JIS logo Jewish Interactive Studies
Technical Support
 
© M. Zauderer 2006

BS''D

In the past, students have written to us regarding various difficulties they have experienced in accessing the course files. We have assembled all these problems with the accompanying solutions to help you view the various JIS courses without any difficulty.

Which type of problem are you having?

If none of these solutions helps, then please go to our Problem Submission Form .

Course Access

All regular JIS courses are now password protected. In order to access any course, participants must login using a user name and password. (Certain JIS courses do not require logging in. Such courses will be identified in class letters.  You may skip this section if you are in such a course).

User Name:
Your user name is the e-mail address you submitted in your online registration form. Unless you notify us of a change in your e-mail, you will not be able to login using any other e-mail.

Password:
Your password is assigned to you by JIS in an e-mail letter sent to your address.

Following successful login, you will view a "MyJIS" Home Page that lists all JIS courses for which you have registered to date. Use the links to take you to the course home pages for courses that are currently in-progress.

LOGIN PROBLEMS
If you are unable to login, please try using one or more of the following solutions:

User Name/E-mail Address:
Make sure you have entered the e-mail address that you submitted in your registration form. You will not be able to login using any other e-mail. If you have changed your e-mail address, you must either use the old e-mail address (assuming it remains valid), or notify JIS so that we can update our records. You will then be able to login using your new e-mail address.

Password:
Enter it exactly as shown in the first class letter.    The password contains UPPER CASE letters, lower case letters and numbers.  You must be certain to enter each character exactly as it appears on your e-mail letter.  Entering all lower-case letters for the password (and therefore, not gaining access to the course) is the most common problem that students have.

If you forget your password, enter your User Name (which is your e-mail address) at the login prompt, place a check next to "send password" and click "login." Your password will be e-mailed to you using the e-mail address for which JIS has you registered.

Cookies:
You must enable cookies on your browser. If you have blocked "first party" cookies on your browser, then you will not be able to access the courses. In the Microsoft Internet Explorer, you can enable cookies by going to Tools | Options, clicking on the Privacy tab, and adjusting the slider to a position that does not disable first-party cookies. For information further information about cookies, please see the section on cookies.

SPAM filters:
All Word and PDF files are now sent to the student via automated e-mail.  If you receive an e-mail, but do not receive an attachment, or if you don't even receive an e-mail, please check your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to see if they are filtering your attachments that appear to be junk mail (for example, the ISP www.OptOnline.net now has this service).  Or perhaps you  are running a filter on your own computer. Some very sensitive SPAM filters might consider out automated letters to spam.  Please try to disable these filters and see if the mail and/or attachment comes through.

When all else fails:
You can have Word or PDF files sent to the address you used when you registered (the HTML file is not available with this option).  Please see the page www.jewishstudies.org/mailer.
 

Erasing Cookies

 

 To enhance your experience at Jewishstudies.org, we use a feature on your Internet browser called a "cookie." Cookies are small files that your Web browser places on your computer's hard drive. We use cookies to let us know that you are a registered student so that you do not need to login each time you go to Jewishstudies.org.

Unfortunately, cookies can occasionally cause problems when trying to access courses. To remedy this situation, you'll need to delete the jewishstudies.org cookie file from your computer before logging back into your account.

The simplest way to delete your cookies is to login to jewishstudies.org using your e-mail address and password. Then please click the "logout" link located on the bottom left of every page.  After this, you should close all browser windows, reopen them, and then try again.

If you are unable to delete your cookies with the above instructions, please follow the below directions that apply to your browser and operating system.

Internet Explorer - PC (AOL):

  1. Close your browser.

  2. Go to Start Menu-->Find-->Files or Folders.

  3. Type the word jewishstudies into the "Named" window.

  4. Look at the "Look in" window. Be sure that you are searching the drive that contains your browser application; typically (C:).

  5. Click on "Find Now"

  6. Delete any files that contain the word jewishstudies and end in a .txt extension. (These files will be in a folder named 'Cookies'.)

If the jewishstudies.org cookie is not found, repeat the search for the word 'cookie'. Look in the cookie folder and find and delete the cookie associated with jewishstudies.org.

Netscape - PC:

  1. Close your browser.

  2. Go to Start Menu-->Find-->Files or Folders.

  3. Type the word cookies.txt into the "Named" window.

  4. Look at the "Look in" window. Be sure that you are searching the drive that contains your browser application; typically (C:).

