Read Me for Amazing Animals Activity Pack, version 1.0
Important: To improve video quality in this product we recommend that you set your display to use more than 256 colors. Refer to section 11 of this Read Me for more information.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Care of compact discs
3. System requirements for running Amazing Animals
4. Installing Amazing Animals
5. Installing QuickTime¬ 2.5
6. Performance problems
7. Running Amazing Animals with low memory
8. Sound problems
9. Screen size and color configuration
10. Saving, printing, and copying
11. Playing video
12. Error messages and if Amazing Animals will not run.
13. Connecting to the Internet
1. Introduction
About Dorling Kindersley
DK Multimedia titles are available wherever CD-ROMs are sold. New titles will be available on a regular basis. For more information, contact us at DK Multimedia, 9 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E 8PS.
You may also visit us on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.dk.com
About this Read Me file
This Read Me file is designed to address most of the problems you may encounter when using Amazing Animals. Please take a look at the table of contents above to see if your particular problem is addressed.
If you are still having problems or need further technical support on any Dorling Kindersley product, please call the Multimedia Helpline with details of the problem, including any error messages that were produced, and the full specification of your Macintosh. If possible, you should be beside your machine when you telephone.
The numbers in New York, USA are:
Telephone: 1-800 DKMM 575
Fax: 212 213 5240
E-mail: Support@dk.com
The numbers in London, United Kingdom are:
Telephone: 0870 0100 350 (this call is not a premium call, it is charged at the current national rate)
Fax: 0171 753 7343
E-mail: Support@dkmm.co.uk
Context-sensitive help is available within the product wherever you see icons of Henry the lizard. Simply click on Henry for Help.
2. Care of Compact Discs
Contrary to early reports, compact discs (CDs) are very easily damaged if treated carelessly. Such damage has a much greater effect on the digital data of a CD-ROM than on the information of a music CD. A dirty or damaged CD-ROM is quite likely to malfunction. With CD-ROM drives becoming ever faster and more disc-sensitive, this is an increasing problem.
The surface of the disc can quickly gather dirt and is very easily scratched. To protect the data from scratches, fingerprints, dust particles, and smears, do not touch the readout side (unlabeled side) of the disc or place it face down on a hard surface.
Should the CD become dirty, clean it with a soft cloth lightly moistened with CD cleaning fluid or ethyl alcohol, working from the center to the edge. Do not use any type of solvent, such as benzine, lacquer thinner, anti-static agents, or LP record cleaners as they may damage the surface.
Never leave the disc in a place subject to direct sunlight, high temperature, or high humidity. Recommended storage conditions are:
Temperature: 10íC to 50íC (50íF to 122íF)
Humidity: 10% to 80%
3. System requirements for running Amazing Animals
The minimum computer specification required for running Amazing Animals is as follows:
An Apple Macintosh 68LC040 25MHz computer, or above, that supports a 640 x 480 pixel monitor displaying 256 colors, 8Mb RAM (12Mb required for System 7.5+ and PowerPC), a double-speed CD-ROM drive, and System 7.0 or later.
Amazing Animals also requires a certain amount of free RAM in order to run. You can check the minimum amount of free RAM required by Amazing Animals in the following way:
1. Insert the Amazing Animals CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click on the Amazing Animals Folder, then click on the Amazing Animals icon to highlight it.
3. From the File menu, select Get Info.
4. Under the memory requirements section, look for the figure in the Minimum Size box. This is the minimum amount of free RAM that Amazing Animals needs in order to run.
4. Installing Amazing Animals
Amazing Animals may be run directly from the CD simply by double-clicking on the Amazing Animals icon.
For improved performance, you can install Amazing Animals on your hard disk. To do this, drag the folder called Amazing Animals Folder to your desktop or a folder on your hard disk.
