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Tips and Hints |
What can I do to help my whole class see the material? What should I do first, if I have problems with the program? |
Problems with Activities |
Tips and Hints |
The easiest way to start this program on a computer is to create a bookmark or make a favorite of the Welcome screen of the program, using your browser of choice.
You may also find it helpful to make aliases (Mac) or shortcuts (PC) to the program from the computer's desktop. Instructions for this are in your computer's help manual.
To improve program performance, you may copy the entire contents of the CD-ROM into a folder on your computer's hard drive. This will enable the program to load and run faster. If disk space is an issue, you need not copy the folders containing the Flash and Quicktime installers.
All elements of the program in Flash will resize to fit in the browser window. This includes the menus and most of the activities. Read the section Classroom Viewing in the CD-ROM User Guide for additional information.
When troubleshooting, try these steps, starting with the top one. If it doesn't solve the problem, work your way down the list.
If the program worked before but you are using a different browser or a different computer, you may need to set up the new browser. Use the Check Browser feature, available from the Welcome screen and described in the CD-ROM User Guide.
Web Browsers and Plug-ins |
Not every new version of a browser supports all the functions that previous versions did. In order to test whether a new browser version not mentioned on the Compatible Browser page will work for the FOSS Diversity of Life multimedia, first use the Check Browser feature to verify that the required plug-in versions are installed. Next, try using the Pollinators and the Herbarium activities. The requirements for these activities are representative of the program as a whole, and will test your new browser setup.
If you successfully completed the installation process for a plug-in yet the plug-in appears to be missing when you use the FOSS Diversity of Life multimedia, you may not have installed the plug-in in the correct browser. If you have two copies of one browser on your computer, the installer may find the one you don't regularly use and install the plug-in there. During the plug-in installation, be sure to specify which browser the installer should use.
Netscape 4.7x for Macintosh and Netscape 6.x for Macintosh are not recommended for viewing the FOSS Diversity of Life multimedia when using a Macintosh running OS 9.x. Netscape 6.2 will not use the QuickTime plug-in properly when running the program off the CD-ROM. Netscape 4.7x has limitations related to its recognition of files as HTML documents. We recommend you use a newer version of the Netscape browser, such as Netscape Communicator 7.0, or Internet Explorer 5 or later. For more details, see the Compatible Browser page.
Certain Macintosh G4 processor computers using OS 9 exhibit a known issue of sluggish performance with Internet Explorer 5 after going into Sleep mode. This sluggish performance may appear as a variety of symptoms when viewing the FOSS Diversity of Life multimedia. To avoid these symptoms, turn off Sleep mode (see below).
Symptoms of this issue on your computerSymptoms of this issue within the FOSS Diversity of Life multimedia
To turn off Sleep mode
If your OS X system is configured to use an older version of Internet Explorer as the default when opening .htm files, then it will start the Classic OS when you first double click on the Diversity of Life.htm file icon. To fix this, you need to change the Internet Explorer version that your OS X associates with the .htm extension.
Here is the procedure
The default browser MS Internet Explorer 3.0 that comes with the Windows 95 operating system does not support JavaScript. The program requires a JavaScript-compatible browser. We recommend upgrading to MS Internet Explorer 4.0 or later.
The QuickTime 6 installer provided on the CD-ROM will not work with Windows 95. We recommend downloading an installer for QuickTime 5 from Apple's QuickTime support page at http://www.info.apple.com/usen/QuickTime/. The direct link is http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120133.
On systems running Windows XP Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer will not allow the active content on any pages loaded from disk or CD to run automatically. In this event, the user is ordinarily expected to click on a bar located just above and respond to a security dialog in order to display the page, and will be required to do so every time such a page is loaded. To stop this from happening, select Internet Options from the Tools menu of Internet Explorer and click on the Advanced tab. Scroll down to the Security options; then check "Allow Active content to run from CD" and "Allow Active content to run from disk".
Problems with Activities |
Make sure each activity is loaded completely before pressing any buttons. Earlier versions of a plug-in, for example Flash Player 4, may display an activity but not support its proper behavior. Use the Check Browser feature to make sure you have the required versions of all plug-ins.
Sluggish performance after Sleep mode may also cause odd behaviors. If using a Macintosh G4 with OS 9 and Internet Explorer, review Mac OS 9.x and Internet Explorer 5: sluggish performance on G4 computers after Sleep mode.
If you already have the QuickTime Player 3 plug-in or later, your browser's preferred memory may need to be set higher. This applies only to Macintosh users with OS 9.x or earlier.
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University of California
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