Open an account
The first step is to register by filling out the electronic form in the section “Open an account.” After having submitted the form, you will receive e-mail confirmation of the new account as well as related information (user name and password).

Please note that it is not necessary to be registered to install and start the application--as an unregistered user, you have complete access to the application except that you cannot download data.

Downloading and installing the Java plug-in
The Java plug-in must be installed before the application can be run for the first time. The plug-in must be version 1.4.1 or higher. The upload can take some time since the file size is about 10 Mb for version 1.4.1; version 1.4.2 is about 1.4 Mb. However, when you install version 1.4.2, additional files will be downloaded when the installation is run.

To begin the installation, double-click on the *.exe file that you downloaded and follow the instructions. The installation time for version 1.4.2 is longer than version 1.4.1 since the files are downloaded from the Internet during the installation. If your Internet connection is slow, this will be somewhat time-consuming.

When the installation is completed, go to the control panel, double-click on the Java icon, then select the “Browser” tab. Deselect all the boxes so that the Java plug-in is not the default virtual Java machine. If you do not do this, certain software components developed with Microsoft development tools and specially conceived to function within the Microsoft browser will no longer work. The virtual Java machine required for these software components must be the one furnished by Microsoft since there are incompatibilities with standard Java.

This application uses the Java Web Start® technology. Because of this, when you start the application for the first time, it will be uploaded to your workstation and a shortcut will be created on your desktop. Afterward, you can use the application without having to go through the Internet site.

Procedure to extract data from the system
After you have opened an account and installed and started the application, extracting data from the system is accomplished by following the following three steps:

1. Create a query
This step involves entering information following the rules specific for each tabbed section. The information that you enter allows you to focus on the data set that you are looking for.

2. Submit the query
To submit a query, you click the button .A window opens in which you must specify your user name, password, and a valid e-mail account. To submit queries and receive data, you must be registered in the system so that you have a user name and password.

3. Receive data
After having submitted a query, you will receive an e-mail message that tells you how to retrieve your copy of the data. This message includes a summary of your search criteria as well as the URL where the data is held. You click on this hyperlink and a “*.zip” file containing the data will be downloaded to your workstation.

The maximum number of data files that you can download is currently limited to 500. While you are building your query, you can see the number of data files corresponding to the current query specifications in the lower part of the window. You should adjust your query so that the number of data files is below 500. This maximum number may be revised in the future.

On-line help is available from two places: 1) by clicking on the hyperlink user guide in the menu to the right of this page and 2) by clicking on the icon from the application.