I was looking around the net to see what has been said about this year’s early change to Daylight Savings Time (DST) in the United States (US) and found this CNN.com article. I clicked on a link to view a video and it actually played! The last time that I checked any rich media on the CNN site (or anything simple like page navigation for that matter), I was advised that I needed to upgrade my Windows Media Player before viewing the video. That’s not a simple task on Linux, as you have to have a licensed copy of Microsoft Windows and have installed WINE and the flaky Windows Media Player under emulation. Then, you have to get your browser configured to play media with this hacked emulation. That’s too much.
So, the video played with the mplayer plugin. This should be the case anyhow, as mplayer is one of the best all around players out there. Its Windows GUI could use some work, but it still outplays most other players, as it handles almost any codec. The CNN website merely said that the video was optimized for Media Player 9 and that they couldn’t determine my version, but that I could go ahead and watch if I wanted. Right on. The complaints worked (’m sure that I wasn’t the only one who wrote to the webmaster about their lack of accessibility). Cheers, CNN. Now about your news reporting…
LOL! This is more about your mplayer on Linux than DST.
You had me reading along and then you got all geeky ono me.
As the title says…its the only good thing about having to change the clocks! I hate time change.
Looks like someone at work was enjoying Pizza today!
If you enjoyed the Pizza, Corey, I made it! hahahaah
And your generous employer gave a $100 tip too!
It was delicious! Thanks, Devin! I stuffed in as much as I could. There was lots this time.
Glad to hear my efforts paid off!
That made me wonder what about the Mac??? So I clicked the link and nada but to get the program so I went to the dl page and I had a choice of getting WMP OR getting an add on to QT, which is what I did and it worked just fine.
Diane, you might want to keep a copy of Firefox on your Mac, along with Safari, as there might be a page or two that Safari’s javascript handling will crap out on. Other than that, I think that you’ll find that it renders pages with Opera speed.
Firefox is not available for the Mac AS Firefox. I’m using BonEcho- which might as well be the same but according to licensing or some such it can’t be- lol. Safari won’t show me the edit bar in wordpress for some reason so I changed that right off the bat.
Yeah, that’s the working name for Firefox version 2. I don’t know why its labelled as such. I see that in some Ubuntu builds, its got the same name. Debian stripped the Mozilla trademark out, per some Mozilla licencing issues and calls the “brandless” browser Iceweasel.
Hey Corey:
I found your blog on RT’s Untwisted Vortex. I have an issue with the new time change…specifically that the time is going to “fall back” 2 weeks earlier too.
That simply means that winter will start earlier (perception wise). I don’t see the point. Think of all the energy wasted by everyone trying to prepare for the new DST!
ie…all the computer IT people who had to deal with fixing all the servers, smart phones, computers, etc….what a waste & what a joke!
Although…I do enjoy the fact that it’s lighter longer now. I’m not a fan of DST in the first place…I think it should be done away with!
Visit my site & check it out! eJabs
Yes, I agree. Thanks for visiting, Matthew. I’ve been lurking on your site since I discovered that Richard was reading mine (I love to explore new blogrolls, especially short ones, cos there are only two reasons for a short blogroll - either you don’t have any good links or you’re VERY selective). Perhaps I should have worded my title, “The ONLY good thing…”
Thanks for the heads up regarding cnn video playing. I’ve been a linux user since ‘96 and have long-since given up on clicking on anything on CNN’s site, because of all the times I’ve been burned by them “detecting” whether or not I can display something.
Nine times out of ten, linux’s video playing capabilities far outweigh those of other platforms, but like eight of those times, some helpful webmaster has decided that I probably can’t and therefor I can’t. Maddening.