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Recently, I started having problems viewing certain HD QuickTime links. Before, I could click on the link to the HD trailer (480, 720, or 1080) and the QuickTime window would open and the trailer would start to load. Somewhere along the line, that changed. I’m not sure if developers are linking the content differently or if Firefox or QuickTime changed their loading structure, but .qtl links were not working in Firefox (or IE for that matter).

When clicked, the link would present the SAVE or OPEN dialog. Selecting open would open a small QuickTime window, with no content. Saving the file and then opening it produced the same results. After watching one or two non-HD trailers, I had to find a solution and here it is.

If you are presented with a SAVE/OPEN dialog box when clicking a .qtl QuickTime HD link, simply save the .qtl and change the extension to .TXT. Open the resulting text file and you should see the direct link to the HD trailer. Open up QuickTime. Select File -> Open URL (CTRL + U) and paste in the URL and you’re ready to go. Welcome back HD QuickTime goodness.

For instance, the following link:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/hdtrailers/columbia/spiderman3final/720/?
http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mo/spiderman3final_720.qtl

Links to this, when saved:
http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?sid=35419655&sdm=web&pt=rd

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Well, at least one student does.

I understand where he’s coming from, really, I do. I’ve complained here (and at my old job) that things would be so much easier if Firefox were the default browser, instead of IE.

But, the reality of the situation is in most cases the switch cannot be made. I try to make everything I develop work just as well on Firefox as it does in IE, but not every developer follows those rules. Universities and businesses all use outside applications. Portal systems, ticket systems, Exchange servers. Many of those systems simply do not work well with Firefox.

Firefox doesn’t display all the functionality of MS Exchange when using it online. Firefox doesn’t support Window’s domain authentication (it send passwords in unencrypted text). Many web portals (especially academic ones) do not pass information correctly in Firefox.

That leaves the question, where does the responsibility lie. Should Firefox develop future versions with support for those features in mind or should application and software developers ensure Firefox support with future releases? There’s no easy answer, which means there is no easy solution. However, with Firefox (and other browsers) gaining users every day, it’s a question which will continue to come up.

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Any reader of Digg knows that lists are in. Not a day goes by that a Top 10… list of some sort doesn’t make it to the homepage of Digg. People love lists and savy web content producers are creating content to cater to that fact.

It seems the previous statement has not gone unnoticed by CNN, as I just found their Best — and Worst– Movie Battle Scenes on the Digg homepage. I have to say, I agree with most of their choices, but one makes me especially happy:

8. Starship Troopers — Battle of Klendathu, Battle on Planet P
Paul Verhoeven, 1997
“They sucked his brains out!”
A bloody bugfest on Klendathu sees 100,000 troops hacked, ripped and squished to death in an hour; then we follow Rico’s roughnecks to Planet P where his poorly-equipped infantry are sent back as bait for thousands of spiky Arachnids. But is it really the bugs who’re the evil ones? Slick, smart B-movie action.

Starship Troopers was a vastly underrated movie. The effects were ground-breaking (at the time) and they story was a great parody of propaganda and militaristic societies. Yes, it wasn’t hard-core Sci-Fi like the source material, but it was a great comment on media, society and violence.

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If you’re a fan of the show LOST, the you owe it to yourself to check out the LOST Easter Eggs site. They’ve got tons of pictures (screen caps) from the shows and have found tiny connections from episode to episode that I never would have noticed. Definitely a great resource for taking a close look at past episodes and it’s spoiler free.

Another great section on the site is the LOST Books page. Sawyer, and others, are often reading. The books they read are selected on purpose and often relate to theories about the show or themes being played out in the episode.

They’ve got several other blogs linked together and they form a nice, mini-site. A few others that are worth checking out are the Lost Connections, Theories, and Answers. Be careful, you could spend (waste) a lot of time reading all the posts.