Download Screen
To get to this screen, click the first button on the left in the toolbar.
This button has a telephone on it, and the tooltip is labeled "Download".
Getting Started
This screen allows you to download your daily stock data from Dial Data's internet servers into the Best Choice 4.0 program. Before you can use this screen, make sure you have entered your Dial Data user account information in the Program Options Window.
While this screen is pretty easy to use, it has a lot of options which we will go into more detail shortly. If you download pretty much everyday, then the following four steps are pretty much all you will need.
You will start to see numbers starting to move under the Bytes Received section, and that represents the data being downloaded to your computer. Once you have downloaded the data, then the program will automatically start importing the data into the databases. Once this is done, you will see "*** Download Complete ***". Click the Close button, and you will see the new data reflected automatically in your current chart. Look at the date in the bottom right corner of the chart, and this date should be the last date you downloaded.
Getting Into More Detail
It is a good idea to know what data you currently need before you download. One way you can quickly tell what was the last day you downloaded is by looking at the bottom right of the current chart, just above the volume. You will see there what the last date of that stock is, and that will reflect pretty well what was the last day you downloaded.
The first thing you will notice when this window opens is the two calendars. The first one under the heading "Start Date" represents the first day of data you want to request from Dial Data. The second calendar under the heading "End Date" represents the last day of data you wish to request from Dial Data.
Generally, the Start Date will automatically show the day after your last download date. The End Date will show today's date. The two calendars will both show today's date if you have downloaded up until yesterday. If you are only downloading for one day, then these two calendars need to have the same date. In the example in the above picture, this is what you would see if you wished to download only Friday, December 19th.
If you need to download over multiple days, just make sure you have selected the day after the last download date as your Start Date, and then the last date you need as your End Date. Don't worry about weekends, as our program automatically takes weekends into account. If you need to start from last Wednesday, and download till Tuesday of this week, no problem. Just select those days and the program will automatically skip the Saturday and Sunday in between.
If today is a Saturday or Sunday, it won't matter if today is selected as the End Date when you click the "Start Download" button. Our program will not download data for Saturday or Sunday. Don't worry about holidays either. If a weekday is a holiday, our program automatically takes those into account as well.
Dial Data's Availability
Dial Data's stock data is not usually ready for downloading until 8:00pm Eastern time. If you try before that time, you may not get any data. It wont hurt to try, but you may only see maybe a 1000 or 2000 bytes showing under the Bytes Received section when the download is finished. If this is the case, just try later.
There is another way you can tell if you didn't get any data. After you have finished downloading, and you have closed the download window, check the date in the lower right corner of your chart. If this is not today's date, then you didn't receive any data. One day of data generally will be over 170,000 bytes.
Overwriting Data
If you downloaded a day of data, and you think something wrong happened during the download, you can always redownload for that day. The program by default does not overwrite data that was previously downloaded. If you feel you received a bad download, click on the box next to "Save Over Existing Data" so that there is a check mark in it. Make sure your dates are correct and click the "Start Download" button. This will take a little longer, but will allow you to save over a previous download.
All information Copyright Best Choice Software 1998-2001