This section describes the hardware, operating system and network requirements for using our conferencing software.

Hardware and Operating System. Participation in The Potter's School requires at least a 1 GHz processor with at least 512 MB RAM, a full-duplex audio card, and a headset with microphone (USB headset strongly recommended). Windows XP or Vista, or Mac OS 10.4 or higher, is required. Depending on what else is loaded, some computers with lower specifications may be able to run the software, but we do not recommend it because performance will be reduced even in the best case. A video camera is not required. (Note: The conferencing software is developed first for the Windows operating system, then for the Macintosh operating system, so there may be short time lags (approximately a week) between when upgrades and fixes are released for Windows and when they are released for the Macintosh.

Internet. Participation in our live classes requires a reliable Internet connection that consistently delivers at least 30 kbps download and upload. The ISP cannot use a proxy server or block the ports required by the conferencing software. Since many "family-friendly" ISPs and filtering services employ a proxy or block ports, they must be able to be bypassed to support live conferencing (contact the ISP or filtering service to discuss this). Satellite connections suffer from latency and use proxy servers and various enhancements that may prevent conferencing software from working reliably, so we urge satellite users to use extra care in testing the software prior to registering.

Network and Hardware Firewalls. The conferencing software works across most hardware NAT routers, including many with hardware firewalls. The conferencing software may not work with Windows Internet Connection Sharing or other software NAT arrangements. It may not work across some proxy servers.

Internet Accelerators. Internet accelerators do not accelerate your connection. They "cache" web pages and employ various methods to make web pages available to you more quickly. These processes interfere with conferencing and must be disabled or even uninstalled on a computer that will be used for our classes.

Software Firewalls and Filters. All of the popular software firewalls and parental filters can be configured for conferencing software, but because of the variations between software brands, updates, and home networks, we do not provide any assistance with this configuration. They all come with adequate documentation to support configuring them for any application.