• Minimum Hardware Requirements for Windows-based PC's
  • Pentium-class 133MHz CPU or higher
  • 16 MB RAM (32 MB recommended)
  • 15-25 MB free space available on hard drive for download of courses
  • Video Card (VGA/SVGA/256 colors) with 1 Meg RAM
  • VGA Monitor set at 800x600 Resolution
  • Mouse
  • Audio Playback Feature Requires Sound Card and Speakers/Headset

• Minimum Software Requirements
  • Windows Operating System (Win95, Win98, Win Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP)
  • WWW Browser must be one of the following:
    • Netscape 4.7 or higher
    • Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 5.01 SP2 and higher

• Browser-Playable
  • Advantages:
    • Set-up and configuration is a little easier.
    • You don't have to download and install courseware or any other application to your machine.
    • You can move to any other machine on the same network and resume courses where you left off.
  • Disadvantages:
    • You need to be connected to the network to take a course.
    • If you have a slow network connection, performance will be impacted.
• Download
  • Advantages:
    • You only need to be connected to the network to download courses and to transmit your results.
    • Once you have downloaded the course(s) to your PC, performance is generally better.
    • If the PC is mobile - once you have downloaded the course(s) to it, you can take the course anywhere, anytime.

      For example, if you travel, you can download a course to your laptop and take the course while on the airplane.

  • Disadvantages:
    • You must download some additional files (e.g. the course player) in addition to the actual content. Therefore, the initial download can be a little longer.
    • You have to have available hard drive space to download the player and the content to. The size of the content varies from course to course and whether you download the audio files or not. Generally speaking, courses without audio will take 4-6 MB of space. Courses with audio, will take 6-8 MB of space. The size of the files is annotated through the download interface.
    • You can't move to any other machine and resume taking a course - unless you download the course components to the other machine(s) as well.

The configuration of your PC encompasses different actions depending upon whether you wish to take courses as Browser-Playable or Downloaded. You can configure your PC for both methods.

• Browser-Playable Configuration
  The following steps walk you through the process of properly configuring your web browser to support Browser-Playable FasTrac courseware. This configuration is the same regardless of the course developer - NETg or SkillSoft.

  You must configure your web browser to accept cookies and to enable Java functionality. The two most common web browsers in use today are Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). The steps outlined below will guide you through the process of configuring your specific web browser.

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 5.01 SP2 and higher:
    1. Click on View (on menu bar), go to Internet Options.
    2. In the window that pops up, click on the Advanced tab.
    3. Scroll down to Java VM menu.
    4. Select "Java JIT compiler enabled".
    5. Scroll back up to Security menu.
    6. Select "Always accept cookies."

  • Netscape 4.7 or higher:
    1. Click on Edit (on menu bar), then go to Preferences.
    2. In the window that pops up, click once on "Advanced."
    3. Select all items in the top-right half of the window (these should deal with enabling Java).
    4. Select "Accept all cookies" in the bottom-right half of window.
    5. Do not check the box that says "Warn me before accepting a cookie."

• Download Configuration
  All workstation configuration for Download courses takes place automatically with the installation of the course player. The course player is downloaded and installed automatically when you download your first course to your workstation.