The technics cat reader project (beta bug tracking competition)
The purpose of cat reader is to document the technics project, update
you about the schedule, deliver compressed packages of information
specific to the subject you are interested in and give you an overall
idea of the atmosphere & activity.
Throughout the techniks projekt, someone will be making integrated
multimedia presentations, about the workshops, people and events at
technics. Cat reader will allow you to view what material is on-line,
select and download what you are interested in, and store these
presentations on your harddrive. You can view them at any time
without going on-line again. When you want to you can also delete
them, or back them up to another disk.
Cat reader is an ongoing project both in terms of material becoming
available, and software development.Cat readers web debut, is also
its 2 month beta test.
In the spirit that the application was developed (i.e. you don't have
to be a million dollar industry player with a serious production
system to build an application) bug testing will be suitably easy
going and (hopefully) fun....a little competition
The competition is this - find as many bugs as possible! everytime
you report a bug (send email to bugtrak@safetycat.org) upgrades will
be made available as bug reports come in. Fixes to the cat reader
will be put on-line. The system is so designed that every piece of
media and code can be replaced, and any further download will never
exceed 300k. Everytime a fix is available you will be sent an quick
email.
Anyone who reports a bug will be sent a copy of "cat writer" the
integrated multimedia documentary editor and content/schedule
management system. Full support will be given to interested parties,
this includes advice on building your own custom built on-line
applications, with quickstart kits to get you going.
The person who reports the most bugs will be sent a T-Shirt and mug,
and will be named as "technics bug tracker champion", on the technics
web site.
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Instructions
After downloading and decompressing the cat reader file you should
have a folder named "cat reader v1.0". Inside This folder are various
files and folders. Click on the icon labelled "cat reader" to launch
the application.
The first thing you will see is the preferances dialogue box.
Select the type of internet connection you have. (If you select
"dial-up account", cat reader will prompt you to dial-up when it
needs to connect.)
Fill in how much space to allocate to the technics project. Cat
reader will warn when you are nearing this limit.
Choose where on your computer to store the workshop files. Press the
"choose folder" button.
You can select whether you wish to download video files. It will be
an aim of the documenters to keep the video content as small as
possible (around 500k) but obviously the files are much bigger than
text(1k) or still images (around 20k).
When you have selected all your preferences, click the "Calendar"
button. You will need to pick up a new schedule. Hit the "new
schedule button". Cat reader will switch to download mode, and
collect two small data files.
When the data files have been downloaded, cat reader will switch
back to calendar mode, you can see the events which are in the
schedule. Grey items are not yet available for download, pink events
are on-line. Clicking a pink event will make a short summary of the
workshop appear in the window to the left of the calendar.
If you are interested in an event, select it (if it is not already
selected) by clicking it once, and "click and drag" the event to the
white area on the right of the calendar - the "clipboard". You can
select and drag as many events as you like to the clipboard for
download. Remember however that each download can take up to 10
minutes.
Hit the download button, on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen,
cat reader will switch to download mode and download the workshop
media. When it has finished, it switches to view mode. If you are on
a dialup internet connection, you should disconnect now.
Click on the event on the clipboard and drag it onto the viewer, the
playback should start immediately. Adjust the text speed with the
sliding control at the bottom of the text window. When the workshop
has ended you can drag another workshop onto the playwindow.
(known bug: the text may appear in yellow ink which is impossible to
read. we are working on this currently. Try quitting and restarting
the application)
There is also the "books" and "weblinks" buttons, which open a window
with URLs and books on the same topic. These can be pressed at any
time, and should pause the workshop playback.
You can delete the event files from your technics folder at any time,
by pressing "archive manager" in the archive window you will see the
title, date and size of the event files. Clicking them will turn them
from black to pink (this means they are selected). Clicking delete
wipes them away. You can also copy them to another drive by clicking
backup.
Thats it, hope you have fun with it.
Please mail catreader@safetycat.org to say hi, and so we can send you
new stuff....
Thanks
James & Elvina
Initial download is roughly 2mb (blame macromedia.com not us!),
follow up downloads will be MUCH smaller. We are also working on a
version which will need the shockwave browser plug in to work but if
you already have this the download is much smaller. Please note the
WARRANTY AND LIABILITY before downloading. (this is our legal
protection, Cat reader has very limited disk access through
pre-written fully tested modules manufactured by Magic Modules and
used in thousands of director based applicions worldwide).
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WARRANTY AND LIABILITY
- Warranty/Limited Warranty.
SafetyCat Inc. does not warrant that operation of the
CAT READER will be uninterrupted or that
CAT READER will be error-free.
-No Other Warranties.
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law,
SafetyCat Inc. disclaim all other warranties, either express
or implied, including, but not limited to implied
warranties of merchantability and fitness for a
particular purpose, with regard to the CAT READER,
the accompanying written materials.
This limited warranty gives you specific legal
rights. You may have others which vary from
jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
- No Liability for Consequential Damages.
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law,
in no event shall SafetyCat Inc. be liable for any damages
whatsoever (including without limitation, special,
incidental, consequential, or indirect damages for
personal injury, loss of business profits,
business interruption, loss of business
information, or any other pecuniary loss) arising
out of the use of or inability to use the CAT
READER, even if DDC has been advised of the
possibility of such damages.
ThankYou