The other day I was reading a thread in the Hyperspace Member Forum about the Rancho Obi-Wan video clips. A poster talked about how he couldn't get the clips to play. This problem comes up regularly and one of the first things you can do - and often one of the only things you need to do - to try and fix it is as popular as the problem itself. Update to the latest version. It's one hell of a cliché, but it does work.

The clips in question and most if not all of the video content on the website are offered in the QuickTime format (.mov). I'm sure there are several players out there that can handle these clips, but the number one player is of course the free QuickTime Player. So, I gave the guy a link and told him to uninstall his current version first. I also recommended him to reboot after the uninstall. Although it depends on the software, whether or not a reboot is needed, I think it's always a good idea to do so. Especially if you're expreriencing problems with a particular program. What often happens, is that rebooting will get rid of files "marked for deletion" by the uninstaller. Files that may be "locked" by the operating system, which are not accessible until the computer restarts. After that, you can safely install a newer version of a program. In this particular case, our cliché of the day worked like a charm and he's now enjoying the clips.

It's extremely difficult to pinpoint the precise problem. Is it the site? Is it his computer? There are so many variables that it's a question of trying things until you find something that works. Updating is at the top of my list. Now, you may wonder what the big deal is and if QuickTime updates are as important as say, Windows updates. Well, Microsoft does get an awful lot of (negative) publicity, but it's really not fair to blame them all the time, without mentioning all the others. Mac gets updated, Firefox releases patches, Apple's QuickTime Player receives updates. And sometimes even as frequently as Windows. To illustrate just how quick things can change significantly, a day after I helped the guy out, Apple released a new version of QuickTime that fixes quite a lot of security problems. So if you're reading this drthmrl1, you might want to repeat the process. ;-D

The obligatory link to the QuickTime website, download QuickTime 7.1 right here. To check which version you have, open the player and go to Help > About QuickTime Player...


This website also uses Flash to deliver "rich" content. I'm not a big fan of Flash. Sure, it looks pretty, but it's often impractical. Let's take the revamped "Ask the Council", "Questions and Answers", for example. It used to be simple HTML, you could link to every question, which was done all the time on the boards. Many a thread directory included links to one or more answers. But try linking to one now, last time I checked, you couldn't.

Anyway, you need to have the Flash Player installed in order to "enjoy" Flash content. And as with other programs, the Flash Player has had its fair share of ups and downs. It too, is updated because of security issues. And our cliché of the day might just be more applicable to the Flash Player than the QuickTime Player. So, without further ado, get your Flash Player installers and uninstallers here. A handy page to see if you need to update can be found here. You can see which version is installed on your computer and the latest version available. If you have trouble viewing Flash on this or any other site, try updating to the latest version.

Even though you may have the latest version of a program on your computer, you can always try a "fresh" install of that same version. That means uninstalling, rebooting, and installing. Especially with the Flash Player, this often fixes the simple things. It has certainly helped a lot of people on this site.


So in the future, when you think about updates and patches and fixes, try to look beyond Windows... There's a big chance everything will work better and it's undoutedly safer.