Requirements for the class:

What do you need in terms of computer hardware/software?

• A computer system with connectivity to the Internet, with a sound card and speakers.
• Access to a printer.
• A Web browser. (Recommend: Goolge Chrome)
• Adobe Acroread to read PDF files. A free-version can be obtained from Adobe's home site.
• Multimedia player:
  • (Old and Obsolete, Not recommend) Realplayer to play audio files. A free-version (Realplayer version 10) can be obtained from Real's home site. These real audio files can be streamed down to your computer or downloaded to your disk.
  • (One alternative, RECOMMEND) MPC-HC, an opensourced media player based (but almost everything has been changed) on the classic media player in Windows system, versatile and easy to use.
  • (Another alternative, RECOMMEND for Mac/Linux users) VLC player, another excellent player, with multi-platform support.
• 7zip to unzip downloaded files.

How to view the lecture material?

• There are two types of lecture material posted for each experiment: a presentation file with audio, and a lecture note. The presentation file is saved in the .pdf format, with embeded links to audio files, and the lecture note is also saved in the .pdf file.
• You can play either file directly from your browser, or download the ziped files to your local machine first and then play them locally.
• To be able to view the .pdf file, you must have the Adobe Acroread.
• To be able to listen to the audio by clicking the link in the presentation file, you must have a multimedia player (see Above).
• For you to see the .pdf file in the browser window, you should install the Acroread application after you have installed the Browser application.

(Obsolete) Play directly from your browser:

• When you click on the presentation file, you will see a pdf file in the following format. You must click on the "show outline" to see the outline panel on the left.
• There is usually an audio stream assocciatd with each slide.
• When you click on the "Realplayer" icon, the file is sent to you in a streaming mode from the Web server, i.e. your Realplayer starts to play the audio before the file is completed downloaded to your local computer.
• When you click on the "sound" icon, the file is first completely downloaded to your local computer, and then Realplayer is lunched automatically to play the file.
 

Download ZIP files to your local computer:

• You must use winzip to unzip these files.
• You must save "slide presentation" and "audio" files in the same directory. Then you can play the slide presentation file using Acrobat Reader. Follow the instruction above.