Once you are viewing the main page for the textbook's software, you will find their labs organized by chapter. You can select the lab you wish to run. For many of the labs, when you run the software for the very first time, a window will pop up labeled with a title such as "Security Warning" and it will ask you whether or not you wish to "trust" the software. Please answer "YES"; we will explain why in the next section.
There is one catch to using the save/load features, because the software will be running from within your web browser. For security reasons, software running in a web browser is not allowed to access files on your computer without explicit permission. This is to help protect against viruses or other malicious attempts to corrupt your computer and its files. The only way such software is given access to saving or loading files is by explicitly getting your permission, as we described in the preceding section.
So long as you granted permission, in advance, you will be able to save and load files. Generally, the software will include buttons at the bottom right of the program screen labeled "Open" or "Save" or "Save as." If you have been working on a newly created configuration, you must use "Save as" so that you can provide a filename and location to be used. If you are modifying a previously saved configuration, you can choose between "Save" which will overwrite the previous file with the current configuration, or "Save as" which will allow you to give a new filename (while still keeping the previous versioin saved in its prior form).
If you have mistakenly typed "NO" to the software's original request for your permission, please see the "Trouble shooting" section below.
When we provide files, they will appear as links on the course web page. However, you cannot simply click on those files when you wish to use them. Your browser will not know what to do with the files. (Your browser recognizes many common types of files. For example if you click on a Microsoft Word document, your browser might recognize this and automatically open the Microsoft Word program to view the file. But the files used for the course software will not be automatically recognized.)
Instead, when one of our webpages provides you with a link to a software file, you use it as follows. Instead of following the link, you must tell the browser to save the linked file directly to you computer or a floppy disk. If you are using Internet Explorer as your browser, click the right mouse button on the link to the provided file, and select "Save Target As..." from the menu that appears. It will then ask you for a filename and location, in which the file should be saved. (If you are using Netscape as your browser, you click the right mouse button and select "Save Link As...")
Once the file has been saved on your computer, you can use the file by starting up the desired software and using the "Open" button, as described in the preceding section.
Worse yet, once you respond "NO" your computer may try to remember your answer and so even if you close the window and rerun the program, it no longer asks you about permissions; it thinks it knows of your desire to say "NO".
If you are unable to save files, try the following two solutions:
(If you are using Netscape, or an older version of Internet Explorer, contact me for help)