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20
Jan
2009

Right Here Right Now

Written by Alice Jester

This morning, as I got up and put on Inauguration coverage on the TV, for some reason Jesus Jones’ “Right Here Right Now” popped in my head. I get chills every time I hear that song, for it was written by the band after they watched the exact same event I did on the national news. We watched in awe the Berlin Wall fall. 
 
For our generation, that was our moon landing. Sure I was alive for the actual moon landing, but in my infant state I didn’t remember any of it.  Growing up I vaguely remembered hearing things on the TV while my parents watched like Nixon resigning and Gerald Ford being sworn in, the Iran Hostage crisis, and the entire Reagan presidency. It was all a blur. As most other young people, I grew up complacent about politics. I didn’t care, nor believed I could make a difference.
 
Communism was always prevalent in my life and I accepted it to be something that existed. Unlike the generations before me, I didn’t think communists were evil. It was just their thing, and they weren’t going anywhere. So, as I watched on that day in November 1989 I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Something revolutionary was happening in the world and it was a good thing. A regime was changing, and people were hopeful.  I saw the jubilant German people standing on the wall, tearing down pieces of concrete and cheering, and I couldn’t help but get weepy.  I didn’t know how much this meant to them until then. I didn’t realize the scars that existed. Watching something inspirational is best seen through other people's eyes.  Otherwise, you don't get the whole story.  That day, I got it. 
 
Since then I drifted back into my complacency. Sure the world has changed, but I don’t remember a moment captivating me quite so much. By captivating I mean delivering hope. Sure, I watched non-stop horrific coverage for weeks after September 11th, but that didn’t inspire me like the images I saw this morning. The long aerial shots of the entire Washington mall packed full with citizens from all walks of life, all in a celebratory and hopeful mood, waving their flags with pride.  People were energized and for once excited about what’s happening next. A city and a country that for so long has felt dead today is alive with hope. I haven’t felt this way since the Berlin Wall fell. 

My kids on a day off from school got to watch the Inauguration with me.  My seven year old son took huge interest in the election, even taking pride in his mock classroom election by voting for Barack Obama in a class full of John McCain supporters.  There was quite of bit of political posturing going on in that first grade classroom and I scratched my head, trying like mad to picture when I was in school when we ever talked about an election, let alone had a mock vote.  I realized I never did.  

My son sat in my lap with eyes glued to the TV, actually crying when Joe Biden and Barack Obama were sworn in.  It became clear to me this was his moon landing.  To see this sweeping change, to see this much hope happen with a child so young, I choked up a bit myself.  Far more than Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream came true today.  Seven year olds everywhere are dreaming of their great futures as well.   
 
“Right here right now, there is no place that I want to be. Right here right now, watching the world wake up from history.”  Thanks Jesus Jones, I couldn't have said it better.   
 
06
Dec
2008

Part 2: Why You Can't Watch Videos on ABC.com, CWTV.com, or Fox.com

Written by Alice Jester

It was my goal to keep digging at the Move Media Player issue until I found the ultimate “Eureka!” answer, ready to share with the world.  After all, many of us couldn’t play videos on ABC.com, CWTV.com or FOX.com and were left frustrated, even though there was always the acceptable and far more secure workaround of using the Firefox Mozilla browser.   

We had a breakthrough in our household, so I thought.  My daughter’s Compaq laptop could play the videos on the above mentioned sites, as well as other sites running the Move Media Player with no problem on Internet Explorer 7.  Our other three computers in the house couldn’t do that.  I had notions of comparing her browser and antivirus settings with mine and set them identical.  The problem was as I went through them, they were identical.  Aside from the fact that her laptop had far less software than mine, there was no difference.   

I noticed with her laptop when I uninstalled the Move Media player and reinstalled the install process was seamless and instantly played the videos.  Mine didn’t go so well.  When I ran uninstall process on my system, I found that it did indeed uninstall the programs properly and deactivate the registry keys.  I reinstalled and was prompted to restart the browser.  That was something I never got on the Compaq.  I would restart, go back to my test site, CWTV.com, and eventually I would get “Error” on the bottom.   

Since the last article, Move Networks put out an update.  My husband uninstalled and reinstalled the Move Player on his system, which like mine is running Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7.  Suddenly, the videos were working for him.  However, when I did the same, I would still get the dreaded “Error”.  So now two of our four computers in the household were working, and we had no idea why.  I poured through registry settings and Active X controls.  Little tweaks here and there did nothing.  Setting the ABC.com and CWTV.com sites as trusted sites didn’t work, but I knew that wasn’t necessary since those sites weren’t setup that way on my daughter’s and husband’s laptops.   

There was one nagging thing that went through my mind during all of these exercises.  Why do I have to go through such hoops for Internet Explorer, when Firefox worked effortlessly?  Finding that Firefox doesn’t use Active X controls, something IE does use which is known to open Internet security risks, was one reason for me never to consider streaming video from IE again.  Also bothering me, the numerous registry keys, over a hundred, created on my system by installing the Move Media player for IE.  These didn’t exist for Firefox, for they aren’t needed.   

Furthermore, why do I need to install their player anyway?  Move Networks is taking the opposite approach from Hulu.com and TheWB.com, which stream directly from their site and do not require users to download a player.  They are taking the approach that through their player the videos will be downloaded onto your system, thus reducing buffering times and improving video quality.  That sounded like a legitimate architecture decision, until I saw that I had no video streaming difficulties with Hulu or TheWB.  The fact that someone was downloading content to my computer became unnerving.  Doesn’t that tactic also promote greater security risk?  Maybe not if the player security protocols are configured properly, but it wasn’t giving me warm fuzzies.   

I'm Not Giving Up 

Still, my stubborn streak continued.  Why won’t these freaking videos play through my IE?  It was a vendetta now.  I sensed that the upgrade had fixed issues, but my daughter’s PC got through an “Authorizing” step before the video played, where mine errored out before it got that far.  Something was going wrong in that Authorizing routine and chances are the Move Media player didn’t install properly on my system.   

This is where it gets weird.  There was a setting on my Antivirus (I use Trend Micro Security) that had checked “Prevent Unauthorized Changes”.  I unchecked that, uninstalled and reinstalled, and the same error happened.  Then my husband noticed I had both the Google Toolbar and Yahoo Toolbar installed, as well as a small piece of communications software that I needed for at home access from my former employer.  His machine didn’t have those.  He uninstalled those programs, then uninstalled the Move Media player and then reinstalled them through the CWTV site.  Low and behold, the videos started playing.   

He went and turned the switch back on for “Prevent Unauthorized Changes”.  The videos still played.  I reinstalled the Yahoo and Google Toolbars.  The videos still played.  Does anyone else have “Whale Communications” on their system?  Considering it’s not a widespread application, I can’t imagine that would be causing everyone’s problems. 

We did tons of things to try and recreate the problem, and that didn’t change anything.   While I should be pleased that I can finally play videos on IE (but I won’t, Firefox is much safer), the why is driving me crazy.  It is our conclusion (though no tests can confirm this), that a setting in the Move Media Player somehow got turned on without numerous factors interfering, and turning them back on after the install have no effect.  Otherwise, the only other explanation is Gremlins.   

So What Have We Learned?   

IE sucks.  For one, judging by complaints there are obvious issues with the player running on IE.  After getting intimate with the setup, I can see why.  Someone could have some piece of incompatible software or some obscure IE or Antivirus setting out there that innocently prevents videos from being downloaded for streaming and never find out what it is.     

I did a Google search on whether people were having trouble playing videos on Hulu.com and there were hardly any complaints.  There were still tons on the Move Media Player.  Obviously, the idea of moving the streaming to the local PC rather than playing the video on the host site is not improving the user experience, and one wonders if the decision was more over the cost of bandwidth than user experience.    

 I’m not sure if Move Networks ran an extensive beta test, but I know Hulu did and TheWB.com is still in beta.  As someone who has supervised extensive beta programs before, they are the best way to identify potential problems with a variety of user PC configurations.  Microsoft has grown into an uncontrollable monster, and no in-house set of test PCs can represent all the PCs out there and how end users use the program.  It’s kind of interesting that those with known Beta programs are having less issues.   

Try This 

If you cannot run a full episode of abc.com, cwtv.com, or fox.com, or various espn.com programs and abcnews sites, first go into Control Panel, Uninstall programs and see if the Move Media Player for Internet Explorer is installed.  If it is, uninstall it.  The install actually works well and does what it needs to deactivate the registry settings and delete the proper files.  Go to cwtv.com or abcnewsnow.movenetworks.com (don’t go to abc.com, the install interface is clunky), play any full episode or video if the latter.  The player will be installed.  If it prompts you to restart the browser, chances are the install didn’t work and you’ve got a setting in Anti-virus or IE preventing the install.  Logging in as administrator and trying the install might help get around this.     

