NSU TECHNICAL
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Welcome to Northern State University Distance Education There's many things that can effect a digital transmission. The internet still uses the existing phone structure, parts of which has been in place for decades. Network congestion & maintenance, general internet traffic, power outages, cable cuts, and yes, even the weather can cause a bad connection or poor connection speeds. The following is a list of technical recommendations that will help to enhance your distance experience with NSU. Let's start with your connection and your computer. Do you have the bandwidth and the horsepower to receive streaming media or a live internet broadcast? The following checklist will help you answer these questions. |
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| Do you have a high speed connection? DSL?, Cable?, Satellite?, Digital Dish? | With these types of connections, the bandwidth from your provider should be more than enough to handle a digital transmission from Northern. Northern State University delivers streaming media at 100 to 150 Kips (Kilobits Per Second). To be truly involved with distance education of any kind, you must have a high speed connection. | |
| Are you still using a dial-up system? | If you are, Northern respectfully asks that you upgrade to one of the above mentioned services in order to receive Northern State University distance courses. DSL and cable are available in most communities for the city folks, the farm community can receive high speed using satellite or digital dish networks. | |
| Your Computer Configuration | Pentium 4 Processor... | Enough said! |
| 256 Megabytes of Ram... 1000 (1gig) is better... | More RAM is More Better! Always!!!! | |
| 40 gigs of free space on the hard drive... | Whether you are using the eclips archives or viewing the live stream, your computer needs to cache information on the hard drive in order to deliver the stream seamlessly. This is also called buffering. If there's not enough room on the drives to buffer, the stream will break up. | |
| Display capable of at least 1024 x 768 Resolution... | Products are starting to use high resolution graphics more and more. 1024 x 768 is minimum resolution in this day and age. | |
| Working Audio System... | Good set of speakers, make sure the drivers are installed properly. Test these before class starts. | |
| 100 Mbps (Megabytes Per Second) Ethernet card... | Most networks are still 100 Mbps. Companies are making 10x100x1000 called giganet cards... these will work and a giganet card will get better throughput. | |
| Latest upgrade to whatever browser you are using... | Windows Internet Explorer is done by using Windows Update, Netscape, Firefox...can be done by going to the respective sites on the internet, and downloading the latest drivers, upgrades, and patches. | |
| Please have the latest upgrade to your media player... | NSU produces distance material using predominately Windows media. This link will lead you to the download site. Windows Media Player | |
| Windows 2000, Windows XP Pro Media Edition, or Windows XP Media Edition 2005 | Windows 98 or earlier...forget it...just kidding! | |
| You must have the latest Windows Update and Anti Spy ware/Virus Program... | The latest greatest version of Norton or comparable antivirus software. | |
| Questions? | NSU Help
Desk 7:30.am...5:00.pm 1.605.626.2283 |
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| After
5:00.pm NSU Media Services 1.605.626.2426 |
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| Ask For:
Dennis Burrell burrelld@northern.edu |
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