Problems with census PDAs could prompt a return to pencil and paper
By Donald Melanson 
posted March 26th 2008 4:01PM
posted March 26th 2008 4:01PM
Harris Corp. may have nothing but good things to say about the HTC-made PDAs it's planning to supply for use in the 2010 census, but it looks like the handhelds are already starting to cause plenty of headaches for census officials, who are reportedly even considering a return to pencil and paper if things can't be resolved. As the AP reports, the problems start with the contract for the devices, which originally clocked in at $596 million, has since grown to $647 million, and could eventually balloon to as much as $2 billion. As if that wasn't enough, the handheld has also apparently proven to be "too complex" for some of the temporary census workers that took part in a test last year, and the device was reportedly "not initially programmed to transmit the large amounts of data necessary." As a result, census officials are now said to be considering a number of different options to scale back the use of the devices, only one of which apparently actually has the headcounters entering data into 'em as they go door-to-door.
do you talk like this in person?
ATM's are built using "old" technology, yet they seem to be functioning quite well now, don't they?
maybe i'm being too simple. some kind of handheld with a decent size screen and battery life. stylus/touchscreen, full qwerty keyboard. possible GPS to select which location/house/etc you're inputting data for/from. access to the internet. create an application hosted on a secure server with php (free) and a mysql db (free). this can be changed as the census changes. (every 10 years or whatever)??
If I recall correctly it is running some cut-down form of ArcPad from ESRI... has to be one of the most un-intuitive pieces of software I've ever had to use or teach others to use.
Apparently, Rolex watches aren't too complex for the person in the picture...
pencil and paper, wow, that's sounds like a cool gadget.
Not really surprising, they are temporary census taking employees. We are not really taking about the most talented or gifted of American society. Because if they were, they probably wouldn't be doing that job on a temporary basis.
Reminds me of the old IT saying, "Most computer problems are a PICNIC"... Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.
It's not just the government that has problems rolling out paperless projects.
Five years ago, I wrote a Palm app for (college-educated) auditors to streamline their audit process in order to eliminate several paperwork steps. It was slick, and a huge timesaver for the technologically adept beta testers, who loved it.
The first sign of trouble was when the company kept pushing back deployment, until Palm switched processors (TI to Intel, IIRC) in their product line, which would have meant that the sync conduit would probably have had to be rewritten and the app recertified to work on the new Palms.
After I explained the situation, the company finally pushed the product out using now-obsolete Palms and it failed miserably as the majority of auditors couldn't figure out the basics of using a PDA. The number one trouble shooting question was, "how do I save?" The number two question was, "why did we get old Palms?" The audit manager effectively killed the project by first allowing the more technologically challenged of her team to continue to work on paper, and then by insisting that all Palm users complete paper copies of all audit materials, eliminating the reason to use a Palm in the first place.
yeah, seriously, what's up with that, allen???? lol...i'm not even gonna say anything....well, maybe not
"NERD"!!!
everyone low rank him
You forget that the census data has to be protected under Title 13. That does not come free.