1. While they seemed fine on my office computer, the circulating copies of Census 2000 disks are acting odd on desk machines; Fillmore itself is also acting odd; I'm following up with Jaime.
2. Just because a user *says* AFF won't work for them doesn't mean it's true. There are several handy, but badly labeled and/or hidden features in AFF that users routinely miss.
For example, today a patron said he needed the disks because he
-couldn't get the correct codes for block groups from AFF and
-he had to select his areas one at a time, which was not feasible.
In fact, you can get both of these things from AFF very easily.
For geographic codes, you do all the selection, get a table and under the "Options" button select "show geographic identifiers".
To get a bunch of geographic units in the fewest possible steps, choose the "Geo within geo" tab. It lets you select geographic areas by specifying the geographic type contained within or related to another geographic type. For example, you can select all counties within the Nation without selecting each individual county in each state.
The vast majority of the time these features alone or in combination will resolve the patron's problems with using AFF.
If you do need to use the disks, install the data engine and ONLY choose "Run From CD" or you'll be there for several hours. --Amy
Posted by bgi at July 13, 2005 04:19 PM | Email This Entry