Technical Support

The following are guidelines to help solve any problems you may have using this web site. If you cannot find the answer you need please send us your question and we will endeavor to answer it as quickly as possible.

Problem: A gray box, or nothing at all where the interactive animation should be.

Solution: The usual cause is a missing piece of software on your machine called the Java plug-in. It allows you to run programs written in Java to run inside a web page. Most computers are shipped with it already installed, but you can do it easily. It can be downloaded and installed from the Sun Microsystems web site:

Download Java plug-in http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

If you think it is present but disabled, check the Tools or Options menu of your browser and find the checkbox that controls Java and make sure it is not disabled.

Supported browsers

We have checked this site with the following browsers. Others may work, but we have not tried them:

Mac Safari, Firefox.
IE for the Mac is not supported, and Microsoft has announced that it will no longer be developing new versions of IE on the Mac.
Windows IE, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera
Linux Konqueror

Missing animations - Javascript required

The site is designed to use Javascript scripting to operate. To enable Javascript, find the Tools or Options menu and enable scripting.

Internet Explorer
Go to Tools, Internet Options, then click on Security tab.
Click Custom Level, then scroll down towards the end to Scripting and click Enable. Then OK.
Firefox
Go to Tools, Options, then click on Content tab.
Enable both Javascript and Java. Then OK.
Apple Safari
Go to 'Safari' menu, Preferences, then click on Security tab.
Enable both Javascript and Java. Then close window.
Linux Konqueror
Go to Edit, Preferences, then click on Advanced tab.
Select the 'Scripts and plugins' submenu
Check the box 'Enable Javascript for Navigator', then OK

Apple Safari - Animations do not appear to operate correctly

Some browsers (notably Apple's Safari) fail to discard old copies of Java applets when we replace them with newer versions on our server. The easiest way to solve this is to restart the machine. Alternatively, go to the Java control panel and clear the Java cache. Once you get to the Java Console, type an X to clear the internal cache.