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March 1997 |
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Be sure to also see last month's WebTV Tips for more answers to your questions! 1. How do I get the Audio Options Panel? The Audio Panel portion of your Options screen is available while you're playing a sound clip. Check it out! Choose here to play this clip, and then press the "options" button on your remote control or keyboard. 2. How do I find my Terms of Service? If you choose the WebTV Networks logo in the upper left hand side of your home page Terms of Service. Here you will find answers to your questions regarding Use of the Network, Fees and Payments, Termination of Service and so on. 3. When are you going to change the background music? Coming right up! With the release of our next upgrade in the next few weeks, you'll be able to choose from five categories of songs! Each category has several different songs and you can check as many as you want, or none at all. See The Inside Scoop for more details! 4. What do I do when a web site asks me for a password? The WebTV Network will only ask for your password to access your own account. When surfing you may find pages that ask you for a password. These pages are not owned by WebTV Networks. You must find out from that site's publisher how to get a password. Sometimes these sites use passwords to keep track of those who visit, other times paid membership to that site is required. WebTV Networks will not have any information about these sites, so please read the web page closely for the details. 5. Why do I get messages saying that a Web page is "Busy" or "Unknown"? Sometimes when you try to go directly to certain pages a message will appear saying the address is "Unknown". Just like a telephone operator message, this may mean that either you have tried the wrong address, or that the address is no longer valid. Please check your spelling and try again. Also make sure you have typed the address in exactly, with the correct punctuation and capitalization. This message may also mean that the address is no longer valid. Some sites change the location of pages within the site. It's much like when someone changes their phone number but the old listing stays in the phone book. If you found the address in a search engine, you may want to contact the company that hosts the search engine (for example, Excite, Yahoo, or AltaVista) and let them know. When a message appears saying that a web page is busy, this means too many people are trying to view it at once. You may want to contact the publisher of the page if it continues. WebTV Networks has no way to change the status of a busy page. Only the company or person that authored the page can solve this problem. 6. How Does Message Watch Work? Message Watch is a feature that was enabled in the last software update. When you activate Message Watch, your WebTV Internet terminal will automatically turn on, dial into and briefly connect to WebTV Networks once a day to see if any new messages have come in for you. If there is new mail in any of your accounts at that time, the red light will turn on. To make use of this feature, go to your home page, and choose "Setup". Then, choose "Mail," followed by "Message light." Choose the hour you would like your mail to be checked. Your mail will be checked within 20 minutes of the hour you picked, at the same time every day. If your WebTV Internet terminal has trouble connecting at this time, the red light will turn on, whether or not you actually have new messages. The next time you turn your terminal on, you will be told that Message Watch was unable to check for messages. 7. How I do I set up Surfwatch and Kid-Friendly? What do they do? WebTV has partnered with a company called Surfwatch so you can filter out adult material on accounts for children. Everytime you add an additional user, you will be asked what restrictions you would like on the account. If you need to change the restriction level on an existing account:
When Surfwatch is activated on an account, special filters are used which will prevent access to known web sites that contain sex, violence, hate or drugs. Kid-Friendly (also designed by Surfwatch), is a feature for our younger customers that provides them with their own kid-focused home page, and gives them access only to sites especially designed for kids. Because new sites hit the Internet on a daily basis, sometimes an inappropriate site will slip through the Surfwatch filter. Should you encounter this situation, please send the site to WeCare@webtv.net or call us and let us know. We'll inform the folks at Surfwatch immediately. 8. What should I do if I'm having trouble connecting to the WebTV Network? Sometimes you may have trouble connecting to the WebTV Network. This can be due to many different things, each with a different solution. If you get an error message on the screen, be sure to let us know exactly what it says. You may also press your "Options" button to get the "M code" which will appear in the left lower corner of the error message. By activating Audible Dialing, you'll be able to actually hear your terminal dial and connect to the access number. Instead of music as you sign on, you'll hear dialing and modem sounds (a sound much like a fax machine). This means you've contacted the access number. Or you may hear a busy signal meaning that the number is busy at that moment. If you ever have trouble connecting to the network and receive an error message, you will nearly always be given the choice of going into "Dialing Options". To activate Audible Dialing, choose "Dialing Options" and choose "Advanced". Put a check mark in the box next to "Audible Dialing". We'll need to know whether or not you heard numbers being dialed, how many times number are dialed, and whether or not you heard modem noises, a busy signal, an automated voice message, silence or something else entirely! 9. When are the WebTV Network's maintenance hours? So that we that we can continuously improve your service, WebTV Networks performs maintenance every Tuesday between 1:00 am and 4:00 am, Pacific Standard Time. You may not be able to connect during these hours. If you receive a message referring to maintenance at any other time besides early Tuesday mornings, please call us. 10. Can my WebTV Internet terminal get a virus? Nope. Viruses live on hard drives and can only be transmitted by downloading something to a hard drive. Downloading means taking something off the Internet and making it part of your hard drive. WebTV Internet terminals do not have hard drives, so your terminal cannot get a virus. A question that we're often asked is where to find information about the Internet and the World Wide Web. Check out the WebTV tour! From your home page choose "Using WebTV" and then "Tour." An excellent web page for people new to the Internet is The Rage Beginner Page which contains dozens of links to sites just for Newbies, including how to use search tools, Web jargon, FAQ's, tips and tricks, and more. Web pages and E-mail Addresses Many of our members who are new to the Internet wonder about the difference between e-mail addresses and web page addresses. E-mail addresses are used to send someone a message. Web page addresses are used to view a web page. It may help you to think of e-mail addresses as telephone numbers, and of web site addresses as street addresses. E-mail addresses are a way for you to communicate, whereas web site addresses are a place to be. E-mail addresses always have an @ symbol (called the "at" symbol) between the person's user name, and the domain name. For example, someone@webtv.net, would be spoken, "Someone at WebTV dot Net." Just like phone numbers, you must be certain that the address is exact, or your message will bounce back, and appear in your mailbox as undeliverable. Make sure not to type any spaces between any of the letters or numbers in the address. However, e-mail address are not usually case-sensitive, so it makes no difference if you write in upper-case or lower-case letters, or a combination. Web page addresses always begin with http:// , usually (but not always) followed by www. , a name (often the name of the company that owns the page), and then a suffix like .com or .net or .org. These addresses will take you to a specific Web site or page. As examples: http://www.sony.com, http://www.philips.com, http://webtv.net, or http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/eandrese/. As with e-mail addresses, web addresses must be entered exactly, but normally ARE case-sensitive. A web page address must be exact in all ways.
If you have a question, comment, suggestion, or need help about how to use of your WebTV Terminal, please address mail to: WeCare@webtv.net | |||||||||||||||||
