One of the areas that can cause some issues is the use of Proxy Settings on your School Network. In order to create an Account, and enable it, and also to allow access to  the Online Store, the StoryPhones software must have access to the internet. To do this, when needed, your school network proxy settings must be entered into the software. The latest version of the software (1.4) is designed to automatically detect, and apply these settings if it can find them. On some networks this information is hidden to some Users, which in turn means it is hidden to the software and therefore must be entered manually.

This information is asked for when installing the software so you have a couple of options.

You can leave the fields blank and the software will try and detect the settings and apply them, or, you can enter the details if you know them to ensure they are held by the software. During registration you can enter the information into the respective boxes, for version 1.3.4 and earlier enter it in the format of http://yourproxy:yourport, for version 1.4 enter the proxy (without the http:// prefix) and port number in the boxes. In some cases, a username and password is required – this is not your StoryPhones information, if this is needed for your Network you will need to speak to your I.T Support.

If you cannot access the Online Store (icon is greyed out) then the must common reason is that your proxy details are not entered. Once the correct details are entered, the icon will turn to blue and allow you to access the Online Store – provided you have an account created and enabled. In earlier versions of the software there is a known bug where the proxy settings are not saved after entering them. In this case you need to uninstall that version, and download and install the latest version.

If you have a correct username and password, your account is activated, and your proxy details are entered correctly – you should be able to access the Online Store. if you cannot and you have all the correct information entered, please contact Support.

A common question asked is in relation to the lights on the Remote Console & Headsets. For clarification when the equipment is placed in the Base Unit for storage / charging the Orange light will come on. This will stay on for up to 2 hours if the battery requires a full charge. If the equipment is fully charged, or near to fully charged, the light may only come on for a few moments, then turn off. This means the Headset or Remote is fully charged ready for use. When in use, playing a track, the Green light will be on, and this light will blink when a track is paused, and again this applies to both the Headsets and the Remote Console. With a full charge a Headset or Remote Console should play for up to 8hrs continuously, enough the cover the busiest of school days.

There is also a Red light present on the Remote which appears when the Remote Console is in “Record” mode. The mode is triggered by holding down the red function button on the keypad, and, whilst keeping it depressed, pressing the green play button. The Remote will then record until the green Play button is pressed again.

When you contact Support, we will need to know the Version of our software you currently have installed. To find this out you can see the version number on the bottom right hand side of the loading “splash” screen that pops up when you open the software. Alternatively you can see the software version at anytime whilst running the program by logging into teacher mode, opening the settings window, and looking in the bottom left hand corner. If you do not see a version number, you are running version 1.2 or lower.

The latest version available is 1.5, released 08.06.10. There are 3 different versions available depending on your requirements. Please contact Support for more information.

StoryPhones requires a computer with Windows 2000, XP, Vista or Windows 7 as an Operating System. To find out what your computer is currently running, simply hold the windows/start key (the button with the Windows icon on, usually to the bottom left of your keyboard between ctrl and alt) and press ‘r’. This should bring up the run command dialog. In the middle of the box that appears, type ‘winver’ and press OK. This will bring up an information page about Windows. At the very top of this page will be the title of your Operating System. The latest version of the software supports both 32 and 64bit.

We are currently developing Software for the Mac and hope to have this as a Beta release within the next 2 months. It is also possible to use VMWare and run the StoryPhones software from within that. Once we have more information regarding the Mac version we will issue an update.

When you first install the StoryPhones software and register an account, in order to access the Online Store this account needs to be enabled. To do this we send an activation e-mail. Sometimes this e-mail gets filtered by Authority or local spam filters and fails to reach you. If you have not received your activation e-mail within 24hrs, please contact us and we resolve any outstanding activation issues.