If you are running Firefox Mozilla and cannot play videos, go to the Tools, Add-ons section and uninstall the player.  Go to the sites in the previous paragraph, reinstall the player and it should start working.  If it does not, does an error happen?  I’m interested to know the issues, so please share in the comments.  Chances are I can provide good advice to get through Firefox issues.          

My advice is if you can’t stream from abc.com, cwtv.com, or fox.com, go to www.hulu.com and see if you can play videos there.  Chances are if you can play videos in YouTube, you can there.  If no videos play, no matter what, no matter what the browser, you have a firewall issue or ISP issue.  Do not take advice from Move Media from the FAQ sections and start turning off anti-virus or opening settings in browser controls, especially the Active X add-ons.  Unless Move Networks is listed as a restricted site, none of that should be necessary and if anything opens you to security risks.   

All in all, this experience has taught me that if playing videos becomes rocket science to a hard core tekkie like myself, then chances are the process isn’t worth it.  Go rent the videos on DVD or try getting Netflix.  For those watching NBC or FOX shows, at least you have Hulu.com as an option.  CBS.com doesn’t seem to be a culprit either.  There’s always Bittorrent and YouTube too, but I better not go there.  Of course if these networks would provide a better user experience, I wouldn’t have to.         

Still having problems?  Tell me about it.  I might be able to help.  

 
03
Nov
2008

Why You Can't Watch Videos on ABC.com, CWTV.com, or Fox.com

Written by Alice Jester

It all started when the hubby and I wanted to watch the pilot for “Life on Mars”. After realizing that I did not set the TiVo for the pilot (likely due to our excitement over the Supernatural episode that evening), we had no worries, for we could catch it online at our leisure. 
 
After all, we’ve done it many times before. Our outmoded DirectTV receiver earlier in the year kept screwing up during ABC broadcasts and ruining our Lost recordings. We went to ABC.com, selected the full episodes list, clicked on the episode we eagerly wanted to check out and…nothing. No warnings, no errors, no nothing. 
 
Given that both the hubby and I are IT professionals, we did what any normal geeks would do. We sought answers on the Internet. Surely we aren’t the only people having this problem. Sadly, we found we weren’t. After swarming through pages and pages of similar complaints on the ABC.com boards, there were no answers. 
 
Leave it up to me to dig in for the rest of the evening and go into my technical troubleshooting mode. I built a long and storied career on finding issues with applications as a Software Quality Engineer and I wasn’t about to be deterred here. After all, I’m running the most common setup out there. Windows Vista with the Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0 browser. 
 
It wasn’t long before I found that the new HD player that ABC.com recently implemented is provided by a company called Move Networks. Their player needed to be downloaded and for some reason that download wasn’t happening. I looked on my list of programs and found I already had a Move media player installed. I guess ABC.com didn’t see that. 
 
No problem, I know what to do in those situations. Delete and reinstall. Using the Windows Vista uninstall programs utility, I removed the media player and went back to ABC.com. That prompted something!   I was now given the option to install the player, which I did. I selected the pilot again, the commercial played, it got to the episode and…nothing. This time it was a white swirly thing that wouldn’t stop. 
 
One Google search on Move Networks later and I found they also provide the players for The CW and Fox. I went to those sites to play videos and got the same problem. This was especially troubling for me since Supernatural on The CW is my favorite show and I need my regular Winchester fix. Fox is a non issue though because their stuff is also on the very much working Hulu.com. 
 
My search then found a set of troubleshooting checklists provided by Move networks and other miscellaneous advice from some techie forums. I chose to use CWTV.com as my test site since ABC’s is too cumbersome and clunky. This is where the real fun began (for a weird techie anyway)   
I checked if I had the latest version of Adobe Flash. Yes I did, but I uninstalled the player and reinstalled to be sure. That didn’t help. I then checked if I had the latest version of Java. Nope, so I downloaded the updated version and installed that. Same problem. I cleared all the cache on my IE Browser, irritating me to no end because then I had to retype in all my passwords at the various websites I frequent. Same problem. I found cookies were being blocked, so I enabled them through my IE security settings for the ABC, CW and Move Network sites.  The blocked cookies message at the bottom went away, but the video still didn’t play.  
 
