Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature for Macintosh Version 1.0 Readme
This Read Me file is designed to address most of the problems you may encounter when using Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature. Please take a look at the table of contents to see if your particular problem is addressed:
1. System requirements for running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature
2. Installing Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature
3. Performance problems
4. Running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature with low memory
5. Sound problems
6. Screen size and color configuration
7. Printing and copying
8. Playing Video
9. Error Messages
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.
The numbers in New York, USA are:
Telephone: 1-8000 DKMM 575
Fax: 212 213 5240
E-mail DKMM@phantom.com
The numbers in London, United Kingdom are:
Telephone: 0171 753 3488
Fax: 0171 753 7575
E-mail DKMM@dkmm.co.uk
1. System requirements for running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature
* A Macintosh LCIII, or above (with a compatible monitor) supporting a resolution of 640x480 with 256-colors or more.
* System 7 or above.
* Sound Manager 3.0 or above.
* QuickTime[tm] 2.0 or above.
* At least 3.8Mb of free RAM.
* A double speed CD-ROM drive capable of data transfer rate of at least 300 Kb/sec.
2. Installing Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature
* Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature may be run directly from the CD simply by double-clicking on the Eyewitness Nature icon.
* For improved performance, you can install Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature on your hard disk. To do this, drag the folder called Eyewitness Nature [f] to your desktop or a folder on your hard disk.
*If you have problems, or an error message saying that Sound Manager is not present, then you should look in the extensions folder, located in the system folder on your hard disk, to check if Sound Manager is installed AND enabled. If you do not have Sound Manager you should install it from the Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature CD. To do this, drag the Sound Manager extension and the Sound control panel, from the System Software folder on the CD, onto the system folder on your hard disk.
*If you still have problems, you should look in the extensions folder, located in the system folder on your hard disk, to check if QuickTime[tm] 2.0 is installed AND enabled. If you do not have QuickTime[tm] 2.0 you should install it from the Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature CD. To do this, drag the QuickTime[tm] extension (and the QuickTime[tm] PowerPlug extension if you have a PowerPC), from the folder labelled System Software on the CD, onto the system folder on your hard disk.
* If you still experience problems with either Sound Manager or QuickTime[tm] 2.0, contact your Apple dealer for further help.
3. Performance problems
If Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature runs slowly or sound output is interrupted, try the following suggestions:
* Running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature with less than 3.8Mb of free RAM can cause problems (see section 4, Running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature with low memory). If your Macintosh has more than 3.8Mb of memory available, the program can be set to take advantage of this. To do this, first install the program on your hard disk (see section 2, Installing Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature ). Select the Eyewitness Nature 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 Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature. Allocating more memory to the program can improve performance.
* Running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature with your Macintosh in Virtual Memory mode can cause sound break-up. In Virtual Memory mode, your Macintosh uses a section of its hard drive as RAM. Although this increases the free RAM available to Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature, 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.
* 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.
* 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.
4. Running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature with low memory
Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature requires 3.8Mb of free RAM to run. You can check on the amount of RAM available by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu in the Finder. If you have 6Mb of RAM and your system software is using more than 2.2Mb then you will have less than 4Mb of free RAM available. If this is the case, try the following suggestions to free up additional RAM:
* Make sure you have only one application running at a time.
* 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 Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature enough RAM to run efficiently. Consult your Macintosh documentation for more information on how to remove these items.
* If you still have less than 3.8Mb of RAM free, 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. Using Virtual Memory will, however, slow your Macintosh's access time to RAM and may cause sound and video breakup.
* If your Macintosh is set to more than 256-colors you can reduce the amount of memory Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature uses by setting the monitor control panel to 256-colors.
* Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature can be set to run in less than the recommended 3.8Mb of RAM. To do this, first install the program to your hard disk (see section 1, Installing Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature ). Select the Eyewitness Nature 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 Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature. Allocating less memory to the program may allow the program to run, but will also affect the program's performance.
* 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.
5. Sound problems
If Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature produces no sound at all, check the following points:
* Use the Sound control panel to check that the sound volume level on your machine is turned up.
* If you have external speakers, check that they are on and that their volume control is turned up.
* If you wish to use either the internal or external speakers, make sure that you have not left headphones plugged in.
If Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature produces interrupted or distorted sound, check the following points:
* 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.
* Running your Macintosh in Virtual Memory mode can 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 Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature, 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.
* 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.
* Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature 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 Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature when you start it up. See section 4, on Running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature with low memory for more details on how to set the memory allocation.
6. Screen size and color configuration
* Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature will run on any color monitor with a resolution of 640x480 pixels, and supports 256-colors or more. The program will work on a grayscale monitor, but is not designed to work in black and white.
* Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature is not designed to run on multiple monitors. If you have such a setup, the program will run on your primary monitor only.
7. Printing and copying
* Screens in Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature 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 4, Running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature with low memory.
8. Playing Video
* If Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature fails to play any video at all the most likely reason is that QuickTime[tm] is not installed on your system. (QuickTime[tm] is normally installed as part of System 7.5, but even if your Macintosh is running System 7.5, there is no guarantee that QuickTime[tm] is available-someone may have removed it from your Macintosh system). If you suspect QuickTime[tm] is not installed see section 2, Installing Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature.
* If the videos played in Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature 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. Networking can also cause a delay in access to video files. If your Macintosh is connected to a network, try disconnecting it.
* If your Macintosh supports more than 256-colors you can improve the quality of videos in Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature 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.
* You may have performance problems playing the large video panel if your Macintosh is an older or low specification model. You can disable the large video panel functionality by deselecting Large Video in the Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature Options window.
9. Error Messages
* If the error message "Unable to increase the system memory allocation" is displayed whilst running Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature , or if the error message "The application Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature could not be opened because QuickTimeLib could not be found" is displayed whilst starting Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature :-
1) Copy the Eyewitness Nature [f] folder onto your hard disk
2) 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"
3) Set the preferred memory size of Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Nature to the value of the Largest Unused block minus 500k.
To do this, select the Eyewitness Nature 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 !
