READ ME for The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary, version 1.0
Macintosh Edition
Introduction
About DK Multimedia
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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary . Please take a look at the table of contents to see if your particular problem is addressed:
1. System requirements for running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary
2. Installing QuickTime[tm] 2.5
3. Installing The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary
4. Performance problems
5. Running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary with low memory
6. Sound problems
7. Screen size and colour configuration
8. Printing and copying
9. Error Messages
10. System crashes or freezes up
11. Care of Compact Discs
If you are still having problems or need further technical support on any Dorling Kindersley product, please call with the details of the problem, including any error messages that were produced, and the full specification of your Macintosh:
The numbers in London, United Kingdom are:
Telephone: 0171 753 3488
Fax: 0171 753 7575
E-mail: DKMM@dkmm.co.uk
The numbers in New York, USA are:
Telephone: 1-800 DKMM 575
Fax: 212 213 5240
E-mail: DKMM@phantom.com
1. System requirements
To run The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary, Macintosh Edition, you will need:
An Apple Macintosh or Macintosh compatible computer with a 68LC040 25MHz or higher processor, that supports a monitor with at least a 640x480 pixel screen resolution capable of displaying 256 colours, 8Mb RAM, a double-speed CD-ROM drive, System 7.0 or higher, 32MB of free hard disk space available, 32-bit addressing must be turned on.
For best performance, you will need:
12MB of RAM for an 040 machine, 16MB of RAM for PowerMacintosh, a quad-speed CD-ROM drive.
2. Installing QuickTime[tm] 2.5
Even if you already have QuickTime[tm] installed on your system, you should run the QuickTime[tm] Installer provided on the Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary CD-ROM. The Installer will automatically detect which, if any, of the system components on your Macintosh require updating.
1. Locate the QuickTime[tm] 2.5 Installer folder on the CD-ROM, then double-click to open it.
2. Double-click on the Install QuickTime[tm] icon, then follow the instructions that appear on your screen.
3. Installing The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary
* To install The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary on your hard disk drag the folder called DK Children's Dictionary Folder to your desktop or a folder on your hard disk.
4. Performance problems
If The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary runs slowly or sound output is interrupted, try the following suggestions:
* Running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary with less than the minimum amount of free RAM can cause problems (see section 1, Minimum System Requirements for running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary). If your Macintosh has more than the minimum amount of free RAM available (you can check this by opening the About This Macintosh dialog box from the Apple menu in the Finder), the program can be set to take advantage of this. To do this, first install the program on your hard disk (see section 3, InstallingThe Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary). Select the The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary. Allocating more memory to the program can improve performance.
* Running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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 to emulate RAM. Although this increases the free RAM available to The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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.
* 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.
5. Running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary with low memory
The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double-click on the The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary Folder to open it, then click once to highlight the The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary requires in order to run.
You can check on the amount of free RAM 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary enough RAM to run efficiently. Consult your Macintosh documentation for more information on how to remove these items.
* 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. Using Virtual Memory will, however, slow your Macintosh's access time to RAM and may cause sound and animation breakup.
* If your Macintosh is set to more than 256 colours you can reduce the amount of memory The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary uses by setting the monitor control panel to 256 colours. 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 colours.
* The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary can be set to run in less than the minimum amount of free RAM. To do this, first install the program to your hard disk (see section 3, Installing The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary). Select the DK Children's Dictionary 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary. Allocating less memory to the program may allow the program to run, but will also affect the program's performance. Do not reduce the amount of RAM to less than 5Mb.
* 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.
6. Sound problems
If The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary, 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.
* The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary when you start it up. See section 5, on Running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary with low memory for more details on how to set the memory allocation.
7. Screen size and colour configuration
* The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary will run on any colour monitor with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, and supports 256 colours or more. The program will work on a grayscale monitor, but is not designed to work in black and white.
* The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary is not designed to run on multiple monitors. If you have such a setup, the program will run on your primary monitor only.
8. Printing and copying
* Screens in The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary are stored and displayed as colour pictures. They are optimised 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 colour/grayscale option.
* Both Print and Copy functions may be affected by low memory. Refer to section 5, Running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary with low memory.
9. Error Messages
* If the error message "Unable to increase the system memory allocation" or "Sorry a system error has occurred, error type 11" is displayed while running The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary, or if the error message "The application The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary could not be opened because QuickTimeLib could not be found" is displayed while starting The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary:
1. Copy the DK Children's Dictionary Folder onto your hard disk
2. While 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 The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary to the value of the Largest Unused block minus 500k. To do this, select the DK Children's Dictionary 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.
9. System crashes or freezes up
If The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary crashes, or freezes up, the most likely cause is a problem with memory. You should try the following solution:
1. Press OPTION (ALT) + COMMAND (APPLE) + ESC to force The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary to shut down. Do this only if the application has truly crashed; we do not recommend you try this with other applications. Use this procedure only if you need to recover your current session.
2. From the Apple menu, choose Control Panels, then Memory.
3. In the Memory control panel, make sure that the Modern Memory Manager is set to Off. DO NOT click Use Defaults. Note that not all Macintoshes have this feature.
4. Now restart your computer and try to run The Dorling Kindersley Children's Dictionary again.
10. 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 becoming 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 (unlabelled 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 centre 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:
