If you are having trouble with the sound bytes, there are a number of reasons as to what could be wrong...
First, the server that some of the sound bytes reside on may be down. My Five-O site is a distributed site, meaning that the information that makes up the site is located on several computers (servers). All of the text and images are on a server called "Ourworld", and many of the sound bytes are on a server called "lunchtime". Lunchtime is physically located in upstate Vermont. If lunchtime is down, sound bytes that reside on it will not be downloadable. The browser will probably give some sort of message such as "Connection to this server has timed out..." Keep in mind that during the summer months frequent electrical storms cause power outages. No power, no server. The problem may be only temporary. If you get a message stating that the server connection timed out (or something similar), try again later on. Hopefully outages will be minimal. If you notice that the problem persists for more than a day send me e-mail and I'll get in touch with lunchtime's administrator.
You can tell which sound bytes are on which server by looking at the URL window of your browser (usually near the bottom of the display) when you place the cursor on a sound byte link (or any link for that matter). Many of the sound byte links have a URL in the form http://lunchtime.vtc.vsc.edu/fiveo/****.wav and some will have a URL in the form of http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/joe_roberts/*****.wav. If you can get to the Five-O page (for real, that is, not from one in your cache), then the sound bytes that are on Ourworld should work.
All of the sound bytes on my site are .WAV format. They are all 8 bit 11kHz mono samples. This is "voice quality" audio. It's a far cry from CD quality, but since the sound bytes were made from mono tapes, there is no benefit by going to a higher quality format. Not to mention that the higher quality sound files are gigantic; most people would never tolerate downloading such files. Even in voice quality audio, a 1 second sound byte is 11 kilobytes in size. Consider this: my Five-O site contains about 35 kilobytes of text... a sound byte containing 35 kilobytes of data is only about 3 seconds long! When we all have "megabyte" connections then we can re-visit the audio quality issue...
For you to make use of the sound bytes, your computer must have a sound card that is capable of playing .WAV files (most modern multimedia computers should have no problem with this requirement). When you click on a sound byte link, the browser will begin to download the file. When the download is complete, the computer should open a media player and play the sound (assuming you have things set up properly). If you have never downloaded a sound byte before, it is possible that your browser may ask you what you want to do with the file. Normally, a box will pop up and you will have a choice as to what application to use for handling the file. If this occurs, pick the application that you use for playing sounds (it will most likely be media player). If you do not have a sound card, you can still save the sound bytes for later use. Your browser will likely put up a message saying something like "no media player available" and it should give you the option to save the sound byte as a file. Save the file to a place where you can find it again (I suggest creating a directory called "wave" or whatever you want). If your browser does play the sound bytes with no problems and you still want to save the files, no problem. Your browser will most likely save the files to your cache automatically. The trick is to identify them. Different browsers do things differently, so you may have to experiment. You will have to know where your cache directory is. If you use Windows 95, you can use "Find" to locate your cache(s). Once you know where your cache is, go to it using Windows Explorer. Look at the contents of the cache. To make it easier to find the sound files, use "Arrange Icons" under "View" in explorer, and arrange the files either by date or by type. You may have to do some experimenting to find the files you want. All browsers I've ever used give files in the cache a very weird name. Use clues such as date, size and type of file to locate the files you want. If you are not sure, click on every sound file (when you do this your media player should play the file). When you find one, use Windows Explorer to "Rename" the file to something you can remember. I suggest moving the file to another directory so you can keep track of where they are. Back them up on floppy for safe keeping.
If you want to download a bunch of sound bytes and you want to make it easy to identify them, clear your cache before going to the Five-O site. Clearing the cache can be done in several ways... your browser will likely have an option that allows you to do this, or you can clear it by using Windows Explorer (just make sure you have the right directory before deleting the contents!). Then, when you download new files, you are "starting with a clean slate", so your browser's cache won't be clogged with a thousand other files.
Hope this helps. I'm no expert, but if you are still having trouble send me e-mail and I'll try to help...
E-mail to Joe
Roberts
Back to Joe's Five-O page...