Read the following list of questions. If you find one that applies to your situation, click on it to go to an explanation.
Why do I experience times when the information comes in slowly?
There are a great number of factors that affect the speed of delivery over the Internet. For example, a phone line to the folks who provide your Internet service, your ISP, probably connects your computer to the Internet. The ISP has a network that services a number of people like yourself to connect them to an Internet "backbone." That backbone" is one of the foundation pieces of the Internet and it connects you to TheAcademy.com server at our ISP. As you can see, the information has a fair amount of traveling to do before it gets to you. If your phone connection is a bit noisy, or your ISP has a large volume of other connections to service, or there is a good deal of traffic on the Internet in your part of the country, then you may experience delays in the delivery of TheAcademy.com.

To ensure that we've done everything we can do to make sure that TheAcademy.com is delivered to you as quickly as possible, we took the following steps.

First, we made sure that the computer where the EMSI Training course lives is a top-rated Web server. It uses SCSI drives (which are very fast), lots of memory, and is connected via Ethernet to our ISP's Internet connection. The ISP we chose actually has several connections to the Internet, each one a primary Internet backbone. This means that if traffic is unusually heavy on one, or it goes down completely, there are the others to help carry the load. When TheAcademy.com Web server gets a request for some information, we have taken care to make sure that your request is responded to as quickly as possible.

Click here to return to the list.
I have used the course at work and at home. At work, everything looks great but at home the graphics look strange. Why is there a difference?
The most likely cause for this is that one of the computers is able to display more colors than the other. Most personal computers sold over the last 3 years are able to display at least 256 colors. This is the minimum number of colors you'll need to view this course properly. Your computer may be able to display 256 colors, but for some reason it has been set to display less than that. To find out, try this:

On Windows computers, open the Control Panel window and double-click on the Display control panel. Once it is open, select the Setting tab along the top part of the window. You should see a listing of the number of colors you can set your computer monitor to, with the current setting being selected. Choose at least 256 colors. If you can select a higher setting, try it out. We believe you'll like what you see. After you've chosen a setting, click on the OK. You may be told that you'll need to reboot your computer for the change to take effect. Follow the recommendations made by Windows and then return to this Gateway.

For Macintosh computers, select Control Panel from the Apple menu and select the Monitors course. You'll see a listing of the number of colors your monitor can display. Select at least 256 colors and close the Control Panel window. Your screen should update to reflect the new setting.

Click here to return to the list.
I got a message saying there was a JavaScript error. What does that mean?
JavaScript is a computer language that is understood by the browsers needed to take TheAcademy.com training. JavaScript helps provide the interactivity TheAcademy.com employs. If you get a JavaScript error, obviously something went wrong. Please send e-mail to dean@theacademy.com describing exactly what the error message said and on what screen it occurred. It is very important that you be as specific in your details as possible so that we can isolate and address the problem. It's also very important that we thank you in advance for your help.
Click here to return to the list.
I use America Online (AOL). Why does the course stall and not allow me to continue forward or visit previously viewed pages?
America Online does not fully and correctly support the current Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that governs use of the web. The foremost problem is that AOL caches pages on its own servers even if those pages contain instructions that they are not to be cached under any circumstances. For this reason and others, you may experience problems. If the program appears to "stall" try to refresh the page by right-mouse clicking and selecting refresh or reload, while simultaneously holding down the "shift" key on your keyboard. If that does not help send us an email to dean@theacademy.com
Click here to return to the list.
I use America Online (AOL). Why do some of the graphic images look blurred or distorted?
The older AOL caching system detects that an object is an image, it sends the image through a compression manager on the AOL system network before caching it. Compression makes images smaller for faster retrieval from the cache to members. Our system developers use a newer proprietary version of JPEG compression. AOL members can individually disable AOL graphics compression. Since our images are already compressed, we advise you disable further compression using the preferences option of your AOL browser.
Click here to return to the list.
Why does my test score always say zero, even when I got many right?
Why is my progress not tracking correctly?
Either of these problems mean you probably need to adjust your browser settings.
Our courses use Active Server Pages. In order for these to function properly, you will need to use certain browser settings. The Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape default browser settings should be fine, but in case these have been changed:
  • Internet Explorer (IE) - View/Internet Options/Security - set to medium or low. Then click Advanced. Go down to Cookies. Either Always accept or Prompt before accepting should be checked. Just below this is Java VM. Java JIT compiler enabled and Java logging enabled (at least) should be checked.
  • Netscape - Edit/Preferences/Advanced. Everything in the top, except the last one, send email address etc., should be checked. Under cookies, either always accept or accept server (first or second choice) should be checked.
Finally, a word about fonts. Our courses require a great deal of reading from your screen. On a screen, sans-serif fonts (like Arial) are easier on your eyes. You may wish to set your fonts to view in Arial. This is also under View/Internet Options for IE or Edit/Preferences for Netscape.
Click here to return to the list.
Course material © EMSI
Course presentation © TheAcademy.com
Credits

© 2005 - TheAcademy.com. All rights reserved