Category Archives: TraceFinder 3.0
Issues with Actively Scanning Virus Protection Applications and Data Acquisition and Processing
In many instances of instrument and processing stations being connected to the internet, I’ve helped individuals having system lock up issues on various mass spec systems over the past 20 years, when using Real-Time Virus Scanning Protection.
This issue is vendor agnostic and will causes problems in data collection and processing on a number of vendor platforms.
If you have Norton, McAfee, Microsoft Security Essentials/Windows Defender, etc and you need to run real-time virus protection. You should exclude the folders where data is actively being collected and processed. This will ensure that any processes, such as instrument communication, raw data writing to disk or processed result file creation,aren’t being interrupted by virus checking during data collection and manipulation.
Below is a list of folders recommended for exclusion in the various anti-virus programs.
The example comes from Windows Defender in Windows 10, and will have a different user interface dependent on what application you are using, however each application available commercially today has this capability.
1:Real-time protection is on and select settings
2: Select Add an Exclusion
3: Add each of these folders as an exclusion
Troubleshooting – Windows 7 Themes Performance Issues
Change the theme to improve performance
If your computer is working slowly, you might see a message saying that the theme is using most of its allowed memory. If this happens, you can change to the Windows 7 Basic theme or a high-contrast theme to improve performance.
If you change the theme to Windows 7 Basic, you will no longer get the full Aero experience. Aero is the premium visual experience in this version of Windows. It features a transparent glass design, window animations, Aero Flip 3D, and live window previews.
To change the theme
- Open Personalization by clicking the Start button
, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type personalization, and then click Personalization. - Under Basic and High Contrast Themes, click Windows 7 Basic or one of the High Contrast themes.
Applying an external/historical curve to a batch of samples after Acquisition – Ask A Guru
The video below shows how to apply a calibration curve from one batch that contains calibration samples to a batch of samples that contain no calibrators.
This workflow is the same as selecting the external curve in the Acquisition workflow, but may be used on any batch of samples after acquisition.
The features allows the user to run a calibration batch in the morning and use that curve for all subsequent batches for the time period their SOP allows.
HMMMMMM… Maybe your day just got alittle easier.
If the video is blurry please click the cog wheel at the bottom of the panel and increase the video display resolution.
TF 3.0 Walkthrough Slide Show
The video below is a slideshow of a Power Point presentation of key elements of TF 3.0.
My Filter String Is Missing After I Updated My Methods Associated Rawfile.. HMMMMMM
So in both the local and master methods, a user can update the associated rawfile to see the peaks they are looking for.
This dialog has an option to update the filter strings. Which makes it easy to do especially if you have hundereds of compounds.
When you do this, the logic looks to the compound database info that is in the Acquisition list and to help it determine the filter with the right precusor and then the extracted ion setting to see which filter contains its value within the range of product ions in the brakets of the mass filter. If everything matches from the newly selected rawfile it sets the filter accordingly. If it doesn’t then the compound will have a little red dot next to its name and a missing filter error lights up.
This typically occurs when the new file has a slightly different filter string and the method’s extracted mass falls outside of the product mass range of the filter.
The following video shows you how to manually fix this issue.
If the video is blurry please click the cog wheel at the bottom of the panel and increase the video display resolution.
Storing and Using Data on a Mapped Network Drive
Recently, an “Ask A Guru”, question came through asking how to have data on any other drive besides C:.
In the video below, the process of how to set the root directory structure that TraceFinder needs to find data on any drive is shown.
Once created you can move whole projects with the Windows Explorer tool, or you can use either the “Save As” to make a copy or the “Move” File-Menu item top move the batch to the new disk.
If you have a network shared directory, that you want to use, simply map that drive to your windows directory. It will then function as any other attached drive with the exception of being able to acquire data across the network.
If the video is blurry please click the cog wheel at the bottom of the panel and increase the video display resolution.
TF 3.0 – The Daily Technician Workflow – Point, Shoot and Read the report
Part of what makes TraceFinder a tool for the average chemist, is that complex experiments and processing can be setup once.
But then it can be used a thousand times, by technicians that just need to make samples and put them on the instruments to run.
Though there are many other things that can be done. Although, this isn’t an open access software, we have made it easy to just run your samples and get a report out on the fly that can go to a printer or to a pdf after each injection.
Please view the video below.
If the video is blurry please click the cog wheel at the bottom of the panel and increase the video display resolution.
TF 3.0 – What is Intelligent Sequencing? ” A new/old feature to increase reliability”
Intelligent Sequencing Control
The figure on the below illustrates the wide range of operator-defined
settings that may be utilized to allow TraceFinder 3.0 intelligent sequencing
to make real-time decisions that prevent manual review and re-analysis
of suspect samples. Data review is done immediately following
acquisition, and any defined actions can take place automatically
without user intervention.
Each of the key sample types – calibrators, quality controls,
specimens, etc. have their own review settings that can be unique
to a particular sample type.
For example, if a quality control does
not meet required QA/QC limits, the calibration can be completely
resubmitted and re-analyzed, effectively restarting the entire batch,
while a specimen not meeting that same QA/QC limit may only be
targeted for re-injection.
In each sample type, data review steps and defined actions can
be specified for acceptance criteria on data quality as outlined in the
laborotory’s SOP. The settings for these checks are shown in
the figure on the above.
Intelligent sequencing options can also be set
for quantitative values, such as limits of detection, blank cleaniness,
and carry over. Actions may be defined as well for review
steps based on ion ratio acceptance.
The benefit of utilizing this feature is that batches of samples can be run in realtime
with on the spot rejections or cleaning steps. This eliminates the need to return the
next morning and rerun samples. If samples have a short shelf life then they are kept from
having to be remade or running out of sample. Therefor, increasing the efficiency of the
lab and reducing waste of time and material.
TraceFinder 3.0 has been officially released
I’m happy to announce that TF 3.0 has been release for general distribution.
If you need a webinar for yourself or for specific customers, please send a message via Ask A Guru.
TF 3.0 – How to add Adducts for use in the Compound Database
The video below shows how to edit the positive and negative adducts that can be used in the CDB.
The use of adducts becomes very useful in calcualtions of the exact masses for screening and high resolution quantitation.
This also helps in the screening qualitiy measurement of isotope confirmation and identification.
If the video is blurry please click the cog wheel at the bottom of the panel and increase the video display resolution.
TraceFinder: Direct Knowledge 