Dear Brave Physics Student:

Welcome to the Wonderful world of electronic textbooks!  Now, not only can you say things like “my dog ate my homework”, but you can now also say very legitimate things like “my computer crashed”, or “Java didn’t load”, or “Apple stinks and screwed up the new Quicktime!”.  J 

The online homework automatically logs you out if you don't touch it for 10 minutes straight for security purposes--as long as you do something on the site it won't kick you off.  Some students like to have the online homework open along with their textbook in different windows or tabs so that they can flip between the two quickly, or some students like to be less eco-friendly and “old fashioned” and print out the homework to do in their notebooks before submitting their answers! 

Remember, use the advantages of having an on-line homework system:  you can refer directly to the section of the text the question is from (e.g. “4.3.3 refers to the 3^rd problem in Section 4.3), you get IMMEDIATE feedback in terms of whether you are right or wrong to check your understanding, and finally you got MULTIPLE chances without penalty to see if you got the answer right (I usually give you at least 3 chances for free)!!  Most students, once they get used to using an e-book, have told me they like it better.   

Some students who have away games for sports, are travelling for the weekend away from computer access, etc. find that printing out the PDF version of the book for the pages they need a convenient way to stay caught up—additionally, if you really want to, you can order the paper back version of the book—but that defeats the whole purpose of having an electronic, fully interactive textbook complete with simulations you can manipulate and animations to illustrate the fundamental concepts of physics.  Finally, if your Internet connection is too slow, you can also order the CD version of the book which runs right off your computer and loads instantly if you want.  However, for most students, the subscription option is the best since it is the cheapest and allow you to get to the book almost anywhere you have Internet access.

Finally, we will do our best to make sure the electronic textbook is fully functional at school in the library and in as many of the computer labs as possible—if you have any problems please let us know! 

Now, to get your book fully functional: 

1.   DO a full SHUTDOWN and REBOOT of your computer to make sure you are doing everything “fresh”. 

2.   You're online book has built in tech support for the myriad of problems that can occur with a modern computer--once you log in, click on "Issues" on the bottom right which will take you to the Kinetic Books tech support page.

 3.   Read over the page and make sure you don’t have any error messages and that you can see the Buffalo.  Then click on the “Interactive help” since that is where you are having trouble. 

4.   Skip trying to search the Knowledge Base for your answer and go straight to the bottom and click on “Contact Kinetic Books” which will run a full diagnostic report for them—this is the only way the engineers can tell what is going on specifically with your computer! 

5.  Finally, you will be asked a series of Yes / No type questions, and then you can fill in your contact info for the tech support engineers to diagnose your problem and send you an answer.  If you don’t hear an answer in a few days, please let Mr. Liaw know and I will call the Vice President of the company (we’re on a first name basis!). 

 Good luck and let your teachers know if you need any more help!