Data Files

[Duchess' Cat]

I have a question about data files. We are using Totalchrom 6.2 and are using DTS stamps on filenames. This is very hard to sort files and if a file is reprocessed it is hard to find it again. Anybody have a solution for this problem?

[Red Queen]

Dear Cat,
Nice Smile!
We use sequences to generate filenames by importing a text file which we generate from a visual basic software package called EZSequence. It gives files a unique filename which is 7-9 characters long and coded to represent the site, column, sample type, month, day and hour. It is easy to sort the files and pull our quality controls from samples. The program generates a text file that can be imported into the Totalchrom sequence generator and makes a sequence of about 23 days long so every three weeks you have to make and load a new sequence. You can get this software from Orsat, LLC. See link below:

http://www.orsat.com/autogcsystem/

[Duchess' Cat]

AirNow has a new cloud database for PAMS data but it will not take my Totalchrom tx0 files. What's up with that?

[Red Queen]

Hi Cat!
I had the same problem and emailed the folks at AirNow. I got a response from Justin Dumas at Sonoma Technology (the folks who actually manage AirNow) and this is what he said.

The TX0 files can be a little tricky, as their file names have to be in a particular format. For the paired files within the zipped folder, there needs to be an “a” file and a corresponding paired “b” file. The actual file names of these paired files need to be identical, with the “a” and “b” letters listed at the end of the file name. In addition, “a” or “b” cannot be used anywhere else in the file name itself (e.g. you couldn’t have applea.TX0 and appleb.TX0 because of the “a” in apple). For example, a correct TX0 pair would be:
• File A: 12345a.TX0
• File B: 12345b.TX0

The example TX0 file on the DART user’s guide is incorrectly formatted; the file names are “Channela.TX0” and “Channelb.TX0” As you can see, this is the same issue that you came across and will not upload into DART. The DART user’s guide slightly out of date and we are working on updating the content.