S-Star.Org - Frequently Asked Questions

TECH
	TechFAQ001 - Download of Video lecture Is it possible to download the lectures ? Yes, there are available at this link. The files are very huge. Please make sure that you have high bandwidth connection before you attempt to download.
	TechFAQ002 - Unreliable Internet Connection I can not access any of the lectures from the course. The speed of the local network is 10 bps. What do you advise me to do? The internet link from your location to the server depends on many intermediate links. If the bandwidth from your modem or network leased connection to your ISP is not the bottleneck, then it will be your ISP's connection to the USA which is the bottleneck. There is very little we can do.
	TechFAQ003 - Problem with Video player application Do you have any suggestions as to how I could improve my reception? I do have Windows Media Player 7.0 and a modem connection of 28.8kbps. Fast and reliable Internet connectivity is fundamental for tele-learning and especially bioinformatics research, which is why we have set up in Asia Pacific the APAN project, (http://www.apan.net)to build second generation internet connectivity for research and education projects with partners such as APBioNet (http://www.apbionet.org). In Africa, we are not aware of any such development. However in South America, we do know of REUENA2; in Europe, TERENA (http://www.terena.nl) and DANTE (http://www.dante.net) provide the TEN-155 and now, the Gigabit GÉANT project; in Australasia, there is AARNET. If your country is not participating in this, then there is little we can do. Meanwhile, these projects are actively working together with international bodies such as CCIRN (http://www.ccirn.org) to build greater connectivity to academic and research organisations. If you are from a participating country and from an organisation which is participating in your country's advanced networking, then you should be able to enjoy more reliable connections.
	TechFAQ004 - Problem with Video player application I found it impossible to "rewind" or "fast forward" the lecture. Is there a way to do so? To view the video properly, you should use an Internet Explorer compatible version and a compatible Windows Media Player. Try installing/upgrading your software to the latest version. If you wish to fast forward or rewind, try to download the file and view it on your computer. If you are viewing online, only sites which have video server installed will be able to provide such capabilities.
	TechFAQ005 - Software versions used to view S* course content I have some problems viewing the S* course content. Please help. As stated in the Lectures Download page, we have tested the lecture files on the stated setup. Hence, we do not guarantee that the lecture files will work under different setup. Also, try upgrading the softwares that you're using to the latest version if possible. The latest softwares usually fix previous bugs or any shortcomings.
	TechFAQ006 - Intermittent Streaming of Audiovideo The video plays fine but there are regular long pauses when the picture and audio stop for no apparent reason and then start playing again. Have you any idea what may be causing the problem and what I can do to fix it? When you click on the audio/video lecture, your Video player makes a connection to the audio/video server somewhere in another part of the world. A lot of things can go wrong in between. One typical problem is intermittent streaming of audiovideo, where even though the video plays fine, there are regular or irregular long pauses when the picture and audio stop for no apparent reason and then start playing again. Typically, when the connection is first made, there is a pause where the streaming video from the remote server fills up your local PC's video buffer. This buffer keeps getting topped up, unless there is a slowdown in the packets being transmitted due to congestion somewhere along the link. When this happens, the buffer starts getting emptied, the video pauses for it to get filled up again. This explains the long pauses. The typical cause of this is network congestion between your local machine and the server. It could be due to your local area network being congested, or your link to the Internet that is congested, or the link by your Internet Service Provider to the Internet (typically USA) that is congested, or the remote server's link to the Internet that is congested, or the remote server's local area network that is congested. One or more congestions in the end-to-end link between your machine and the server will cause the pauses. This should be reported to your Network administrator locally who would be able to advise you on when to connect when traffic congestion is minimal, or who will escalate this to the management to seriously consider upgrading your Internet connectivity, either to your service provider or the service provider's international provider. For example, from UK to Australia, typical congestions may occur trans-Atlantic, between Europe and the US East Coast, eg. during the WTC attack recently. It could also occur between US East to West coast, depending on your provider's routing of packets. It could also be between Australia and USA. Finally, it could be a peak period for the Australia site offering the data. In another example say of India accessing Singapore, typically, the congestion takes place at the local area network where the Internet link out of the institution is saturated, and congestion takes place there. Another link is between India and Singapore, which may actually route through USA. The the India-US and US-Singapore segments may also be congested. One way of checking the congestion is to use the "traceroute" command in Unix, or the "tracert" command on Windows platform. If the server is from s-star.org, then, "traceroute (or tracert)s-star.org" will start a series or replies that show how many milliseconds it takes for each link. In seriously congested segments, it may show up to seconds, or totally time out "*" instead of a number, and this means that the TCP/IP connection is pretty bad and timing out. This is when the video starts to stop.