5. Installing QuickTime¬ 2.5
Even if you already have QuickTime¬ installed on your system, you should run the QuickTime¬ Installer provided on the Amazing Animals CD-ROM. The Installer automatically detects which, if any, of the system components on your Macintosh require updating.
1. Locate the QuickTime¬ 2.5 Installer folder on the Amazing Animals CD-ROM, then double-click to open it.
2. Double-click on the Install QuickTime¬ icon, then follow the instructions that appear on your screen
6. Performance problems
If Amazing Animals runs slowly or sound output is interrupted, try the following suggestions:
Ñ Running Amazing Animals with your Macintosh in Virtual Memory mode may cause sound break-up, particularly on older Macs. In Virtual Memory mode, your Macintosh uses a section of its hard drive to emulate RAM. Although this increases the free RAM available to Amazing Animals, access to that RAM can be slow. For best performance, use the Memory control panel to turn Virtual Memory off and then restart your Macintosh. However, if you are low on memory you may have no choice but to leave Virtual Memory switched on.
Ñ An old or slow CD-ROM drive will impair the program's performance. The only solution to this problem is to upgrade your CD-ROM drive.
Ñ Running Amazing Animals with less than the minimum amount of free RAM can cause problems (see section 3, System Requirements for running Amazing Animals.) You can check to see if there is any free RAM available by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu in the Finder. If there is free RAM available you can set the program to take advantage of this. First install the program on your hard disk (see section 4, Installing Amazing Animals), then select the Amazing Animals icon and choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder. You can then use the Get Info dialog box to increase the amount of memory set aside for Amazing Animals. Allocating more memory to the program can improve performance.
Ñ SCSI termination problems can affect your CD-ROM drive. Your CD-ROM drive must be either internally or externally terminated. Consult your Macintosh documentation for more information on SCSI termination.
Ñ Some performance problems may be caused by low memory conditions. Try reading the following chapter on running Amazing Animals with low memory.
7. Running Amazing Animals with low memory
Amazing Animals requires a minimum amount of free RAM to run. You can check how much free RAM is required by doing the following:
1. Insert the Amazing Animals CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click on the Amazing Animals folder to open it, then click once to highlight the Amazing Animals icon.
3. From the File menu, select Get Info.
4. Under the Memory Requirements section, look for the figure in the Minimum Size box. This is the minimum amount of free RAM that Amazing Animals requires in order to run.
You can then check how much free RAM is available by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu in the Finder. If you do not have enough free RAM to run Amazing Animals, try the following suggestions to free up additional RAM:
Ñ Make sure you have only one application running at a time.
Ñ If you still have less than the minimum amount of free RAM, you can allocate some hard disk space to work as Virtual Memory. You can set your Macintosh to use Virtual Memory by using the Memory control panel, found in the Control Panels folder within your System folder, then restart your Macintosh. However, using Virtual Memory may slow your Macintosh's access time to RAM causing sound and video breakup, so only switch it on if it is really necessary.
Ñ You may be able to reduce the amount of memory used by your system software by removing unused Apple menu items, fonts, extensions, sounds, etc. from your system folder. These items can occupy considerable amounts of memory and their removal may allow Amazing Animals enough RAM to run efficiently. Consult your Macintosh documentation for more information on how to remove these items.
Ñ If your Macintosh is set to more than 256 colors you can reduce the amount of memory Amazing Animals uses by setting the monitor control panel to 256 colors. To do this, select Control Panels from the Apple menu, and then select Monitors. From the list of settings for your selected monitor you should choose 256 colors.
Ñ Amazing Animals can be set to run in less than the recommended amount of RAM. To do this, first install the program to your hard disk (see section 4, Installing Amazing Animals). Select the Amazing Animals icon and choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder. You can then use the Get Info dialog box to decrease the amount of minimum and preferred memory set aside for Amazing Animals. Allocating less memory to the program may allow the program to run, but will also affect the program's performance, and may cause the program to crash.
Ñ Do not set the preferred memory size to more than or equal to the amount of free RAM on your system as this may cause problems.
