In an attempt to watch certain videos (I'm assuming it's wmvs) my macbook informs me that I need a plugin, apparently called Fip4Mac. I downloaded it, and assumed I installe it (it mounted on my desktop and I dragged it in to the apps folder) but I don't think it worked cause, well, it's still not working. So I went to the Flip4Mac site and it appears that the only versions of it are paid versions (I can't remember how/where I dled the version that's on my desktop from)...

Is Flip4Mac the only thing that will work?

1/14/2008 5:24:11 PM

I use Firefox and I installed this and it did the same thing.
I logged out and back in and it worked. Might of had something to do with making sure the process was completely killed before it would work.

1/14/2008 5:28:32 PM

Flip4Mac will allow Quicktime to play WMVs, so you won't really see much difference after it is installed and working, except that the files will now play

1/14/2008 5:34:06 PM

yeah i've used flip4mac ever since it came out, it works perfectly for me

might want to restart and try again

1/14/2008 5:35:08 PM

crap. well I closed firefox and when I did this it said something about do I want to use the new settings? So I got a little excited thinking closing firefox was all I needed to do, but when I opened it back up and tried to view the video again, it still didn't work Am I installing the plugin in the wrong folder? I'm a mac novice btw...

1/14/2008 5:35:26 PM

try safari. Safari works better and smoother with QT than firefox does

1/14/2008 5:36:15 PM

damn it....not working. I must have installed something somewhere wrong...am I just supposed to install the Flipmac in the apps folder or the folder containing the WM player?

1/14/2008 5:49:18 PM

Flip4Mac should come in a .pkg, not a .dmg. So you open the download and it will open the installation wizard, which will install the application for you

1/14/2008 6:09:55 PM

It worked!!!!!!!!! Yeah! Thanks guys....as a novice I didn't know that pkg were treated differently




Now I can see the live streaming video of Britney and the media frenzy around the corner from my house

1/14/2008 6:18:28 PM

Quote :

"as a novice I didn't know that pkg were treated differently"

yes, this is definitely one of the dirty little secrets that Mac users prefer to keep away from their PC brothers. (i am a mac user, i'm not flaming) It is not as simple as drag-and-drop in many circumstances, and Mac installers, if they're in a Package or a Disk Image are wildly inconsistent.

You are supposed to open a Package like an executable, which will then run through a install wizard that will install your DMG for you.

But when you open a DMG, you also never know what will be inside. Sometimes, you'll just get an Application Bundle that you're supposed to drag to your Applications folder. Even this is not immediately obvious - Mac novices could easily be forgiven for thinking they should or must run the application directly from the Disk Image, instead of copying it. Much less, after copying the Bundle over, you have to unmount and delete the DMG, which is also not obvious.

Other times, when you open a DMG, it will open a Finder window with the Bundle, and an alias to the Application folder, the intention being to drag the bundle into the alias, which will actually copy it over to the Application folder. But for people who are unfamiliar with aliases, it is not intuitive what is going on, and it appears that your entire Applications folder is inside the DMG, making it even more scary for novices to delete the DMG.

Then, sometimes the DMG will automatically open a splash-screen that has a draggable icon of the bundle. It will often have the icon and an arrow pointing to an icon on the Application folder. Sometimes the icon of the App folder is actually an alias, so you just drag the bundle application into the App icon, and it copies it over. But other times, it's just a picture of the Applicaitons folder, and the arrow is just indicating that you're supposed to drag the bundle icon into your normal Applications folder in the Finder.

For the OS that's supposed to be so intuitive to add and delete programs, there sure are a lot of rather obscure ways to install them (don't even get me started on deleting programs. A program like AppZapper should come built in to OS X). For as much shit as people give Installation Wizards on Windows where just click "Next" half a dozen times, I really don't think they're that bad, and they're pretty much dummy-proof.


Having said all that - Safari 3 handles downloaded files and programs much better than FireFox or even Safari 2. If you download a DMG in Safari 3, it will automatically mount the DMG, copy the contents into your Downloads folder, unmount and delete the DMG. If you download a Package, it will automatically open and execute the package for you, so if you had started this whole process when using Safari, you would have had it installed for your more or less automatically.

1/14/2008 6:35:42 PM

Don't forget Perian!

1/14/2008 7:33:42 PM

^^ seriously, i've been a Mac user for almost 4 years now, and that shit still befuddles me.

1/14/2008 7:36:14 PM

Quote :

"when you open a DMG, you also never know what will be inside. "

ITS LIKE A SURPRISE EVERY TIME

1/14/2008 10:25:05 PM