  5. Click on "Find Now".

  6. Delete the file named cookies.txt.

Internet Explorer - Macintosh:

  1. Click on the Edit menu.

  2. Choose Preferences.

  3. Click Cookies.

  4. Put the jewishstudies.org cookie in the trash, then empty the trash.

  5. Click OK.

Netscape - Macintosh:

  1. Close browser.

  2. Go to your System Folder.

  3. Open Preferences.

  4. Open Netscape Users.

  5. Locate the Magic Cookie file.

  6. Put it in the trash, then empty the trash.

  7. Restart Navigator or Communicator

Should you continue to experience problems, please see the Problem Submission Form  to contact us for further technical assistance.
 

Javascript Errors

If you receive an error screen that contains the word "Javascript", you probably are viewing our site with a very old browser.   JIS makes some use of a feature called "Javascript" which has been found in both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer since version 3.0.  See the next section below about upgrading your browser.

Updating Your Internet Browser

All the major browsing software is now provided FREE by the producers. Below is a list of the major browser producers,  the current version, and where you can find the browser:

Get Microsoft Internet Explorer Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 6.0)
    http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.htm
Get Netscape Now Netscape Communicator (version 6.2.1)
     http://home.netscape.com/computing/download/index.html

America Online (version 7.00)
    See the AOL opening screen, or the web page
     http://www.aol.com/downloadaol.adp

(The above links are to third-party sites that will open up in a new browser window.  Jewishstudies.org is not responsible for their content)

Note that many local computer stores sell the above software on CD-ROM for a nominal charge.  You can also contact AOL via telephone and they can send you a free upgrade CD-ROM.

Word problems

To make it easier to read our files off-line, we offer all classes in Word  format.

There are several versions of Microsoft Word available on the market.  We are using Word 2000.  If you have Word 95 or Word 6.0, you can view our documents by downloading the Word converter.  This is available from Microsoft at this link.  If you have an older version of Word or a different word processor that cannot import Word 2000 files, then you need to use the PDF format.

When you click on the "Word" link, you will be asked if you want to Open or Save the document.  Under normal circumstances, you can choose Open and your browser will automatically open Microsoft Word   upon completion of the download.  If this does not happen, try either of the following:

  1. If you are using AOL, start your internet connection as normal.  Once connected, open a separate browser (either Netscape or Internet Explorer) and do all your coursework from this second window (and not from the proprietary AOL software).
  2. Choose to SAVE the file rather than open it.  Once saved, open Word, then choose FILE then OPEN and open the file you just saved.

Form problems

There are several pages at Jewish Interactive Studies where you are asked to fill out a form.  Upon completion, pressing "SUBMIT" will send the form to JIS via E-Mail.  Some students do not have reliable connections to the internet and they lose their connections while they are filling out the form.  Others (such as those that have "unlimited" accounts on AOL) get disconnected if they don't have any internet activity within 10 minutes.

If you are using a browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, you should be able to restablish the connection, then press "submit" when you are finished.  There should be NO loss of data.  If you are using AOL, however, you might lose data (as AOL might close the browser window when the connection is lost).  To prevent a loss of data, you should consider doing the following:

  1. Use an external browser, rather than the one built into AOL.
  2. Write any long responses in a word processor first (often times, if you save the document once at the beginning, your word processor will then save the document as you type in case the power goes out).  When you finish your response, choose EDIT then SELECT ALL, then EDIT and COPY to copy your response to the clipboard.   Return to the form, position your mouse over the text area, and press CONTROL-V to paste the contents of the clipboard onto the form.
  3. Write to us using standard E-Mail instead of using the form.   The address to use is different for each course, so be sure to look at the form to determine which address to use.

Lost Connections

People often times lose the telephone connection to the internet.   Here are some possible reasons why this happens:

  1. AOL users who have "unlimited" accounts automatically get disconnected if they do not use the Internet after 10 minutes.   So if you take over 10 minutes to read a class lecture, you could get knocked off the Internet.  You can simply redial and reestablish your connection.  Or consider downloading the Word file -- this will enable you to print the document and read it off-line at your leisure.
  2. If you have call-waiting on your phone line, you might lose your Internet connection if someone tries to call you while you are on-line.  Most phone companies enable you to disable call waiting by dialing a number first.  Typically you accomplish this by dialing *70 before th number, but you should see your phone directory or contact your phone company to confirm this sequence of numbers for your phone system.   Then modify your telephone number for your Internet connection so that it dials these numbers first.  For example, if the old number was 555-1212, the new number would be *70,555-1212.

Contacting Us

 To contact Technical Support, please fill out the form located here