At the moment, the demonstrations are short digital movies of computer display screens. They vary in length from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes. The concepts demonstrated are very much the same on different computer operating systems and with different applications, but some details will differ depending on the platform.
To better study the computer skills demonstrated in your web browser window, you should open a second window using the application with the features you wish to practice. This second window is your practice area. That is, in one window you will have your Internet browser such as Netscape with your demonstration movie. Watch the tutorial videoclip demonstrations in one window and then select the practice window to carry them out. You can have both windows open and overlapping at the same time and in this way click from one to the next quickly.
These demonstration files are very short movies a megabyte or two in size. If you have Netscape 3.0 or Internet Explorer 3.0 or later versions, and have a version of Quicktime which is 2.5 or later (system code which plays video), the movie can play almost immediately. With these applications installed, as soon as you seen the first frame of your video, you can click the play button, a small triangle shape in the movie controller bar at the bottom of the video image. It will play while the rest of the movie is downloading to your computer workstation.
If you are using a modem and have an actual transmission speed of close to 4000 bytes per second, it may take you around from four to eight minutes to transmit the complete demonstration videoclip. The slower your modem, the slower the transfer of data. Once a portion of the video begins to appear, you can click the Play triangle at the bottom of the video frame, but it will quickly catch up with the download of the data and stop. I suggest that you move to your second computer screen window and practice what has been demonstrated to that point. By the time you have practiced on the other window and come back to the videoclip window for more, additional video will have been downloaded and you can play another section and practice that amount. Continue with this process until the entire video has arrived and you can play it continuously for a review of what you have done.
If you find that transmission speeds are just too slow and it is taking too long, click the stop button in Netscape's menu bar and find or buy a software manual that reviews the process on paper or find other forms of instruction.
In our Instructional Technology Center, we have found that the display works best on computers with Multiple Scan Displays. You should set such monitors to display at the size of 832-624.
The demonstration movies will display on monitors of any size, but on standard displays you may have to do more scrolling up and down and left and right to potentially see everything happening on the computers screens in the movie.
To reduce the amount of scrolling you may need to do, turn off the menu bars on the top of your browser's screen. The commands in Netscape to do this are found under the options command in the menu bar at the top of your screen. To turn them off, that is to remove the checkmark in front of them which indicates they are active, click to drag to each of them in turn until the checkmarks are gone: Show Toolbar, Show Location, and Show Directory Buttons. Turn these features on and off as you need them.
At the bottom of each movie display is a Control Bar with a slider. Use this slider to re-play this movie from any point by dragging the slider left or right and then clicking the triangle in the left of this control bar. To stop the movie, click once. To restart, double-click. Use the scroll bars on the right of screen to scroll down to the Control Bar to restart from any part which you need to see again and again.
In order to use the demonstration movies, you may have to add special features to your browser called plug-ins. Try one of the demonstrations first, and if the demonstration movie plays once it is downloaded, you need do nothing further. Just continue viewing.
If however you do not see a video clip demonstration, you must make some choices depending on the browser you use and its version number. Two browsers will be described here, Netscape and Internet Explorer. But no matter which browser you use on which OS, Mac or Windows, for the best playability, use the latest version of Apple's video player code, Quicktime. As of this writing, the most current version is Quicktime 3.0. Check Apple's Quicktime site for the version for either Mac or Windows platforms. There is a sigificant improvement with the newest versions of Quicktime. No Sound playing?
If you wish to hear audio, you may have a Windows based computer which did not ship with audio hardware capacity. You can purchase and add this technology to your computer, e.g., SoundBlaster hardware. If you have this or similar capacity and do not hear audio, then download Quicktime 3.0 from Apple's Web site for your Windows system and replace your old Quicktime code.
If you have a Mac, audio hardware is standard equipment on all Macintosh computers. You may need to go to the Sound and control panel and activate your built-in speakers. Further, standard connections are available on Macs to hook it to speakers and stereo systems that you already may own if you need more volume. Mac users merely need to get the most current version of Quicktime installed (2.5 or later) in their system folder.
If you still have video and/or audio problems, contact a computer consultant, read your computer manuals on how to activate your computer speakers or contact a knowledgeable friend. There is too much variance from one computer to the next to explain all possibilities in this web page.
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