CensusTools

Backing up your data

I have received some questions recently about how best to back up census data after it has been entered into a spreadsheet. Since long-term storage and safeguarding our data are primary reasons for even using a spreadsheet, I think a few minutes here are in order to talk about backups.

The majority of us are probably storing our spreadsheet files on our hard drives and/or floppy disks. What we don't like to think about is that hard drives crash and floppy disks can be misplaced and are easily damaged. In my FAQ I describe a nightmare scenario where years of data is lost when a hard drive crashes after entering census data in spreadsheets. There are easy ways to make sure it doesn't happen to you.

The simpliest way to safeguard your data is to store on two different media. For example, if you routinely keep your files on floppy disks then maintain a copy on your hard drive...and vice versa. If you happen to have two hard drives in your computer then use one for backup. Odds are slim that a computer failure would wipe out two drives. If you have a home network, you can be even safer by simply backup up files to a 2nd computer. For those of you with CD writers, you can get a lot of peace of mind by periodically backing up to a CD. Zip drives are another relatively inexpensive solution.

For maximum protection, consider using one of the many free online storage website sprouting up. At Daily eDeals you can get information on about 20 websites offering as much as 500MB of free storage space. Parking your backup files on a remote computer means your data is safe even if your computer is destroyed or stolen.

Auto Complete

Many of you have noticed that there are instances where Excel will try to outsmart you and fill in a data cell based on the first letter you type. That can be quite useful or quite annoying. The feature is called "Auto Complete". You can read the Excel help file for full details, but the short story is that the program will attempt to complete an entry based on other entries in the same column. That can be a time saver if you are entering data for a family of 10 and they all have the same birthplace information. It can be a pain if you attemping to enter an "O" for owned free in the "Owned free or mortgaged" column and the program autocompletes the entire column heading.

The feature can be toggled on and off easily. In Excel 97, click "tools" in the top menu bar and select "options". On the "Edit" tab there is a checkbox labled "Enable AutoComplete for cell values". Check the feature on or off depending on your preference. Thank you to Bob in San Antonio for pointing this out to me!