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USAtek Overdrive Help
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QUESTION: I DOWNLOADED THE NEW OVERDRIVE AND INSTALLED IT, BUT IT WON'T CONNECT. WHY?
Overdrive requires you to use the nation-wide format of your dial-up username and password. It should be in the format of username@domain.name. This is not your email address, which may be different than your dial-up username. Examples are: name@usatek.net, name@certainty.net, name@wononline.net, etc.
To check the settings, go to the Overdrive icon on the taskbar, lower right hand corner near your clock, and right click to view the menu. Then, left click on Settings.
Settings opens to the Image Quality tab. Switch to the Connection tab and check your username. Re-type as necessary and then click OK.
Then, right click the Overdrive icon again and then left click on Start Overdrive. It will again show you the Connection screen, but the format should now be the full username. Click OK. It will now connect.
QUESTION: HOW DO I CONTROL IMAGE QUALITY?
Right click the Overdrive icon, click Settings, and the Image Quality tab should be the first tab selected.
USAtek's PSNI Overdrive accelerates the downloading of Web page images by first pre-compressing the graphics they contain.
By default graphic images are delivered to your Web page in slightly compressed form (Medium acceleration, in the middle of the slider bar) that balances speed of delivery with graphics quality. You can adjust the amount of acceleration and compression used, simply by adjusting the slider.
Low acceleration. This setting maintains the original quality of the graphics on the Web pages you view. You will still get good overall acceleration because our PSNI Overdrive Accelerator speeds up text, HTML, and some graphics through a technique called lossless compression, but graphics acceleration will be limited to about 1.2X (20% improvement with no loss of quality).
Medium acceleration. At this setting you get better graphics acceleration (at least 2 times or 100% improvement) with minimal effect on the actual appearance of the image.
High acceleration. This setting has increased acceleration with slightly more image quality degradation. It has usable graphic setting of approximately 3.0 times or higher improvement.
Very High acceleration. Even more graphics compression (around 5.0 times the normal throughput).
Maximum acceleration. This is the maximum or fastest graphics acceleration setting. At this level, you will find the typical Web page with lots of graphics appearing very significantly faster than without PSNI Overdrive Accelerator. However, there is a trade-off in that most graphics will be fuzzy (up to 7 times improvement). In addition, some pages have functional graphic elements that can be affected by loss of color. (Please consider trying several levels so you can find the one that best suits your needs.)
As you move the slider between the various graphic acceleration level options, you'll notice the image changing. These changes reflect - in fact, they actually exaggerate - the effect graphics acceleration has on the images.
QUESTION: HOW DO I CONTROL POP-UP WINDOWS?
Pop Up Blocker menu.
You have to check the Enable Pop Up Blocker to use this feature.
The Pop-up Blocker Options tab allows you to suppress any pop-up windows that are launched from the web site you are visiting. These pop-up windows can be either commercial advertisements or "expected content", such as a streaming video, side-bar information, or information forms that requires your input. In either case, the Pop-up Windows tab allows you to block any pop-up and later manage them.
The current version also allows you to block the Flash-Ads that are at times more troublesome than a regular pop-up.
Pop-Up Blocking is only available when using Internet Explorer 5.0 or later browser to view web pages.
Whitelist. You can set Overdrive Accelerator not to block a specific site's pop-up windows. Click on the Whitelist tab and then click the Add button. Then type in the web site address.
Notify blocked pop-up by PC speaker beep. Enabling this check box allows you to hear a sound every time a pop-up window is blocked.
Logging. This list window shows all web sites, domains, and URL addresses of pop-ups that Overdrive Accelerator has blocked. You can perform certain operations on the list of blocked pop-ups.
Clear All - This option clears the list of blocked pop-ups.
QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY ADDITIONAL FEATURES?
Features tab in the Settings menu. You can click to enable additional FLASH compression, block in-page advertisements, and potentially enable Email Acceleration (is not always apparent due to the mail messsage encoding).
