Walker News

Portable FLV Player Freeware From Martijn de Visser

Walker — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:47:43 +0000

If you have been using FLV Player 1.3.3, Martin’s Flash video player freeware shouldn’t be odd or needs more words to describe this little freeware.

For those who are new to it, this FLV Player is a portable, standalone Windows application to view or play back Flash video files ended with .flv file extension. (Not fully portable, as it requires Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher to run and it’s only available to Windows, including the Windows Vista and supposedly Windows 7 too).

Adobe should be the best provider of this player but it’s only available as web browser plugin to play FLV video embedded in HTML code (strictly speaking, it’s the path of video in HTML code).

If you’ve copied too many YouTube video clips cached by the web browser for offline playback, you need such a player application to view it right away or write a simple HTML code to embed the local Flash video so it can be rendered in web browser.

Apparently, it’s easier to view local Flash videos with a player application than writing HTML and I personally like this freeware offered by Martin than others. Indeed, Martin’s FLV Player has been downloaded over 18 million times from CNET Download.com

The latest FLV Player 2.0.25 released on Oct 2008 appears with better look and feel user interface than 1.3.3:

1) Press right / left arrow key for forward / backward, or up and down arrow key to increase / decrease volume.

2) Simple player settings include automatically check for update, remember last use position on screen / volume and mute settings, video smoothing when scaling, maintain frame-rate in full screen mode, etc.

3) Some useful keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys to control the Flash player:

CTRL + ENTER to toggle on and off the full screen mode.
CTRL + . to shrink the video display size by half
CTRL + 1 to zoom in video display by 100%
CTRL + I to view the video metadata, e.g. codec, frame rate, etc.
CTRL + W to close the player
Tab to toggle on and off the window-less mode.
Space to toggle between play and pause mode

4) Capable to play back lengthy video as well as high definition Flash video encoded with H.264 codec. So, if you wonder and ask why the old FLV Player 1.3.3 cannot play back YouTube video downloaded recently, try the latest 2.0.25.

Tips – You can extract the flvplayer_setup.exe file (I use 7-Zip) to a folder and copy only FLVPlayer.exe (the player application, just 1.82MB, that play back FLV files in local hard disk). If you’re not sure I am talking about, just double click the setup file to proceed installation as usual.
» How To Create High Quality And High Definition Video For YouTube?
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» How To Embed SWF or FLV File In Microsoft Excel 2007?
» New YouTube Player Interface To View HD Video Clip
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How To Embed SWF In Microsoft Office 2007 Document

Walker — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:47:18 +0000

I wrote two posts of this topic using Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Excel 2007 as the example, complemented with screenshots and screencasts posted to WalkerNews Channel @ YouTube.

However, I find mess in both posts because of mistake made in the steps. In addition, Microsoft Word 2007 and 2003 disable the embedded Shockwave flash game if using Word 2007 to save it in *.doc format and the option to run ActiveX / Macros is disabled with / without notification.

On the other hand, Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2003 is able to initialize and play the embedded SWF game regardless the worksheet is saved in *.xlsx or *.xls format, even if the “disable all macros with notification” in Trust Center is enabled.

I guess that’s why I received most of the SWF games embedded in Microsoft Excel and lesser in Microsoft Word. Thus, the Microsoft Excel 2007 SP2 is used as a reference of this “revised” guide.

Embed SWF game in Microsoft Excel 2007 SP2

1) Turn on or show the Developer tab in Ribbon bar, if it’s not already there.

2) Go to Developer tab, click the Insert button in Controls group, followed by More Controls icon.

3) In the More Controls dialog box, select Shockwave Flash Object and click OK button.

4) As soon as after clicking OK, use the mouse pointer to draw a box on the worksheet (big or small, rectangle or square, is up to you). Right click on the envelope-alike box and select Properties from the Context menu.

5) In the Properties dialog box, configure those key properties of Shockwave Flash Object (as those highlighted in screenshot):

EmbedMovie set to True; otherwise, the SWF file is not truly embedded in the Excel worksheet.
Movie – specify the absolute / full path of the SWF file in question. Microsoft Excel refers to this path to embed the SWF file when the worksheet is saved.
FlashVars is optional, e.g. if you want the embedded SWF game starts automatically upon opening the worksheet, specify autostart=yes here.

6) Close the Properties dialog box, by clicking the X button or press ALT+F4 when the dialog box is in focus.

7) Save the worksheet into *.xls or *.xlsx format (*.xls is compatible with Excel 97-2003 while *.xlsx is only compatible with Excel 2007 or above).

8) Open the saved worksheet and confirm the embedded Shockwave flash works correctly.

Now what? The saved worksheet is ready for distribution, in which the recipients are able to play the embedded Shockwave game (except those who don’t use Microsoft Excel).
» How To Embed SWF or FLV File In Microsoft Excel 2007?
» How To Embed SWF File Or Shockwave Flash Object In Microsoft Word 2007?
» How To Extract SWF Flash From Excel or Word
» How To Email Executable Program File In Gmail Or Hotmail
» Bypass Exchange Server Attachment Filtering System
» How To Enable Or Show Developer Tab In Microsoft Office 2007 Ribbon Interface?
» How To Check Adobe Flash Player Version That I have Installed?

