Saturday, June 23, 2007

Adding Search Providers in IE7

Problem
When you attempt to add a search provider in IE7 you receive the following error:
Error: The search provider could not be installed. This might have happened
because:
- A required file could not be downloaded;
- The website is unavailable;
- You are not connected to the Internet;
You might want to try again later.


Solution
This seems to occur if UAC is enabled. To work around it, right click the IE7 Icon on the quick launch bar and choose Run as administrator, then re-attempt to add the search provider.

Hybrid Sleep Issues with Vista

Problem
When Vista resumes from Hybrid Sleep the USB Keyboard, Mouse and other USB devices no longer work. Sometimes you get an Unrecognized USB device or a USB hub failure system notification.

Solution
This seems to occur as a result of installing the KB930178 hotfix from Microsoft (comes down via Windows update). As of yet I have not found a way to fix the problem other than to uninstall the hotfix.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

IE7 Searchbar YouTube Downloader


While there are several add-ins for Internet Explorer and Firefox as well as sites like KeepVid that offer better alternatives, I'm offering up yet another method of downloading YouTube videos I recently discovered: A YouTube Search Provider.


To install the search provider follow this link


Once installed, simply copy the video ID of a YouTube Video and paste it into the search bar.


As an example the video ID of this YouTube video (http://youtube.com/watch?v=t4bMM73-qHo) is t4bMM73-qHo. Pasting that into the IE Searchbar and then choosing YouTube Video Downloader (if its not already selected) will start the download.


The videos will need to have the .flv file extension added to their file names so they can be played (VLC or FLV player should play them fine).


What's so special about this?
Well, this particular method will work around a proxy that is blocking DNS entries (such as youtube.com).


Why's that?
This is because it uses the direct IP address of rd.cache.l.google.com (most proxies wont block Google.com)


But why not use YouTube's IP address?
Well that works, however it redirects you to another YouTube server that's hosting the specific video (http://lax-v172.lax.youtube.com/ for example). This is a problem, because youtube is in the DNS name (the site will therefore be blocked). Sure you could then go and nslookup the address of that server, then substitute in the relevant IP and the video would download but, that's rather time consuming.


How is this a Vista Problem or Resolution?
Ok, you've got me -- It isin't. I just didn't have any other place to publish this to :(

Vista and FlashGet

Problem
FlashGet causes instabilities in Windows Vista. This seem to be related to the jcatch.dll BHO loaded in Internet Explorer 7. Symptoms include:
  • Inability to right click in IE- Inability to launch additional applications (QuickTime for example throws up a Buffer overflow error -- most other applications open then instantly quit)
  • Error messages and dialog boxes (such as save picture only half open -- the window appears but no options appear in it)
  • New tabs don't load sites- Folders don't completely open (the window comes up but the folder contents aren't loaded)

All these can be solved by closing several tabs in IE or closing IE altogether

Solution
If you want to continue using FlashGet then simply rename or delete jcatch.dll. (in the FlashGet program files folder -- this will disable the Right click download with FlashGet functionality however).

Additionally, you can try using the classic version of FlashGet which doesn't seem to cause the problem. At the time of writing the bug still persisted in the latest version of FlashGet (1.8.8.1010)