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Plug-ins, Players, Readers & All That (You gotta have these!)
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Here's Everything You Need to Know about Plug-Ins, Readers, Players, and all That
Compliments of the Children's Software Press

The Top Five Plug-ins
Don't forget to plug them into your Mac and Windows systems!

1. Shockwave Player & Flash Player-Macromedia, Inc.
www.macromedia.com/shockwave
www.macromedia.com/software/flash/
These players allow you to play and view Shockwave and Flash interactive multimedia on the web. Download Shockwave first because a Flash is automatically included with any download of the Shockwave Player.

2. QuickTime-Apple Computer, Inc.
www.apple.com/quicktime
QuickTime is Apple's technology for handling video and streaming video (see Real Player), sound, animation, graphics, text, music, and even 360-degree virtual reality (VR) scenes. QuickTime, like Shockwave, is used on many web sites to display videos and animations.

3. Real Player-RealNetworks, Inc.
www.real.com
RealPlayer plays certain types of video and audio files, as well as animations and multimedia presentations. RealPlayer's streaming file format, like QuickTime, allows you to listen to sound files or see video files over the net (such as live radio broadcasts or TV Webcasts) without having to wait for the whole file to download.

4. Acrobat Reader-Adobe Systems, Inc.
www.adobe.com
Acrobat Reader lets view, search, and print Portable Document Format (.pdf) files. Documents are often converted into the .pdf format to save disk space or to make printing easier. Many government documents are in .pdf format. So are teacher materials, school forms, instructions, and bibliographies of sources.

5. Windows Media Player-Microsoft Corporation
www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp
At the Windows Media site, you can download a variety of media technologies for Windows and Macintosh systems. Check the site for updates so that you'll be current with your video and audio needs.

Other Useful Add-ons

Zip Files
Zip files are 'archived' files that are 'zipped up' (compressed) to save space and make downloading software and transferring e-mail attachments faster. If you download files or software from the Internet, many times the files will be .zip files. You'll need to "unzip" them in order to install the software or read the content. The most popular programs for decompressing these files are: WinZip (www.winzip.com/) or Stuff It (www.aladdinsystems.com/) for Windows and Stuff It Expander (www.aladdinsystems.com/) for the Mac. You can find less expensive and even free versions, of comparable software at sites such as www.tucows.com. Check under "Compression Utilities."

Readers, Viewers, and Players
Sometimes you'll want to open content from a program that's not on your computer. If all you need to do is to read or print the content, a reader, viewer or player is the solution. You won't be able to change the content, however. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all have free viewers. To find MS viewers, go to Office Downloads (www.microsoft.com/office/downloads/default.asp), select the product, and then the viewer. There are also readers or players for other software programs such as HyperStudio (www.hyperstudio.com/downloads). Therefore, when you can't open a program, check the appropriate software site to see if a reader, viewer, or player is available.

You may already have the plug-ins you need. But how can you tell? Go to the McMaster Test Page (www.mcmaster.ca/cis/projects/spg2000/plugins.htm). Then click on each plug-in to see if the sample file works on your computer. If it does, you have the plug-in. If the test doesn't work properly, click on the link to install what you need. Remember to be sure to download plug-in versions compatible with your operating system.

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