Q: I'm a bit confused concerning what "aep" project to save for Map 2. I found a folder called aep in the data directory which had about 20 aep projects listed. It was suggested to me that I shouldn't be using these aep's. Is this correct? Should I be saving a aep project which we used in the lessons plans ( Rio, DC, etc)?

A: The term 'aep' stands for ArcExplorer project. It is generally the "extension" indicating the file type is from ArcExplorer 2. For example, a project would be saved with the following filename - sanfran.aep
There is an 'aep' folder full of projects on the CD and you can look at them to get an idea of what they can contain. For the final portfolio, I want you to save a unique project that pulls together compatible themes from the data folder on the CD. Please DO NOT hand in projects created from the exercises in the book. You should be creating something new. To add individual themes, try using the "add themes to view" button (rather than the open project button). Once you are happy with what you have, you can save it as a project by choosing "save project" from under the File menu. You will be submitting the project file which is quite small. That is because this file does not contain all the data, but just points to where the data is located. That is why its important to do this part in class with the computers at school. If you do it at work or home and have assigned a different letter to the CD drive, I won't be able to open the project.

Q: I tried saving my project for map 2 of the portfolio while I was on my computer at work. When I brought the project to the lab at school, I couldn't get it to open. What could be the problem?

A: The computer you did the project on is probably not set up in the same way as the computers at school. The project file (aep) does not contain any of the data used to generate the map, but merely paths to folders where the data is located. What probably happened is that the project file you created at work has a different path (address) for the data because it is located in a different location than it would be on the computers at school. For example, the CD drive may be assigned a different letter on each machine. To solve the problem, you will either have to recreate the project on the computers at school and save your project there (preferable), or you will have to edit the project file to make all the paths relative. For more information, see page 86 of the textbook, and the help topic in ArcExplorer 2 "Creating Relative Pathnames."

Q: I'm working on map 3 for the final map portfolio, and I've got a question. When I use the query builder to show graphically the results of a census-related question, I can click on the "highlight results" button to show results, but that disappears as soon as the query builder window is closed, and is not something that can be saved to show up in the final project without running the same query again to highlight such results. So I'm unsure how to make this work -- from some of the explorations from the text, we used the Theme properties feature to graphically display census data, but this shows more general information rather than a question like what the assignment calls for -- I don't see a way to build a query and have it display on the map in a lasting fashion in the manner, for example, that we showed median income on the new york city map in exploration 9. Am I way off track here in understanding the assignment? I'd greatly appreciate any hints you could pass on to get me on track with this.

A: The directions for the third map of your portfolio state that "You must submit both a printout of the final map (black & white), and a word document with a bitmap image of the final map" - to be copied to the instructor's disk the last day of class.
The program doesn't save the highlighted results of the query, but you can print directly from the program before clearing those results, and you can either copy the highlighted results on the map to the clipboard (and paste it into Word) or you can save directly to a bitmap image file - which can be inserted into a Word document. Just try choosing print from the file menu (or control-p), or choose 'copy to clipboard' or 'copy to file' from the edit menu.