Phonics Alive - literacy software - frequently asked questions

FAQ: [INDEX] - [2] - [3] - [4] - [5] - [6] - [7] - [8] - [9]

Networking

General information

Networking instructions for Phonics Alive! v1.1 and Phonics Alive!2 The Sound Blender are attached to the network licence on purchase. Speller, Grammar and Typing use a network installer built into the programs on the CD, and on purchase of a network licence you will receive a licence code. This licence code limits the number of clients to the number specified on your licence, and must be used to install the server. Should you wish to increase the number of clients to your network, please contact your local distributor for an upgrade licence. To test if the program will work on your network please refer to "Testing a network licence without a licence code" later in this section.

Note: Important copyright notice. The purchase of a network licence enables a school to network the program via a LAN to a specific number of clients. It does *not* allow the program to be installed on additional standalone computers.

Note: As the Phonics Alive! series currently uses a shared file to store student results, remember that you will be limited by the number of simultaneous connections allowed by your operating system/s. For example, by default NT 4 workstation only allows 10 simultaneous client connections. The number of simultaneous users will always be limited by the maximum number of clients that your server will allow.

Overview of networking and results storage

Since the original release of Phonics Alive! we have made many changes to the level of results information that is available to the parent or teacher. With help from schools and site administrators, we have also increased the speed and storage capacity of our programs, to make them more useful. We also "back-port" new features and functionality into previous programs when circumstances allow. For example, The Speller v2.0 has the new optimised database system, even though it was originally released 18 months before that system was written.

The series networking functionality can be split into two groups, programs without network installation options in the installer, and programs with the new network installer.

As networking is very site dependant, an FAQ that covered all of the potential client/server configurations would take months to write. Also whilst we take great care to test on as many of these configurations as possible, we do not provide network administration support.

If there was a single issue that should be mentioned at this time, it is user permissions. Ensure that your user permissions are set correctly. When the programs are first installed, you may need to be logged in as an administrator so that you can create the preferences file in the system/preferences folder, and allow the program to put the link to the results database into this prefs file. Then, you *should* log back in as whatever "user" is applicable to your network, and test that you can actually get into the admin and name list pages of the program. If at this time there is an issue with the results database permissions, the program will alert you.

Section One - Phonics Alive v1.x & The Sound Blender

The networking and results storage system in these two programs is fairly simple.
Runtime and Installation - They can run directly from the CD or from a hard disk by copying the CD contents to a folder. The only thing that the installer does (and only for Windows) is to create some shortcuts in the "Start" menu for easy access to the program.
Results - The results are stored in files which correspond to the student name in a folder selected when you first enter the "namelist" or "admin" pages.
You can choose to change this location by using the "Change Results Location" button on the Admin page.
This results file can be printed or edited directly from the file. The reason for allowing the user to change folders was to allow different classes to have their own folder for results.
Preferences - The "preferences" file, or program information file contains only a reference to where the results are currently located. This file can be edited by using a text editor, but remember to make a backup before making any changes to it. Under Windows this file is located in the system windows folder called "phonics.ini".
Under MacOS this file is located in the system Preferences folder and is called "Phonics Preferences".