Q1:Can the material on this site be used, copied or distributed, freely?
The copyrights of all material on this website belong to the respective authors and Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. (All the material on this web site including all the programs have been developed at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.) Unless otherwise stated all the material here including the programs can be used freely for educational purposes. No commercial use must be made of them; but ordinary educational institutions can use them freely. If you have any other questions on using the material on this site please contact us.
Q2:Can I download the text, pictures, and programs and reuse them from my computer or another computer?
In order to maintain the integrity of the material (i.e., accuracy, context, etc.), and for proper version control (correct and up-to-date material), we would like to have the material only viewed on the web. You may however, download sections for personal use. If you refer to the material on this site please give the full name and address of the site, page details (department, author) and the date of viewing.
Q3:Why don't some of the programs work on my browser?
Your browser needs to be Java enabled to be able to run the programs. You need to use a
current version of the Java Run-Time Environment for the complex programs to run properly.
The Java Run-TiMe Environment is available for free download from Sun Microsystems. You can
go straight to Sun's Java Download page at http://java.sun.com
and get the version of JRE that is suitable for you.
The version you need depends on your operating system (for example, MS-Windows, Mac-OS, or
Linux). If you only want to view the programs from this site on your browser just get the JRE (do not
download the SDK (System Development Kit), which is a much bigger download).
For more information see the Sun Java website at:http://java.sun.com
(We only use non-commercial, open-source programming platforms for all our programs on
this site.)
Q4:What is Java?
The Java RunTime Environment (JRE) can be used as an enhancement to
web-browsers to allow programs (called applets) to be run within a browser.
Most new web-browsers come pre-loaded with the necessary software for this.
However, the version of the JRE in your browser may be too
old or the Java feature may have been disabled. If Java has been disabled (check your browser
settings), then simply enable it to see the applets in this site. If some of the programs run
but some others do not, then you need to upgrade your Java RunTime Environment. Do this as
suggested above in Q3.
Java is an open source, programming environment maintained by Sun Microsystems. This means that
Java is monitored by a large community of developers (being open source), but also that
Sun Microsystems, decides what are the 'official' features. Since, Sun Microsystems makes many
of the tools for Java freely available, Java is an ideal system for
free educational software.
In general, Java is also safe, although it is extremely flexible. In other words, although
you can have all kinds of third party Java programs running on your computer, none of them
can read or write to your local disk, access other peripherals, etc. (the so-called 'sandbox').
Therefore, no virus, or harmful program is normally possible in Java. It is, however, possible for
you to explicitly allow Java programs to access resources on your computer (but enabling
this is NOT an accidental button-click away, so you needn't worry).
If you have any other questions on the material currently on the site, please email me: surdev@cmcvellore.ac.in
website administrator
August 2004