If Amazing Animals crashes, or freezes up, the most likely cause is a problem with the disc. You should try the following solutions:
1. If you are stuck in the product and cannot exit, press OPTION (Alt) + COMMAND (APPLE) + ESC to force Amazing Animals to shut down. Do this only if the application has truly crashed; we do not recommend you try this with other applications.
2. You should try cleaning the disc before trying to run Amazing Animals again.
If this does not work, use the Monitors control panel to reduce the amount of colors used by your monitor to 256 colors.
3. If you are still having problems with crashes and freezes, from the Apple menu choose Control Panels, then Memory. In the Memory control panel, make sure that the Modern Memory Manager is set to Off (if this is present on your machine). DO NOT click Use Defaults. Now restart your computer and try to run Amazing Animals again.
8. Sound problems
If Amazing Animals produces no sound at all, check the following points:
Ñ Use the Sound control panel to check that the sound volume level on your machine is turned up.
Ñ If you have external speakers, check that they are on and that their volume control is turned up.
Ñ If you wish to use either the internal or external speakers, make sure that you have not left headphones plugged in.
If Amazing Animals produces interrupted or distorted sound, check the following points:
Ñ If the sound volume level in the Sound control panel is set at maximum volume, it may cause sound to distort. The same problem may occur with external speakers set at maximum volume. Experiment with different volume levels until you find a comfortable sound level.
Ñ Running your Macintosh in Virtual Memory mode may cause sound breakup. In Virtual Memory mode your Macintosh uses a section of its hard drive as RAM. Although this increases the free RAM available to Amazing Animals, access to sounds stored in that RAM can be slow. For best performance, use the Memory control panel to turn Virtual Memory off, and then restart your Macintosh. However, users who are low on memory may have no choice but to leave Virtual Memory switched on.
Ñ The built-in speakers supplied with Macintosh computers vary in quality depending on the age and model of the machine. A poor quality speaker may cause distorted sound, especially at high volume levels.
Ñ Amazing Animals requires the Macintosh to have some spare memory available to generate the sounds. For this reason, do not allocate quite all the available memory to Amazing Animals when you start it up. See section 7, on Running Amazing Animals with low memory for more details on how to set the memory allocation.
9. Screen size and color configuration
Amazing Animals will run on any color monitor with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, or more, and that supports 256 colors or more. The program will work on a grayscale monitor, but is not designed to work in black and white.
Amazing Animals is not designed to run on multiple monitors. If you have such a setup, the program will run on your primary monitor only.
Setting your display to use more than 256 colors will improve the quality of videos in Amazing Animals (if your computer is capable of this). Select Control Panels from the Apple Menu, and then select Monitors. From the list of settings for your selected monitor, you should choose Thousands. If performance is adversely affected we suggest that you revert to 256 colors.
10. Saving, printing, and copying
Before saving any masks, stationary, or images, please check that you have at least 2Mb of free disk space.
It is possible to print screens and text from the Animal Expert section of Amazing Animals, however, other sections of the product are not designed to be printed from. Images from the Store Room may be saved to disk and can be printed from other applications, however, it is not possible to print them from within Amazing Animals.
Screens in Amazing Animals are stored and displayed as color pictures. They are optimized for screen rather than print reproduction. Screen images can be printed, however, and will be of the same quality as a picture made with a screen-capture function.
Black and white prints will be of poor quality. If you have a laser printer, better quality images will be achieved by using the color/grayscale option.
Both Print and Copy functions may be affected by low memory. Refer to section 7, Running Amazing Animals with low memory.
