we can look at doing it if enough people want it. – black-dog, on March 31, 2009 23:31

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

Readings are not corrected to a standard day. You can take your readings on whatever day of the week suits you best - all we ask is that it's always the same day. I used to take mine on a Thursday. The offset allows you to take readings a few days either side of your day. Say you took your readings two days early. The system works out your daily usage, based on 5 days rather than 7 and then multiplies by seven to give a corrected reading. It also inserts a comment letting you know what readings you originally entered. Next week, just take readings on your usual day. If you miss a week completely imeasure uses a similar process to calculate an interim reading. You can edit this if you want to, as you might be able to guess what it might have been (for instance if you were away, it would be quite low)

All readings can now be edited independently. To delete a reading simply highlight it and press the delete key.

We are re-instating features as fast as we can but all the codebase has had to be rewritten – black-dog, on March 30, 2009 19:17

black-dog marked one of Mike's replies in iMeasure as useful. Mike replied to the idea "Major changes to imeasure".

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

One of the reasons for making the change was an inconsistency in some of the data. If you look at your data carefully you will see that for the last two weeks your meter appears to have been been running backwards. imeasure interprets this a a meter that has gone round the clock and you get strange results. A similar thing happens with your 12th October readings.

If you edit your readings so that they make sense everything will be fine, or if you prefer, I can do it for you. – black-dog, on March 30, 2009 16:47

black-dog marked one of Steve Mewes' replies in iMeasure as useful. Steve Mewes replied to the idea "Major changes to imeasure".

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

Please email support@imeasure.org.uk giving your username. – black-dog, on March 30, 2009 09:45

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

I'm sure all imeasurers are pretty savvy but in software development one has to try to cater for all eventualities. Our previous system was causing some confusion which is why it was removed. I felt that ideally, the results stored by imeasure should be those taken by the user. In other words, if you kept your readings in a notebook, they would match the figures on the database. If we make computed adjustments this will no longer be the case.

However, so many people have commented on this that we will be bringing it back. The direct system you propose will not work - we don't, at present, store the day readings are taken so the system has no idea that you normally take your readings on a Sunday (it doesn't matter to imeasure what day you take your readings as long as it is the same day of the week). Previously we had a drop down box asking you to state if a reading was taken late, early or on time. Catherine doesn't think there will be many people taking readings early and so we may not include this option. And we will remove the word 'late' because some people felt this had negative connotations. And with that I'd better stop writing and start coding! – black-dog, on March 26, 2009 09:43

black-dog marked one of cbottrill's replies in iMeasure as useful. cbottrill replied to the idea "Major changes to imeasure".

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

Some good suggestions.

1. The nature of the site is more about carbon emission than money but money will play a big part in the additions we are making. You will be able to add your own tariffs to more closely model your bills.

2. The new graphing system is good at this sort of thing and we hope to add it once we are confident the new database structure is working properly.

3. In testing I had just such a display but at the moment all results are shown. A final decision is yet to be made. – black-dog, on March 23, 2009 14:37

black-dog marked one of CathD's replies in iMeasure as useful. CathD replied to the idea "Major changes to imeasure".

A comment on the idea "Major changes to imeasure" in iMeasure:

Thanks for the feedback. It looks like we may have to re-instate the late reading feature. – black-dog, on March 23, 2009 13:05