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FAQ
What is a FAQ?
It is a frequently
asked question. When you have a question or a technical problem, you
should come here first. Also check here for updates as I will keep
this site loaded with new questions.
What is the
Macromedia Authorware Web Player?
I used Macromedia
Authorware 5.2 to write all the lesson files and interactive exercises.
In order to run these from the web, you need to download and INSTALL
the web player on your machine. Note that all the machines in the
University Labs have the webplayer. This is a big file! It could take
as long as 45 minutes to download. If you have a slow modem connection
and no patience, come see Dr. Miller or Dr. Padgett, he has a few
CD's with the webplayer already on it. You will have to promise him
to bring it back though!
I am an AOL
user? Can I still work with these files at home?
The answer is
YES. Here is what you have to do. Connect to AOL, then minimize AOL
to your taskbar. Then open a seperate window of Internet Explorer.
Then logon as you normally would. Running the webfiles directly from
AOL is problematic. AOL uses some special and proprietary protocols
which make the files run a bit strangely sometimes. However, by opening
the seperate window of Netscape, you avoid these problems.
I have downloaded
the Authorware Web Player and correctly installed it, however whenever
I login to the modules, all I get is the following logo on the small
window:
What is happening
is fairly common. First, let me tell you why and then what to do about
it. The reason the Authorware file is failing to load is that you
have not given it the correct "security clearance". Remember,
that I am tracking your usage of these files. In doing so, the system
has to write a very small and temporary file (which is deleted upon
exiting) to your harddrive. Authorware will not let me do that without
your explicit permission. Therefore, if it does not have the permission,
it simply sits there until you give it the permission.
Now, the way that
you would give it the permission is to close the loader window that
contains the logo above, then hold your CONTROL key down on your keyboard
and click the link to the module again. This will bring up the following
window:
Click OK and the
file should open normally.
Sometimes you
refer to "Clearing the Cache", what does this mean?
This
means that I want you to clear all the files off of your harddrive
and reformat your entire computer...ha ha ha!
What
it really means is that I need for you to clear our the memory of
old interent files. Sometimes, your browser will keep a copy of files
that we have been to before. Instead of loading a new one, it will
simply load the old one onto your machine. This is done to save time
and in most cases it is a good thing. However, whenever changes have
been made, it can be a bad thing. Therefore, we need to clear out
all of the old files on the computer.
In
Netscape, we do the following:
Click
Edit, then click Preferences. In the window that appears,
click the Advanced Category, then click Cache which
will pop up under the Advanced category, we will then click clear
on both memory and disk.
In
Internet Explorer, we do the following:
Click
Tools, then Internet Options. In the window that appears,
click Delete Temporary Internet files and Clear History.
After
you have done this, click either Reload (Netscape) or Refresh (IE).
When
I tried to access a lesson that I had already been in before, I got
an error message that says that "I have the wrong or missing
segment file" What gives?
Well,
what it means is that I made some slight modifications to the program
and had to reload the lesson to the server. When your browser saw
that you were going to do that lesson again, it simply said "Oh
wait a minute, I already have copy of that file in my cache, I will
use that one". Unfortantely, this was the wrong file and the
Authorware Web Player did not know what to do with it. When this happens,
simply close the file and then clear your cache (see the FAQ above).
This will solve the problem.
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