	TechFAQ007 - Reporting Problems or Bugs In reporting problems or bugs, it would be most helpful if you could inform our help, support and admin personnel details of your problems in a way we can provide accurate diagnostics. a. What is the nature of the problem in specific terms Do not use vague terms, e.g. "I could not view your lectures" "I could not access your webpage". but use specific details such as "When loading the audiovideo stream, the window showing the video stalled for more than 5 minutes with a blank black screen and subsequently I had to abort the application." or "I entered the following URL and the response after x seconds was a webpage with the following error message, which was why I couldn't access your webpage." b. What is the operating system platform you are using? e.g. Microsoft Windows version number, or Linux or Macintosh etc. c. What is the make and model of your computer? Its name, chip, ? MB RAM, ? GHz, etc d. What sort of related peripherals you are using in conjunction with your computer when the problem occurred? e.g. when problem is lack of audio, what sort of sound card you are using, and what about the speakers attached to your computer. e. What sort of network connection you are using? e.g. dialup modem with telephone line, cable TV modem, or ADSL link, or ISDN 128 kbps or network connection on your campus and what is the speed of the connection? e.g. 28.8 kbps modem or category 5 cable on a local area network f. What sort of application you were using when the problem occurred, with full description of the problem including the URL of the problem causing situation? e.g. I rebooted my computer, and powered up my Netscape browser version 4.07 and entered http://s-star.org/lectures/lecturelis.htm and the webpage turned out "The resource you have requested was not found on the University of Sydney web server. The page may have been moved or the link updated." g. What sort of other thing that you did which worked, in contrast to what didn't work? e.g. "I tried http://www.s-star.org/schedule.html and it worked ok but this other one didn't." This will help very much in providing us a better clue in diagnosing your problem and helping us help you better.
	TechFAQ008 - Full support for Internet Explorer and Windows Operating System All S* users of the video-streamed lectures and the IVLE discussion forums and test assessment systems are fully supported on Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, operating on the Microsoft Windows operating system. In some cases Netscape browser will work but not with the same quality and/or reliability. On certain platforms, it is not possible for Netscape to work. While the Mac and Linux platforms may work, they are not supported at the level of the IE/Windows combination. S* participants on these platforms are advised to move to the latter platform for the best effect. There are no plans at the moment from S* members to support other platforms fully, until we receive funding to support our work. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
	TechFAQ009 - Problem with IVLE account IDs and Passwords The IVLE system at the National University of Singapore uses userids and passwords for login access. The IVLE is currently used as the platform for delivering S* Course components a. Discussion Forum b. Test Assessment. Once you have registered for S* course and have been successfully selected to participant (not all will get in because of an overwhelming demand), you will be automatically emailed the IVLE userid and password. This is a guest account on the IVLE system, and typically looks like ivleweb\GSTxxxxxxx where ivleweb is the domain and GST is for GUEST and xxxxxxx is the rest of your userid i.e. the one sent to you in your confirmation mail. See IVLE Guide for more information. Your password is automatically generated. As a result sometimes we can passwords like x2l155 This password is not "x" two one one five five but actually "x" two "L lowercase" one five five. So for best effect, cut and paste the password into the login field, or test it out a bit or try various combinations. The problematic characters include zero and "o uppercase", "i uppercase", the number "one" and "L lowercase".
	TechFAQ010 - Macintosh users At the present moment, the S* lectures received with best effect via Microsoft operating system using Microsoft Internet explorer and Microsoft Windows Media Player. If you are using Macintosh systems, for Microsoft Internet Explorer, a Macintosh version is available for free at http://www.microsoft.com/mac/ . Mac systems can emulate a Windows environment. To run Windows on Macintosh, Connectix has a virtual pc that does that: see http://www.connectix.com/. Even having installed Microsoft software on Mac, or run emulations of Windows on Mac, there is no guarantee that the system will work. Therefore, for the non-techies, you will find it easier to get hold of a PC and work from that platform. We do not have resources at this point of writing the FAQ to support more than one platform.
	TechFAQ011 - Post Download Instruction After you have successfully downloaded the zip file containing the video file(s),unzip the files using WinZip and then click on start.html and then on Presentation. The presentation should begin by itself. If there is an error playing back the file, please upgrade your Media player to the latest version or download the file again. If you click on Slides, you must make sure that you have Acrobat Reader installed. (The latest version of Acrobat Reader can be obtained at this link.)If you can't view the slides properly, try to upgrade your Acrobat Reader or try to download the zip file contain the slides again.
	TechFAQ012 - Softwares To Resume Download Due to the large file size of the presentation, it is advisable for users with low bandwitdth to use softwares which can resume download in the event of connection loss or interruption. These softwares are usually called download manager. Examples of some popular download managers includes GetRight, Go!Zilla, DAP, FlashGet, NetAnts etc.
	TechFAQ013 - Difference Between Streaming And Downloading What is the difference between downloading and streaming files? When you download a media file, the entire file is saved on your hard drive, either in the browser cache or a directory that you specify. Only upon downloading can the file be played. When the file is streamed, the file can begins to play while it is being delivered to your computer. What are the advantages of streaming over downloading? Media files normally tend to be large are not saved and hence won't take up disk space. Don't have to wait long for the files to start playing. Long programs, such as an entire class session, can be delivered over the web. Audio and video programs can be delivered live and archived simultaneously. If streaming has so many advantages, why would one ever want to use downloadable media files?? Since a downloaded file is saved to your hard drive, it's available for later use, independent of the server. A downloaded media file can be stepped frame-by-frame. One can quickly jump to any part of the audio or video track that one wants. adapted from http://192.154.43.167/webhelp/streaming/stream_faq.htm