Spring is in the air and that means the Census Bureau is preparing for address canvassing, during which 140,000 enumerators will go block-by-block to verify the addresses to which census forms will be mailed next year.
Reports about the exercises have been popping up in local newspapers, but as yet no one has weighed in on the performance of the bureau's much-maligned handheld computers. (The topic has surfaced on micro-blogging site Twitter.)
However, Tech Insider commenter Jack Stanton chimed in with some thoughts today on Allan's post from last May about glitches with the handhelds. Stanton's assessment is harsh, though some of his complaints echo those identified during the field testing last year: slow upload times, delays and poor tech support.
But that's just one man's opinion. What say you? If you or anyone you know is working with the bureau and has gotten their hands on a handheld, shoot us an e-mail and tell us about it. Good? Bad? OK, but no iPhone? We'd love to know.
COMMENTS
I used the Harris Hand Held Computer (HHC) for two weeks prior to teaching a group of 15 - 20 enumerators how to use the device. It was very slow to build screens, and I found several ways it could be improved with minimal downloads. Wrote the first comments at the www.census.gov, Q & A Help website and got fired as a group leader, after my comments ended up on the desk of the Associate Director of the Census's desk . My comments and suggestions amounted to time and money saving measures that have the potential to save millions of taxpayer dollars. For example spending over 3 hours entering data for one address that consisted of 120 apartments. If a copy/paste feature, or block entry were available, the entire complex could have been entered in less than one minute. The Sprint cellular connection was unreliable, and the device was obviously manufactured by the lowest bidder.
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