QuitTime

More for the vast historical significance than anything else, I hereby announce the start of a new project. QuitTime is a "quitmeter" that helps you quit smoking by showing you how many cigarettes you haven't smoked, how much money you've saved, and (theoretically, at least) how much longer you'll live as a result.

I wrote the Windows desktop version of QuitTime in 1997. It's still getting downloaded, over ten years later (mwilden.com/QuitTime). I'll say one thing for Windows, it does at least try to maintain backwards compatibility.

This version of QuitTime will be a Ruby on Rails web app. It's hard to imagine a simpler application. You tell it when you quit smoking (and a few other things) and it tells you how great you are.

For example, I quit a 3 1/2 pack a day habit (yes, really) in 2000. As of 2003, I'd not smoked 84,000 cigarettes and saved $15,000. I'd love to see those numbers as of 2008, but I'm on a Mac now.

Hence the plan to whip out a quick little application that will let me have some Rails fun, show me how great I am, and maybe help other people quit smoking, too.