Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Internet Explorer Will Not Play Video Despite Being Set as Default Player, IE, WMP

THE INTERNET EXPLORER WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER VIDEO PROBLEM

You have tried just about everything, checking the blogs and web pages, taking their advice and applying it. Nothing solves your problem: Internet Explorer will not play video. You just get a video console on a website with an error message, or the console remains black and blank.

The problem for IE is that it does not install with all the needed plugins. Yes, some basic ones are there, but basic to IE developers is not what is "required" by users. When you buy a car or receive a free gift, you at least expect it to work properly.

Setting WMP as the default player is not enough to make it work on all web pages.


THE SOLUTION

1) Check if WMP is on the Default Program list.

Click "Start", "Control Panel", "Programs", "Default Programs" and "Set Your Default Programs".

Check if "Windows Media Player" is on the list. If it isn't, go here.

Welcome back if you had this problem.


2) Set WMP as the default player.

Click "Start", "Control Panel", "Programs", "Default Programs" and "Set Your Default Programs".

Choose Windows Media Player from the list. Click "Set this program as default".

You can go further and choose "Set associations for a program" where you can set a player for each file type.


3) Set Computer Defaults.

Click "Start", "Control Panel", "Programs", "Default Programs" and "Set program access and computer defaults".


Click "Custom" and click the expand information arrows on the right.

Cursor down to "Choose a default media player".

Check "Windows Media Player"

Click "OK".

Turn off Internet Explorer and restart.

Go to a website that has video. A warning message will appear across the top of the page in IE asking if you want WMP to play video. Choose "for all sites".



Internet Explorer will play video on any site now.


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Mozilla Firefox Will Not Play Web Page Background Music/Sounds, Firefox QuickTime plugin has crashed, WMP Plugin

FIREFOX 10 WON'T PLAY BACKGROUND SOUNDS ON THE INTERNET

There is nothing worse than installing the latest version of a program, namely a browser and having all sorts of problems. When you go back to the previous version you find once again that there were none. With firefox 3 you get that damn inbuilt nag window saying there is a new version. Yes, a new version with problems.

The creators also changed the design: Who wants the black at the top to become transparent when the window is "normal" i.e, half size anyway?

A standard problem with version 10 and later of Mozilla Firefox is that when you go to a website that has background sound you get a warning message saying there is something wrong with the QuickTime Plugin. This is absolutely incorrect. QuickTime is perfectly okay. There is something wrong with your Windows Media Player Plugin.

If you go to "Tools", then "Add-ons" you will probably not see "Microsoft Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin 1.0.0.8." in there. Furthermore, if you click on "Get Add-ons" you will not find it on the internet either! Firefox creators don't tell you what to do if the standard installation fails to install it. I have installed Firefox 10 on a laptop and on a PC. The WMP Plugin was in the laptop "Add-ons" folder, but not in the PC "Add-ons" folder. Firefox like internet Explorer is becoming a strange monster.


THE FIREFOX FAULT


When you install Firefox 10.0 and above, sometimes you get a Plugins folder, sometimes you don't. It is a wonder how it runs without such a folder, but it does. If you cannot see a Plugins folder in the Mozilla Firefox 10 and higher program folder make one
.
Go to the Program Files folder. Cursor down to the Mozilla Firefox folder. Double click it. Pull the vertical bar on the right side of the open folder down to the bottom. Put the point of the cursor just below the bottom file. Right click. Choose New, and Folder. You will see a new folder named "New Folder". Right click on the "New Folder" and rename it "Plugins". Make sure you use an upper case "P".

THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM

Download the Firefox Media Player Plugin from here.

Close all the Firefox browsers you have open and install it.

Open Firefox 10 again and check the "Add-ons" again.

You will probably still not see "Microsoft Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin 1.0.0.8".

Download the needed dll files from here.

Open the RAR file and copy all of the files there into your new Plugins folder of Firefox 10.

Two or three of the files will already be there if a Plugins folder was installed. Just skip over them.


Close Firefox 10 or indeed version 27.0.1. and check "Add-ons". Again. You will see "Microsoft Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin 1.0.0.8" in the list.  If Windows Media Player is not on the list this is because the latest version of Firefox has hidden it away.

Enter "about:config" in the Firefox address bar and click the little arrow on the right.  Click "OK" to the message that pops up "This might void your warranty".  There is no warranty anyway.  A list will appear.  Find "plugins.load_appdir_plugins" on this list.  Double click it and the "false" will change to "true"

WMP will be in add-on now!

Restart Firefox.

Go to a web page you know has background sound and you find it will play with no warning messages.  If you still have problems download these extra three dll files from here.  Put them in the Plugins folder as well.

Good luck surfing the Internet.


Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Reciprocal Link Code Often Has Serious Errors That Mess Up Your Site Ranking

You have to be careful when making reciprocal links. Many websites that offer HTML code for you to use don't spend enough time checking their code.

A site as an example is "http://www.traveldirectory.com.au/".

It offers quite pretty little set ups for you to put on your site. The "feature" even has a search function with a text entry window and a go button.

But beware, the code has dozens of HTML code faults, yes dozens.

If you put this HTML in your web page Google and other search engines will give up when it meets the mass of errors, and the text after the code will not be included in the search. This is bad news for you - your website will rate poorly.

Don't just assume that reciprocal link HTML is correct. Download the Firefox HTML Validator plugin and look at the code before you use it.


NON-EXISTENT LINKS


Another thing is non-existent reciprocal links. On many occasions whether you ask for a reciprocal link yourself or another site asks you, after you put their link on your page they don't honor their part of the bargain. They just assume you will not check it. Go to http://www.webconfs.com/reciprocal-link-checker.php and do a check. If they don't put your link on their site remove them from your own website. Furthermore, a link from your homepage is wonderful for the other site, but a link to their link page is useless for you. Nobody clicks on a link to a link sub-page. For a link to count it must be to and from homepages or between internal pages that are rated in their own right by Google. Basically, getting reciprocal links to directories is a waste of time and effort. They have no links on their home page and all outgoing links are on worthless sub-pages.