11. Playing Video
If Amazing Animals fails to play any video at all, the most likely reason is that the disc is dirty or damaged. You should try cleaning the disc (refer to section 2, Care of Compact Discs). If Amazing Animals still fails to play any video at all, it may be that QuickTime¬ is not installed on your system, or that the wrong version of QuickTime¬ is installed. (QuickTime¬ is normally installed as part of System 7.5 or later, but even if your Macintosh is running System 7.5 or later, there is no guarantee that QuickTime¬ is available ╤ someone may have removed it from your Macintosh system.) If you suspect that QuickTime¬ is not installed see section 5, Installing QuickTime¬ 2.5.
If the videos played in Amazing Animals are slow or jumpy this may be due to Virtual Memory being turned "on" on your Macintosh. Use the Memory control panel to make sure that Virtual Memory is switched off, then restart your Macintosh. Users who are low on memory may have no choice but to leave Virtual Memory switched on.
Networking can also cause a delay in access to video files. If your Macintosh is connected to a network, try disconnecting it by selecting Control Panels, then AppleTalk. From the AppleTalk control panel, choose Options, and set AppleTalk to Inactive. For more information, refer to your Macintosh documentation.
If your Macintosh supports more than 256 colors you can improve the quality of videos in Amazing Animals by setting the monitor control panel to thousands. To do this, select Control Panels from the Apple menu, and then select Monitors. From the list of settings for your selected monitor you should choose Thousands. If performance is adversely affected we suggest that you revert to 256 colors.
12. Error Messages and if Amazing Animals will not run
If Amazing Animals will not run (when it previously ran fine) and displays an error message when you try to start the product, this may be due to a corrupt AAUSERS.DBF file. This file is located in in Preferences and you should try deleting it. However, please note that the AAUSERS.DBF file is used to store user information, such as progress collecting stickers for the sticker book, therefore, deleting AAUSERS.DBF will mean that htis progress information is lost.
If the error message "Unable to increase the system memory allocation" is displayed whilst running Amazing Animals, or if the error message "The application Amazing Animals could not be opened because QuickTimeLib could not be found" is displayed whilst starting Amazing Animals then you should try the following:
Ñ If you are a PowerPC user you should check that the QuickTime¬ Powerplug extension is turned on. Do this by selecting Control Panels from the Chooser and then selecting Extensions Manager. Make sure that the QuickTime¬ Powerplug extension is switched on and then restart your Macintosh and try to run Amazing Animals again.
If this does not work, or if you are not a PowerPC user, you should:
1. Try turning on Virtual Memory from the Memory control panel. Restart your Macintosh and try to run Amazing Animals again.
2. If this does not work, copy the Amazing Animals Folder onto your hard disk.
3. Whilst no programs are running, find out the amount of free memory by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu, and noting down the "Largest Unused Block"
4. Set the preferred memory size of Amazing Animals to the value of the Largest Unused Block minus 500K. To do this, select the Amazing Animals icon on your hard disk, and choose Get Info from the File menu in the Finder. You can then use the Get Info dialog box to decrease the amount of preferred memory.
This will allow the System Software to expand when it needs to.
13. Connecting to the Internet
Online Registration: To access Amazing Animals online you will need to have your User Name and Passoword ready.
The user name ans password for the Amazing Animals site are both ZEBRA.
Please note: If you would normally pay telephone charges to connect to your Internet Service Provider, or for the time that you use the Internet, these charges will continue to apply while you are using the Online feature in this product. You should always ask permission from the person who will pay the bill before you use the Online feature described below.
If you are able to connect to the Internet from your computer, and if you have a Web Browser installed, then you can take advantage of a feature of Amazing Animals called Amazing Animals Online. This lets you access Amazing Animals Web pages on the Internet. If you do not have Internet access, or a Web browser, then you will NOT be able to make use of this feature.
Warning: If you have already connected to Amazing Animals Online and try to connect again, then a second, concurrent browser session will be started. Each subsequent attempt to connect to Amazing Animals Online will start a new, concurrent browser session ╤ this is a feature of browsers. Running multiple sessions in this way may cause your computer to run out of memory and may result in your computer crashing. Therefore, we recommend that you run only one browser session at a time.