How To Enable Or Show Developer Tab In Microsoft Office 2007 Ribbon Interface?

Walker — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:55:02 +0000

If you’re going to embed SWF game or working with macro in Microsoft Office 2007, you need to access the functions grouped under Developer Tab in its Ribbon interface.

However, you might not see this Developer Tab right away, unless the option to display it in Ribbon menu interface is turned on.

I am not sure that option is set to on or off during the Office 2007 default installation, and I wonder why there should be an option to choose whether the Developer Tab should or shouldn’t appears in the Ribbon bar. Do you know any of the reasons?

So, if you find out the Developer tab is not in the Ribbon menu interface, most likely the option to show it is turned off (if this is not reduced function as a result of non-genuine or non-premium Microsoft Office product :-)

Office 2007 Options that turn on of off the Developer tab in Ribbon menu

1) Click the Microsoft Office Button (the “Start” button of Office 2007; appears on the upper-left corner), and click the Excel Options button (because I am using Excel 2007 as example of this guide).

Alternatively, press the keyboard shortcut (hotkey) sequence to open the Office 2007 Options window: ALT+F followed by I.

2) In the Excel Options window, click the Popular option on left pane.

3) On the right pane of Popular option, look at the first section – “Popular options for working with Excel”. Locate and tick the check-box of “Show Developer Tab in the Ribbon” (as shown in the above screenshot).
» How To Embed SWF In Microsoft Office 2007 Document
» How To Embed SWF File Or Shockwave Flash Object In Microsoft Word 2007?
» How To Embed SWF or FLV File In Microsoft Excel 2007?
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» Bypass Exchange Server Attachment Filtering System

How To Display WordPress EXIF’s Shutter Speed As Fraction?

Walker — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:57:40 +0000

Every photographers read shutter speed in fractional form, unless it’s slower than or equal to 1 second.

Why it’s like that? Well, I figure out that is probably easier to interpret speed in fractional form at a glance for most people (especially artists, not scientists). Isn’t easier to tell difference between 1/100 and 1/4000 than reading 0.01 and 0.00025?

However, the WordPress Gallery stores the EXIF’s shutter speed as decimal figure in database table. Apparently, computer programming is easier to deal with decimal than fractional.

So, in order to follow photography’s convention, there must be a way to render the decimal form of shutter speed stored in WordPress EXIF table in a fractional figure.

Unfortunately, there is no documented WordPress function to do this job (except the wp_get_attachment_metadata function), not even available in the latest WordPress 2.8 release.

Unless using WordPress plugin, you will have to create a image.php template file for the active WordPress theme, with a block PHP code to display decimal shutter speed as a fraction, if the speed is faster than 1 seconds; otherwise, the shutter speed should be displayed in integer or decimal form.

Sound scary? No worry, Andrew Kniowski figured that out and share it in his post titled Quick shutter-speed fix for WordPress EXIF.

I applied that code in my WordPress theme, but purposely removed this if-statement and hit a “divide by zero” error (for those photos without shutter speed or no EXIF data at all, e.g. screenshot):

 if (!empty($imgmeta['image_meta']['shutter_speed']))

After discovered that error, I put it back and now the screenshot looks better.
» Add Shutter Speed, Aperture, EXIF, Or IPTC Data To WordPress Gallery
» Turn On WordPress Feature To Display Photo EXIF Data and IPTC Information
» How To Create Image Template File For The Classic WordPress Theme?
» How To Change WordPress Image Caption Text Style To Superscripts?
» How To Insert Multiple Images In WordPress 2.6 Without Using Shortcode?
» How To Create image.php Template File For WordPress Theme To Display Photo Gallery?
» How Easy To Change WordPress 2.7 Post Permalink With Post Slug

How To Turn Off Or Disable The Citrix Beep Sound?

Walker — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:05:28 +0000

I am mad and frustrated by the annoying high pitch beeping tone when using application via Citrix XenApp (an application delivering system).

The Citrix beeping whenever I hit unnecessary keystrokes in the Vi editor or Linux command prompt through Putty remote access program!

While listening to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.5 (I find classical best when I am seriously working on something), that flipping beep tone just too bad and makes everyone seated near to me feels uneasy :-(

Because I was rushing on a remote Linux machine, via Putty program delivered by Citrix XenApp Web Plugin, so I just turn off the Dell Latitude speaker that no doubt effectively solved it in no time.

Obviously, that fix is not good at all and too “costly”, as turning off speaker means no more Beethoven’s classical music playing too :-(.

So, I need a proper trick and thus briefly looking around Windows settings in the hope of fixing it myself. But, none of these works:

1) Turn off the “Windows Sounds” found in Vista SP2 Volume Mixer dialog box.

