Problems viewing the videos?

This post has been heavily edited by me on 3/17/06 on 4/1/06. Please read, thanks.

I think I know what prevented you from accessing the ROTFLMBO video. You are all going to have to switch your web browser to Firefox. Just kidding. Sort of.

When I access the Internet the program I use is Firefox (FF), but most of you probably use Internet Explorer (IE). I use FF because I like tabbed browsing and because IE is among the least secure Web browsers available. For whatever (and various reasons), sometimes there are compatibility issues that arise between IE and alternative browsers. I suspect it is a compatibility issue that is preventing you from accessing the videos. I tested the ROTFLMBO video with IE and had the same difficulties others told me about.

(Well, another, smaller issue could be that OurMedia –which acts as my server– is just too small of an organization to handle the size of my files or it experiences so much traffic that there is a jam. I respect what OurMedia is trying to do & I appreciate that it is hosting my videos for free, but I may have to look for alternatives. In the meantime…)

So this is what I’m going to do: I’m going to upload the videos with IE instead of FF. It may be (hopefully) that simple. We’ll see. (As soon as I’m done with the video for my cousin Rylee’s 1st birthday. It isn’t easy cutting a video in which I overused the zoom feature to The Beatles “Happy Birthday.”)

When this entry was originally posted, I wondered if the difficulties were due to problems some of you may have with adware, spyware and other computer maintenance. This was my suspicion because it has been my experience that many problems were due to not keeping up with one’s maintenance or not having up-to-date software. Although that may not be the case in this situation, I do strongly urge everyone to keep up with the maintenance of your computer.

Adware: Click HERE for a program that can help you remove adware from your computer.

Spyware: You probably have a program like Norton or MacAfee that protects your computer from different kinds of attacks. This program should include protection from spyware. If you have a computer running Microsoft, you can get additional protection HERE. For a program that works for Microsoft and other platforms (eg, Mac OS X), click HERE.

You should also check your temporary internet files and delete them (for those whouse IE: go up to the top where it says Tools, then select Internet Options. A new window pops up. Now, where it says Temporary Internet files, DO NOT click "delete cookies", click the one next to that that says "delete files") (Nothing real bad will happen if you select “delete cookies” you just may loose some info that helps your favorite websites recognize you the next time you go to those sites).

Ensure that your Norton/MacAfee/whatever program, anti-adware, and anti-spyware each run at least once a week. If you spend a lot of time online and visit a lot of websites, you should run an anti-spyware check before you shut down every day or every other day.

You should also run a disk clean-up, disk check/scan, and defragmentation on a regular basis. If you don’t use your computer a lot, you can probably put this off for 2-3 months. People like me should run the disk clean-up every 1-2 weeks and run a disk scan and defragment once a month. If you don’t know what I’m talking about at this point, you can contact me via e-mail or telephone & I’ll go over it with you. Oh, another thing you should do about the same time you run the disk scan & defragmentation is back-up your files (save all your important info to CDs or an external harddrive – that’s the cheapest & fastest way, but not the most efficient if you have a lot of files or even a few large files [music, videos, pictures] so I’d recommend doing some research on software programs that can help you create back-ups).

Ok, so what’s next? Well, I’m going to finish the previously mentioned Rylee’s 1^st birthday video and attempt to upload it to OurMedia and link it to this vlog using IE. At that time, I’m also going to try to re-upload and re-link the ROTFLMBO video with IE. I’ll probably do the same with my logo (have you all had trouble with that one, too?). Then I’ll see what the results are and go from there.