Plug-ins & Utilities
These are free or demonstration resources that you can download directly from software web sites to your own computer. Many SCC on-line courses will make use of one or more of these resources for activities such as viewing streaming video or PowerPoint presentations.
Internet Browsers
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Firefox is Mozilla's World Wide Web browser. |
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Respondus LockDown Browser |
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Respondus LockDown Browser is used for secure testing in Desire2Learn. Not all instructors require the use of this browser. |
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Plug-ins and Utilities |
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| Must-Have Plug-ins and Utilities | |
Adobe Acrobat Reader is free software from Abode for viewing and printing Portable Document Format (PDF) files. |
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Desire2Learn requires Java to run important features, including quizzes and live chat sessions. Sun Java™ Virtual Machine (JVM) Windows version - allows programs called "applets" to run inside your Web browser. Apple's Mac OS X ships with the Java 2 platform already installed. |
| Media Plug-ins | |
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Microsoft's Windows Media Player is the Windows default media player for viewing multiple video formats as well as playing MP3s. If you are a windows user, you likely already have one version of this software. |
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Real Player is free software from Real for streaming media (video and audio). Windows 98 and above version (download the free Basic Real Player) Unix version (UNIX community supported Real Player) |
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QuickTime is Apple's complete technology for handling video, sound, animation, graphics, text, music, and even 360-degree virtual reality scenes. QuickTime handles 200 kinds of digital media with your PC and Macintosh. |
Adobe Shockwave - a video, sound, and animation viewer. It allows for viewing of all Shockwave content, including Flash. Shockwave also allows for the most engaging, interactive content on the Web. |
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Adobe Flash - an animation viewer that supports sound. This will allow you to view animated sequences that are included in your course. |
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| Virus/Spyware Protection for Windows Users | |
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Windows-based computers, especially those using Internet Explorer to browse the web, are particularly vulnerable to parasites and spyware. To help protect your PC against unsolicited commercial software, security flaws and viruses, it is recommended that you run a parasite/spyware detection and removal utility, complete current Windows Updates as available from Microsoft and scan for viruses frequently. To read more about parasites and spyware visit the DoxDesk web site. Ad-aware is a "no-cost" detection and removal utility that scans your memory, registry, hard, removable and optical drives for known data mining, aggressive advertising, and tracking components. These usually enter your computer system while using Internet Explorer. Windows only (click on the "Download Ad-Aware Free" button on the upper right side of page) Spybot is another "no-cost" spyware detection and removal utility that can be used in addition to Ad-Aware. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you didn't intentionally install, if your browser crashes, or if you browser start page has changed without your knowing, you most likely have spyware. |
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| Compression Utilities | |
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WinZip is a .zip compression utility for Windows-based computers. Handy for compressing large files for transfer. |
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ZipIt is a .zip compression utility for Macintosh-based computers. Handy for compressing large files for transfer. |
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| Productivity Software | |
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Online students should have access to a basic word processing application. SCC instructors generally use Word, part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs. Some courses, specifically in the Computer Careers or Accounting programs, require students have access to specific Microsoft Office programs. Students should always check with instructors regarding specific class preferences. Free alternatives to Microsoft Office are OpenOffice (for Windows and Macintosh OSX) and NeoOffice (for Macintosh OSX). Additionally, Abiword is a free word processing program. With OpenOffice, NeoOffice (Mac only) and AbiWord, the programs are compatible with the file formats required for assignments.
For more information about OpenOffice, visit their web site at www.OpenOffice.org; NeoOffice at www.neooffice.org and Abiword at www.abisource.com |
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| Microsoft Updates and Utilities | |
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Microsoft offers a number of updates and free utilities for their products, including trial versions of some products. For a complete listing of Microsoft Updates and Utilities, check the appropriate site. Microsoft Updates and Utilities for Windows Microsoft Updates and Utilities for Macintosh We are listing some of the more popular/useful Microsoft updates and utilities here: PowerPoint Viewers allow those who do not have the full retail installation of Microsoft's PowerPoint to view presentations. Word Viewer for those who do not have the full retail installation of Microsoft's have Word; it allows them to open and view Word documents. Windows version (Word Viewer 2003) Microsoft's Office XP Converter Pack provides a collection of file converters and filters useful to users of Office XP working with previous versions of Office. |
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| HTML Editors | |
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Nvu (pronounced N-view, for a "new view") is a free, complete web authoring system for Windows, Macintosh and Linux users that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") web page editing. Use it to create simple, single web pages or entire, complex web sites. |
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SeaMonkey - is a free all-in-one Internet application including a web browser and HTML editor. SeaMonkey's powerful yet simple HTML editor - Composer - handles dynamic image and table resizing, quick insert and delete of table cells, CSS support. |
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TidyGUI - is a Windows GUI encapsulation of Dave Raggett's HTML Tidy, a free utility application from the World Wide Web Consortium that helps you clean up your web pages. |
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TextPad - is a powerful, general purpose editor for plain text files. Easy to use, with all the features a power user requires. |
