Online Help

Online help is relatively new, and as such may not be as good as you might hope.

For viewing on campus, you may have to bring a set of headphones if the computer you are using doesn't have speakers. The computers in rooms 104, 221, and in the main computer rooms 216, and 217 (on the east side of the building), have speakers to play the audio. However, these computers often have had the audio disabled, and you may have to check the following:

• The monitor has a volume control on the front, on the right edge of the screen. Make sure that volume is not turned down to zero.
• You will find a small yellow speaker on the bottom right toolbar on the monitor screen. Double click it and raise the Volume Control bar on it as necessary, and make sure the "mute" button is not checked.

The major flaw in this technology is the size of the files. A simple 3 minute set of instructions using the Macromedia Flash format generates a 7 Mb file. Thus the loading time over a high-speed LAN connection can take a minute to download, during which time the student, unused to such delays, thinks nothing is going on and bails. Sorry about that. Get a bigger pipe. Over a high-speed cable modem it takes perhaps 2 minutes to load. Sorry about that. Get a bigger pipe. Over a 56k modem I have no idea how long it takes, because even though that is what I have at home I have never had the patience to wait for it to load. An hour perhaps? Sorry about that. Get a bigger pipe.

The files now offered were generated with Camtasia. They are then fed to you using your choice of Macromedia Flash, AVI, or Real format. Each of these formats has advantages and disadvantages.

• Viewing Macromedia Flash Files: The problem with this format is that if you miss something during the presentation, there is no way to back up and redo a section. The player in your browser has no Fast Forward buttons. Thus you have to pay very close attention and take notes, because if you miss something, or don't understand it, you just have to suck it up and review the whole thing again. There ARE pause and stop buttons at the bottom of the screen, but that's all. Also, if you accidentally hit the stop button in the middle of the presentation, you have to start over. There is no fast forward. Also, you may find that, depending on your screen resolution, the cursor may appear to go "off screen." Just use your horizontal and vertical scroll bars to fix this. The good thing about these files is they load rather quickly and are of high quality.
• Viewing AVI Files with Microsoft's Media Viewer: With AVI files, you gain access to controls which permit you to go back and repeat a section, but at the cost of file size. The file size doubles, doubling the load time. Even then there is a price to pay, since most AVI viewers change the screen size, sometimes making the video either illegible, or at least really ugly. Sometimes the only way you can reasonably see the file is to tell the viewer to go to Full Screen. Then, sadly, you lose the controls, so if you want to go back and view something again you have to hit escape to go back to the partial screen, click on the "go back 1 minute" button, and again restore the size to full screen. Not a lot of fun.
• Viewing AVI Files with the Camtasia AVI Player: A better way to view AVI files is to download Camtasia's AVI player, which has a set of controls which are accessible even under full screen. You can get the player by clicking here. It is geared to do a better job of viewing AVI files. Again, AVI files are the biggest out there, and are therefore the slowest to load.
• Viewing REAL Media Files: You can also view the files using the REAL Player. These files have the quickest load times of all, but they sometimes try to fit the video to a strange screen size, which can completely ruin the looks of the file, making it illegible.
• A final possibility is not to view the files by "streaming" them, but rather to download them to your computer for later viewing. To download either the REAL or AVI files, simply "right click" on them and then click on "save target as" and save them to a spot on your hard disk. This is probably best for home use, since once you have the file you don't have to download it again if you want to see it a second time.