I found to link to check if I had the proper high speed bandwidth (since video streaming is not dial up friendly). Yep, I had plenty. I tried the video initialization test on the Move Networks site. That test didn’t play videos either and didn’t give me any reason why.  I turned off the pop-up blockers. Nothing. I even got reckless enough to try their completely implausible suggestion of turning off anti-virus. Still no video, so I immediately turned that back on.   
 
I then read a suggestion that my Internet Service Provider could be blocking the transmissions. By this time, I had also tested this on my old Windows XP laptop (where the videos used to work) and my husband’s PC and got the same results. That suggestion actually seemed plausible. So while away one weekend, I tried the sites with a different service provider. Same problem. 
 
So, normally that’s when people give up and go to iTunes or BitTorrent. I gave up on this for a week, until the World Series came on. I went to the ESPN Gamecast, something I’ve always reliably used, and it wouldn’t run. I checked the list of sites running this Move Media player and sure enough, ESPN.com was one of them. Now I was mad. 
 
Now For The Real Techie Stuff
 
Since I know a thing or two about Javascript from my years of testing the Netscape browser, I went back to CWTV.com. This site was so far the most promising, for it was the only one that actually gave me some sort of error. I got the source code from the browser and started pouring through it. I found the player links, and tried running this link on my IE browser.  http://player.movenetworks.com/pub/BAC0AE93/movenetworks.js. I got the following:
 
 
 
Eureka! An error. Yes, such things excite technical troubleshooters like me because it’s finally a clue. I went back to Google for more research on that error and got my answer. ‘Window’ is not a proper trigger for JScript, which is what Internet Explorer uses. In other words, this video player was not programmed for the Internet Explorer browser.
 
Further digging revealed Microsoft uses the Windows Script Host (WSH) to trigger JScript, while Javascript, used by Mozilla, an open source XML/XHTML browser, uses ECMA to trigger scripts. ‘Window’ is valid in Mozilla and any browsers powered by Mozilla should work.   
 
So What’s The Solution?
 
I downloaded and installed the Firefox web browser. I went back to CWTV.com and was prompted to install Adobe Flash and the Move Network Player again. I did so, closed Firefox, restarted and voila, a very pretty video of the Winchester brothers came up on my screen. I went back to ABC.com, and sure enough, I could now finally watch “Life on Mars.” Of course I’ve fallen several weeks behind, so now watching this show involves some effort catching up. Great job ABC on getting me to watch the show live! 
 
Sadly, installing Firefox Mozilla seems to be the only solution or finding alternate sites that play the shows with other players. ABC shows can be found on Veoh.com, but I found that all that does is redirect to ABC.com and try to use the same Move media player. 
 
Naturally the geek in me is looking for other open source and library fixes (short of programming them myself), but so far the well has run dry. My hubby, always the technical optimist, has hopes that the new Internet Explorer 8 browser will fix some of the Java discrepancies, but for now, Internet Explorer users are stuck. 
 
It’s The Architecture, Man
 
Welcome to the age of open source, where thanks to a flashy interface and savvy marketing even the flakiest architecture will excite four major networks to making the bonehead decision. I’ve seen this happen way too often in the tech world. A developer comes up with something cool while messing around with all the neat stuff open source can do, bypassing in the process Microsoft since it’s so cumbersome. A few marketing geniuses see the results and get stars in their eyes (okay dollar signs), thus prompting them to put together the presentation that will sell ice to the Eskimos. 
 
Not a lot of sound software architecture went into this product and usually executives when making important technology decisions with third party providers often don’t ask questions like "will it run on all systems?"  After a few years in the trenches at America Online, we learned many of these lessons the hard way when experimenting with the Gecko browser. One script isn’t meant for all browsers. Move Networks needs to run a browser check and then run the appropriate Java script for the proper browser. 
 
The fact that none of these television networks seem to be forcing this fix makes me assume that their strategy for online streaming is to say they have it. Functionality doesn’t seem to be a priority. This just proves to be another case in which big media companies are not ready to embrace the future and are being pulled into it kicking and screaming. 
 
In the meantime, I’ll catch “Life on Mars” on DVD and bypass ABC altogether. Thanks heavens NBC and Fox went with Hulu. I’m off to watch their shows online now. 
 

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