General Information

Just this one time, I’m going to ask for a bit of extra information because this is the first assignment you’ll be submitting. If you are a registered student and have not done so, yet, you may wish to first make sure you can access the Check Grades Web page.

Are there any interesting things about you (hobbies? children? pets?...) that you’d like to share?

Web Browser

Do not rely on Internet Explorer (IE), alone, as the sole Web browser you have available to use. You must also have Firefox, Netscape, or some other Web browser installed and properly configured. That way, if something is not working right in one browser, you can switch over and try a different browser.
Do not rely on IE, alone, as your sole Web browser. I know that’s what many people are used to because it comes with Windows, but it has too many quirky problems to be the only browser you have available. IE is OK for casual Web surfing where you don’t have to be able to access everything you run across, but for something like an online course, since all browsers have their own quirky problems (Firefox and Netscape aren’t perfect, either) you need to have a couple different browsers available.

Child Windows (aka Pop-Ups)

In order to successfully submit your assignments, you will need to configure any anti-pop-up software you have installed to accept all “pop-ups” from <http://biology.clc.uc.edu>. Please click the following button to see if your browser is able to open a test window. If this is working properly, you should see a small window briefly open, then immediately close, again.

According to Kevin from Clermont’s IS Department, if you are using Internet Explorer (IE) and are using the default anti-pop-up software packaged as part of IE, then under “Tools”, then “Settings” there should be a tab to allow you to configure the IE anti-pop-up software. According to Paul, a former biology student who is also a computer support person for a local company, if you are using Netscape ver. 8.1, one additional configuration setting may be needed. He wrote to me in an e-mail:
“I use Netscape’s newest browser: 8.1 and your items would not display, even after turning off pop-up blocking. There is a setting reachable from the Netscape Security Dashboard on the same page as pop-up blocking which tells the browser to use the IE (Internet Explorer) engine instead of the Netscape/Firefox engine. Once I tried that, the site would behave properly.”

Plug-Ins

Various of the course-related Web pages have embedded in them or are QuickTime movies (.mov), Adobe Acrobat files (.pdf), or RealPlayer files (.rpm), as well as MIDI files (.mid). These are all fairly standard file types commonly found on the Web, and in order to view course-related and any other Web pages which contain/are files of these types, you should have the QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Acrobat plug-ins installed and properly configured. Please click the following button to see if these plug-ins are installed and enabled. If your browser’s interpretation of the JavaScript code is working properly, you should be given a list of what plug-ins (helper apps) are set up to handle each of these file types. Note: this only applies to the browser you are using right now and not to any other Web browser(s) you may have installed on your computer. You may wish to open this page in your other browser(s) and click this “Test It” button to make sure you have the proper plug-ins installed there, too.

Known browser quirk: in one of the older versions of Netscape that I used to test this Web page, when I clicked on the “Test It” button, that version of Netscape crashed. However, if I comment out a bunch of the JavaScript code, then gradually add it back in with reloads in between, this works just fine, so I cannot pinpoint why it’s crashing. I have found that, if I fill out some of the other information on this page, then on the menu bar at the top of the browser window, click “Help” then “About Plugins,” let that page load, then click the “Back” button to return to this page, then this test works just fine. (A slightly newer version of Netscape that I also tested worked just fine.).

Any Other Comments?

If you have any other ideas, suggestions, comments, and/or questions, please include those here:

Preview/Submit Your Data

Please click the “Send It” button to submit your data. This should open a new message in your e-mail software and place your information in the body of that message. If necessary, you may need to properly configure your anti-pop-up software to allow that to happen. It is your responsibility to carefully and thoroughly read through your data and verify that everything you thought was there is, indeed, there before sending the e-mail.
Also, before you send the message, SAVE IT so that you have a copy of your work.
As a reminder, please bear in mind that I do not open any e-mail attachments. There are too many computer viruses going around, plus from home, I typically dial into the UC modem pool, which means that large files take too long to download. If you do need to send me something via e-mail, please copy the necessary text and paste it directly into the body of a message. Please do not sent me Word .doc files – I will not open them. Please do not attach “background” graphics to e-mail messages – besides increasing the size of the file, and therefore the time I have to wait around for things to download, they’ll crash my e-mail software when I try to read the message.