So, I was about to "nerd out" with our friends over at MIT World and watch someone way smarter than me talk about Climate Variability and Change and their Impact on the Global Harvest.
And then it happened, I clicked Play and was presented with a Save As... for a .ram file. The first thing that popped into my head was "are you for real?". Yes, apparently they are for RealPlayer, which is a departure from the previous videos I've watched from MIT.
As it turns out, this was reason enough for me to completely lose interest in watching the video. Instead, it inspired me to write on the Yeti and ask if anyone actually still uses RealPlayer? Or, are there any other old technologies out there that make you completely turn the other direction?
Also, I just wanted to point out I'd rather use RealPlayer than Apple Quicktime. It has nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with the fact that everytime I stumble upon something that requires the QT player I'm forced to do some damn full download install. At which point they also try to sneak in iTunes.
I don't have any fancy video players to plug here, as I simply use Windows Media Player or Winamp. Of course, I'd rather all videos just stream in the browser. I can understand older content, but posting new content on old technology is just weird.
Please people, anything but .ram or .mov files.
That is all.
I got a new desktop for the home a couple of weeks back and one of the first unistalls I did was Real Player. It is useless and always seems to crash stuff.
I've avoided installing iTunes/Quicktime because I don't enjoy either.
It in fact seems like we've moved backwards on simple media playing applications.
I had the exact same thought earlier this week when I tried to listen to a song at Amazon. They mask it as "Amazon Music Sampler," but you have to have the RealPlayer plugin for it to work. Cosmic.
It seems that the standard nowadays is for all media to be streamed via Flash. Although, A List Apart just posted a recent preview of HTML 5 and it's audio and video APIs. In a few years all your troubles will be washed away.
You kids and your internets.
I keep Real Alternative around for things like this.
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/RealAlternativeRegular/1054136293/1
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No, I don't use RealPlayer. I don't think I've had an installation of it anywhere since 2003 at the latest.
Although WinAmp has also gone the way of the dodo for me. I have to blame iTunes (and the iPod I won) for that one.
As much as I sometimes loathe iTunes (and how they make you install QuickTime as well (and how they then add stupid icons all over my desktop)), I was pretty sick of WinAmp. I could make a playlist and play music pretty well, but it was full of odd windows and menus that I never really understood nor wanted.