I am starting this thread in hopes to start a revolution
...no just kidding
I am actually starting this thread b/c as you may know, WW has made the decision to discontinue the On-The-Go program by the end of the year and replace it with a new Mobile program, which basically is a WW mobile web site that users can log into from their phones. Unfortunately, the members who post to the OTG board on the Weight Watchers site are not getting a lot of info from WW and we have been posting how to's among ourselves and trying to help eachother navigate this transition. We are now faced with the reality that our Weight Watchers On-The-Go message board on the WW site will probably be going away real soon and we will be loosing all of our valuable information shared there. So this is for all of us on WW OTG who are getting left out in the cold with the program being discontinued by the end of the year and being replaced with the "new Mobile wed site." I want everyones issues, concerns and questions to be answered here, so please contribute to this thread if you have any information to add on eith OTG or the new Mobile site that others may find useful. I am going to start this with some answers to FAQs that have been thrown my way.
1. The new mobile wb site will allow you to access the WW Tracker, Points Calculator, Food/Dining Out guide, & your stored Favorites from your cell phone IF you have a mobile internet browser & a highly recommended data plan through your cell phone carrier. (Isay highly recommended b/c if you access the site via your mobile browser w/o a data plan you will pay mucho bucks for using the internet charge per kb of usage.
I cannot post the links to the new mobile site b/c I am new here-Can someone else post the links for me?
2. The Mobile site is not "live" yet, but rather still in testing, however, it works and you can us it daily to log your tracker.
3. OTG is still operational until the end of the year. The differences between OTG & new site? Simple, OTG lives in your device & you must sync to WW to keep you data current. The new site does not live in your device, so therefore you go to it, it does not come to you. That being said, there is no syncing or saving involved since you are tracking via WW site directly. Personally I like something that lives in my device and I can call my own but that is just mo.
4. I have and use OTG as my primary method of tracking but I have used the site. OTG is compatable on selected Palm devices. The Palm phones that OTG is compatable wiith are Treo & Centro (I have a Cantro). Weight Watchers preemptively (excuse my spelling, I was hooked on phonics at a very young age) released a statement that the new site would only be compatiable with devices running Windows Mobile 6, Blackberry & iPhone and that it would NOT support the Palm OS but I am hear to set the record straight and tell you that is pure fluff. The site work fine on my Palm Centro that has a Palm OS & fine on my Blazer browser (which is a weak browser to begin with).
5. The OTG program is no longer available for NEW downloads, however it does remain available to those who have already downloaded it. Weight Watchers has announced that they have made BOTH OTG and the new Mobile site FREE to paying etools, On-Line, Monthly Pass, and pay-as-you-go members. What this mean to those who have been PREPAYING for OTG is that you can now contact WW CS and ask them to refund you your prepayment and they will.
6. For those of you who might say "For the life of me I have OTG but I cannot figure out how to dowload this sucker to my Centro and I need a stiff drink right about now!" --Take 5, make your drink and then do the following:
I finally figured out how to get WWOTG to work on my new Centro (AT&T) and thought I'd share what worked for me.
The hotsync conduit (v.7.0.2) doesn't work with the software after downloading from the site, so I could not even install the software on the Centro. To work around this, I manually added them to "install files" in the hotsync manager.
I went to the WWOTG folder in Program Files on your PC. I located all of the .prc files (palm program files) and manually added them to the hotsync queue by right clicking and selecting "Send to" then selected "Palm Handheld device". Following are the paths for the 5 files:
WWOTG/ob_inst/datadrivers/Palm/XDBPalmPDB.prc
WWOTG/ob_inst/Palm/OBC.prc
WWOTG/ob_inst/Palm/SysZLib.prc
WWOTG/ob_inst/Palm/Conduit/OBLaunch.prc
WWOTG/WWsetup/WWSiteLink.prc
Then perform a hotsync. When on your device, follow the setup procedures as indicated on the WW site, remembering to use wireless hotsyncing, not the desktop:
7. For those of you who want OTG to sync but through USB & not wirelessly (b/c let's face it we arent rich!) try this:
For everyone who owns a Palm Centro I need you to help me test this process by trying to replicate it please. I got my Centro to sync using only the USB and without an internet conncetion and this is how I did it-Please let me know if this works for you! I really would like some feedback:
1. Connect your Centro to your PC using the USB/Cable
2. From the WWOTG application on the phone select Sync Options
3. Select "Advanced"
4. Select "Yes"
5. Select Connect to Weight Watchers.com" "Via a HotSync with my desktop" from the drop down menu.
6. Open the Palm Desktop on your PC.
7. Click on the "Hotsync" option on the toolbar.
8. Click on "Setup"
9. Select the "Modem" tab.
10. From the "Modem" drop down menu, try syncing WWOTG using different modems until you find one that works.
FOOTNOTE***In my case I got a successful sync using "US Robotics Sportster." I only tried this as a last resort b/c I lost the "free" dataplan that I was getting on my Centro tonight after the carrier wised-up that I am not a "subscriber." Therefore, eliminating the possibility of an actual internet connection interfering in the process listed above. I also want to add that I stumbled across the process above about a year ago when WWOTG was having serious sycn issues and this method was originally & successfully tested on my Zire71.
8. For those of you who like me, want to see OTG stay around as an option to the new Mobile site b/c we have invested so much in our Palm devices and do not want a new phone, pay for data charges, etc. I encourage you to contact WW CS and voice your opinions. I have written both formal and open letters to the decision makers at WW to let them know we are not going away and our needs should be addressed.
I will be posting more infoover the next few days as I compile more issues and questions that keep coming up on the WW OTG board alot, but if you get to them before I do, by all means post.
Thanks for reading
-Bethany