Information Technology

Browsers, Plug-ins, Players and Viewers

To take full advantage of all the features in Blackboard, be sure you have the right technology at your fingertips. This includes a good Web browser and appropriate plug-ins.

Browsers
The Web and the tools used to publish on it are changing every day. If you are using an older version of a browser that cannot handle advanced features of HTML, then some portions of this course may not work for you.

We recommend that you use the latest version of Netscape Communicator, or Microsoft Internet Explorer.  Other browsers may work, but are not supported.

Plug-ins, Players and Viewers Browsers also use plug-ins and other helper applications to help them display Web documents. If you encounter an element (such as video or animation) that requires one of these helpers, you may see a message that your browser isn't equipped for that content type. Viewers are required to display certain files formats, such as a PowerPoint slide show. These are common plug-ins, players, and viewers that are used on the Web in general, and that may also be used in this course.
	Adobe Reader is free, and freely distributable, software that lets you view and print Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
	Apple QuickTime player is for viewing video in Apple's QuickTime format. Works with over 30 audio, video and image formats.
	Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer 97 is for viewing and printing PowerPoint presentations. Download this if you do not already have PowerPoint installed on your computer.
	Macromedia Shockwave and Flash is for viewing interactive content in various Macromedia formats.
	RealOne Player is for streaming audio and video content.
	MDLŽ Chime is a plug-in that interactively displays 2D and 3D molecules directly in Web pages.
	Java This plugin enables applets on Web sites to be run within a browser on the desktop.