Connecting to Amazing Animals Online:
1. Click on the Online Link-up (satellite dish) icon towards the top of the screen to bring up the Amazing Animals Online page.
2. Click on the 'Connect' button.
3. If an installed Web browser is detected on your machine you will see a dialog box listing the detected Web browsers, and with the following message:
"You need to have a Web browser installed to connect to the Internet.
Select a browser from the pop-up menu"
4. If you select a Web browser from the list, then you should be automatically connected to the Amazing Animals Online Web pages. Your Web browser name will be stored so that subsequent connections to Amazing Animals Online will happen automatically. If you select 'Cancel,' or if an installed Web browser was not detected on your machine, you will see a dialog box with the following message:
"To use the Online features in this title, you need to have a Web browser installed on your computer.
If you do have a Web browser, click on 'Locate' to find it. Otherwise, click on 'Cancel' and install a browser first.
See 'Connecting to the Internet' in the Read Me file for more information."
5. If you're thinking of clicking 'Cancel' because you're not sure where your Web browser is located, you can try looking for it as described next:
a) Select 'Find' from the 'File' drop-down menu in the Finder.
b) In the 'Find Items' box make sure that your Macintosh's hard disk is selected.
c) The next two boxes should say 'name' and 'contains,' respectively. In the blank box you should type 'netscape navigator' if your browser is Netscape¬ Navigator, or whatever the name of your Web browser application happens to be.
d) Click the 'Find' button.
e) The location of your browser will be displayed if it is found.
6. If you still don't know where to locate your browser, but know that you have a working Internet connection, you should click 'Cancel,' then exit Amazing Animals and connect to the Internet in your usual way. When you restart Amazing Animals and try to connect to Amazing Animals Online again, you will be presented with a dialog (shown in step 7), stating that this product's Internet address has been copied to the clipboard.
If you choose 'Locate' you will see a 'Please locate your Web browser' dialog box. You should locate and select the Web browser application that you wish to use, for example, Netscape¬ Navigator or Microsoft¿ Internet Explorer¬.
7. From the 'Please locate your Web browser' dialog box, if you choose 'Cancel' you will see a dialog box with the following message:
"The Internet Web site address for this product has been copied to the clipboard.
To use this address, connect to the Internet and run your Web browser software, then paste the Web site address into your browser's Internet address field .
If you would prefer to run your Web browser software and locate this Web site automatically,
please select the Internet Setup button."
If you wish you can then start your Internet connection in your usual way and paste the Amazing Animals Online Internet address into your browser. In Internet Setup, located in Options (click on the compass icon on the left side of the screen), you can configure Amzing Animals Online to automatically open your Web browser and take you to the appropriate Amazing Animals Online Web page when you click the 'Setup' button in the future.
From the 'Please locate your Web browser' dialog box, if you choose 'Open' you will see a dialog box with the following message:
"You have selected [name of your selection] as your Web browser.
If this does not work, use the Animals Online 'Setup' button to change the setting."
8. If you choose the 'Back' option you will be returned to the 'Please locate your Web browser' dialog box. If you choose the 'Finish' option you should be connected to the Amazing Animals Online Web page. The name of your Web browser selection will be stored for future sessions.
If your connection is not successful check the following:
Ñ That you can connect to the Internet and use your browser in the normal way. If you cannot do this, then there is a problem with your Internet connection. For example, make sure that your modem is correctly connected and switched on.
Ñ Try starting your Internet connection and Web browser first, and then start up Amazing Animals and try the Online Link-up button.
If you select the wrong application, or simply decide that you'd rather use a different browser from the one you selected, then you can select a different browser by clicking the Internet Setup button, located in Options. Options is accessed by clicking on the compass icon on the left-hand side of the screen.
If your Macintosh is low on memory the Amazing Animals program will be closed when your Web browser starts up. If this happens you will need to restart Amazing Animals once you have finished using the Internet.
