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Multimedia; Making "Real Player" Get Real! Written by: Dan Daily
Hi Gang! The last time together we talked about firewalls; what they are, and why you need one. Assuming your firewall is in place; I'm sure by now, "Real Player" is playing havoc with you. Today we'll discuss multimedia plug ins; and how to set up Real Player, so it does it's job, and leaves you the hell alone. I've received many letters asking for this column. Today's the day. So, let's march on down the road to Computer Sanity, shall we? .
You'll Want To Print This Out. When You're Done Reading It, Go Back To The Top Of The Page and Click On The Printer Friendly Version Of This Page. As You're all aware your Internet Explorer browser, doesn't come completely equipped for the Internet. Windows Media Player is installed as a default, and Microsoft acts like it's all you need. Of course, this isn't true, you need at least two more players for your browser. Real Player, and Apple QuickTime. (note; Flash, and Shockwave, install on the fly, so, there's no need to mention them here) Lets assume you have nothing other then media player installed for this articles purpose. If you do, go to Control Panel/Add Remove Programs, and uninstall "Real Player" now. Today, I'm going to show you how to set up your plugin's and the order to install them. With media player as a default, the next thing to add is "Real Player." Real player is especially troublesome because it's "Spyware." Fortunately, it will run without it, but not without a fight. They make the Spyware almost impossible to disable. Today we'll install it, and configure it to be the player it's supposed to be. Not a snoop, not a mini browser, not anything but a player. None of my players are allowed to talk to the Internet on their own. If I want to upgrade them, I just manually push their little upgrade buttons. (sure seems simple to me.) I just use them as players. If that's what you want from your browser plugin's, read on: The first thing you Aol6'ers need to do, is uninstall it. What? You don't have it? Oh, yes you do, Aol6 installs it in stealth; go to Control Panel/Add Remove Programs, and scroll down the list, told ya! (I can hear you saying "I'll be damned.") Now uninstall it; we're going to download it directly from real.com. Or better yet, take if from your "Danny's Junk" CD. It's really great you Inner Circle folks. I know all of you have the CD! That makes it nice for all of us. You don't want Aol's version of it. In fact; while you're there, uninstall Comet Cursor to. Aol6 put that in as well, and it's "Spyware" also. (Surprised? Get used to it.) OK, so lets go to the web site or CD and snag it shall we? Just Click Here to get to the site. Scroll down the Real Player screen, "Real Player 8 basic" is the one you want, it's the free player. Download it to somewhere you'll be able to find it. For me, it's C:\dannysjunk\programs\real. From the CD, just install it off of it. I encourage you to make a setup folder for all your programs that you download. After the download is done, go find it, and click on the setup file. Real Player will start installing. After it's done, you wind up at the player screen asking for your email address, and you have a real icon in your system tray. Go ahead and type in your email address, as it will go no further without it. (see how Spyware works?) Don't worry about it, when we're done with it, it's a moot point. At the first of the setup screens, check the box making Real Player the default for Real files. DON'T ALLOW REAL PLAYER TO BECOME THE DEFAULT FOR ANYTHING ELSE! JUST REAL FILES!!!! This is crucial! If you screw this up, nothing will be right. You want these plugin's to only handle their own stuff, and allow Windows Media Player to be default for all the rest. (except for Apple Quick Time, we'll cover that next time) Trust me on this. Ok, with that out of the way, we come up to another screen with a whole list of stuff, make sure everything is unchecked. Scroll down it, they sneak stuff in. You'll see what I mean. The next screen; "real special offers" uncheck all this crap. And finally the last screen; check NO on every box! What we've just done, is tell Real Player: NO, I don't want you to find me sports, news, updates, music: No! I don't want you to automatically start and check any web sites, or give me "free" special offers. In short, we've just told it to be the actual "Real Player" it's supposed to be! We Continue: After we're all done, we're left looking at the actual player. Don't "X" it out, we're not done with it yet. Go to view, preferences. It comes up on the general tab. Here; click on the start center setting button, and disable start center. Oh, she'll scream at ya, and threaten ya when you do this; so what, insist on NO! Then click on the content tab, and check both the settings boxes there, and again, tell it NO to everything. Finally; click on the upgrade tab, and check the first settings box, everything should be unchecked. OK out of all these screens, and we're back to the player itself. "X" out of the player now, and the program closes. All done? Not quite, go down to the tray icon and right click on it, click on disable start center there. Thought you already did that huh? Well, Real Player doesn't give up that easily. It'll yell and scream all over again, but insist on it, and finally the icon will be gone, and Real Player will unload. Now; anytime you go to a site that has "Real" content, Real Player will automatically pop in, and unload when it's done. This saves valuable memory resources by not having it loaded all the time. So Gang, We Just Made Real Player "Get Real." As a result, you can now open your "Zone Alarm," click on programs, right click on the "Real Player" line, and delete it. The only time Zone Alarm will ask again is if you open a file on the net that is in real format. Don't give it carte blanche... Next time, we'll install the Apple Quick Time plugin, and you'll be able to get the best sound possible from the net.
I hope this helps you on your road. Your Road? Yes, Your Road To Computer Sanity Danny .
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