Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Free Census checking software

Yet another volunteer checker struggling to get the checking software to work! We have repeatedly asked Free Census to sort it out but its like talking to a rather dim brick wall.

Here is a simplified way to do it:

Download WINCC

Save to desktop

Double click on icon

Unzip into c:\wincc. This folder will be the one suggested by WINCC. Say yes to creating a shortcut, it will take you to Windows Explorer. Drag the shortcut icon to your desktop.

Open WINCC & follow the instructions. Enter personal details - 4-digit code, first two letters of surname & first two letters of forename.

WINCC will then want to test the external drive. Normally it would expect to use the A drive, the floppy drive. If you don't have one, but you do have other removable media drives, WINCC will say it has detected more than one removable drive. Removable in the sense that you can put media in yourself.

Select one of these, but you must have something in the drive. Perhaps the best option is to plug your digital camera in and try selecting that drive. You must restart WINCC after plugging the camera in.

If you don't have any removable drives, then WINCC will just ignore the test requirement.

Once WINCC has a drive, it will create a small TEST directory. You can open this and play with it.

When you open WINCC you get the first record overlaid with the first household panel. You must tab through all fields on this household panel to get to the first record. You must check as you tab on both types of record. The second field is Ecclesiastical parish. If there isn't one, then enter a hyphen.

Don't spend a lot of time with the TEST directory, import the data zip under Options and try it out. You can import from the floppy drive A, or there is a folder in WINCC called ZIP. Copy the still zipped data file to that folder and import from there.

Remember that you can re-install WINCC and re-import the data file if things go wrong.

Pay particular attention to the BROWSE button; it will allow you to insert records, split households ect. Right clicking on the BROWSE screen brings up help.

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