2) Set the Windows sound theme to “No Sounds” scheme

3) Edit the Launc.ica and set the “ClientAudio=Off”.

I am pissed off and went to ask Google for help. Luckily, locating the solution is quick. Indeed, the Googling is much speedy than trying various Windows settings myself.

Credit goes to Leroy Spencer:

As you can see, the trick is fairly simple and easy to remember. For Windows Vista (or perhaps Windows 7), you need to run an elevated mode of Command Prompt window and execute this command to temporarily turn off or disable Windows beep service (looks like a kernel mode driver):

sc stop beep

If you desperately want to turn it off in a persistent mode, run this command after stopping it:

sc config beep start= disabled

Thus, to re-enable beep service to its original start up mode (in this case, SYSTEM_START), execute

sc config beep start= system

Please take note that you need a space between the equal sign and the option value (valid START option values are boot, system, auto, demand, disabled, delayed-auto).

Thanks Ross Williamson for highlighting this. For more information, type sc config.

To query the Beep driver configuration-related information, execute:

sc qc beep

To query the beep driver running status in Vista SP2, execute

sc query beep

I prefer to keep it running so I won’t miss something else in future. Having said that, I need to execute sc stop beep each time running Citrix XenApp Web Plugin.
» How To Create A Custom View To Filter All Lock Computer Events In Vista SP2?
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How To Check Adobe Flash Player Version That I have Installed?

Walker — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:50:45 +0000

First of all, this trick is not meant for developer or would-be programmer who is searching for sample code that detects Adobe Flash Player version installed.

Indeed, it’s meant to answer these questions of general users or novice – What version of Flash player that I’ve installed? Have I installed the latest Adobe Flash Player, Shockwave Player, and Macromedia Authorware Web Player? Do I have installed any one of the Adobe Players?

OK, here are the answers for the questions you might have asked just few minutes ago:

Test Adobe Shockwave & Flash Player – this Adobe.com web page will tell you what or which of the Adobe players you have installed in the computer.

At this moment, it detects the presence and version of Adobe Shockwave Player and Flash Player.

The page will prompt you to install or upgrade the latest version of Adobe Shockwave Player if it’s applicable.

The last item is a link of another page to test / detect Macromedia Authorware Web Player installation.

Adobe Flash Player version – this page only tells the presence and version of Adobe Flash Player installed. Besides, there is a table of latest Flash Player version of various platforms and web browsers.

So, have the two Adobe web pages answered all your questions, or am I pointing you to a place where you already know. Doesn’t matter, I write it here for my reference (as I just know it today :-).

» How To Embed SWF or FLV File In Microsoft Excel 2007?
» How To Embed SWF In Microsoft Office 2007 Document
» How To Embed SWF File Or Shockwave Flash Object In Microsoft Word 2007?
» How To Extract SWF Flash From Excel or Word
» Portable FLV Player Freeware From Martijn de Visser
» How To Find and Copy SWF Or JPG File From Google Chrome Cache Folder?
» VideoCacheView: Save Flash Video From Web Browser Cache Folder

Add Shutter Speed, Aperture, EXIF, Or IPTC Data To WordPress Gallery

Walker — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:04:20 +0000

If you would like to run a photo-blog using the latest WordPress platform, you should be interested to know the way of extracting and displaying EXIF or IPTC information of the picture.

Most, if not all, of the digital camera write some profile data, better known as EXIF data, to each of photo taken. The EXIF data contains information of camera model, focal length, data/time, shutter speed, aperture, exposure mode, etc.

The best I can recall, WordPress 2.5 was the first version to introduce image gallery feature as well as functions to store and extract / display EXIF or IPTC information. Although the WordPress gallery shortcode is intuitive for posting a batch of photo in gallery mode, there is no easy option for one to display shutter speed, aperture, flash mode, etc, that interested by most photography enthusiasts.

Even the two bundled WordPress themes are not exampled with EXIF-related functions. But, there are always good people to share tricks with others, e.g. Sarah’s WordPress Gallery and EXIF, Andrew Kniowski’s Quick shutter-speed fix for WordPress EXIF, myself on Turn On WordPress Feature To Display Photo EXIF Data and IPTC Information (with reference to the earlier two links).

If you’re ambitious, Kristarella’s Geo exif data in WordPress could inspire you with her trick on adding GPS-tagging information to WordPress table, and of course showing them along with other EXIF information.

Sample image gallery

Click the above thumbnail to view higher resolution of photo as well as the associated EXIF data rendered by less-documented WordPress functions discussed here.

» Turn On WordPress Feature To Display Photo EXIF Data and IPTC Information
» How To Display WordPress EXIF’s Shutter Speed As Fraction?
» How To Create Image Template File For The Classic WordPress Theme?
» How To Create image.php Template File For WordPress Theme To Display Photo Gallery?
» How To Change WordPress Image Caption Text Style To Superscripts?
» How To Insert Multiple Images In WordPress 2.6 Without Using Shortcode?
» How Easy To Change WordPress 2.7 Post Permalink With Post Slug