PC Users SMART Exchange site

[VV]

We are a mac school, but a student teacher is trying to use the SMART Exchange and when he downloaded a file we couldn't find it.  We searched for it, we even tried saving it to the desktop--but to no avail!  Has this happened to anyone? and how can we fix it?

MAC User trying to help a PC user..:)

[Randy Tran]

@Donna> Internet Explorer sometimes handles the Notebook file downloads as a zip file, simply based on it's metadata (most files has a small amount of information at the beginning of a file that identifies what kind of file it is) when it can't find information about the extension of the original file. If the browser is unable to find any relevant information on what fie it should be, it downloads it as-is.  Additionally, IE will attempt to retrieve file type information (also known as a MIME-type) from the server you download the file from if it can't recognize what kind of file it should be, although in the case of SMART Exchange, that info is already set.

Chrome and firefox however, do no such thing. Regardless of what it sees, it always maintains the file as is when you download it.

Using your situation as an example, IE seems to have lost information of the Notebook extension, so it reads the first bit of the file and sees that it is similar to a zip file and will download it as such. Whereas when you use Chrome or Firefox, it'll keep it as a Notebook file regardless.

 

#R

[Donna Cherry]

Thank you!  That helps!

[Donna Cherry]

Can anyone help me understand why downloads from SmartExchange don't work with Internet Explorer? I can navigate to the folder where I want it to download and everything acts like it is downloading correctly, but when I look in the folder the file is not there. I tried again using Chrome and it worked fine. What makes the difference? I can get around it myself, but I would like to understand it so I can advise others.

[Jennifer Harper]

What OS are you running on the Mac?

[Randy Tran]

I think I can provide the missing information everyone needs to find that and any other obscure files that people will say they found from Exchange.

 

Here's the deal - SMART Exchange doles out content on a regional basis, placing content best suited for each region's educational standards.  Additionally, as this is a worldwide depository of sorts, you'll most likely find files created in different languages depending on region selected (teachers of other languages, such as French and Spanish, rejoice!)

 

Regardless of where you access the Exchange from, you are able to change to a different region and access all of the content there.  Most people frequenting this site and accessing the SMART Exchange will probably have a selected region of USA.  Referring back to the original post, there's a good chance that the content the student teacher found will be located in a different region's content, say Canada or the UK.

 

 

Try experimenting with the regional settings to find that particular file, and all other kind of files you might be interested in but have never seen before. 

 

Above all else, make sure you let the SMART Exchange team know how you feel regarding this and any other comments and issues you might have, by accessing the SMART Exchange and clicking on the "contact" linkat the bottom of the page.  Or you can send an e-mail to [e-mail].

 

#R

[dee]

somehow on mine computer, it automatically sends it to My Documents then a folder called Downloads.  I do not recall setting this up and can not find how to change where it saves.  Mystery.

dee

[VV]

Thanks Obe.  I will tell the teacher to try using Firefox, not sure if that is the browser he was using--I cannot remember.  I did try looking in his downloads folder and also My Documents, but the file was NOT there.  I also searched for it and didn't find it--

[Obe Hostetter]

I would recommend downloading files from the SMART Exchange using the free Firefox browser or free Google Chrome.  Sometimes Internet Explorer will not download files correctly.

 

Another place to look in Windows is the downloads folder that is located in the My Documents folder.