Brian Bell » Microsoft http://webguru.org Bits of web-dev, travel and personal musings... Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:36:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Extremely helpful Microsoft Silverlight warning http://webguru.org/2008/08/14/general/extremely-helpful-microsoft-silverlight-warning/ http://webguru.org/2008/08/14/general/extremely-helpful-microsoft-silverlight-warning/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:31:55 +0000 Brian http://webguru.org/2008/08/14/general/extremely-helpful-microsoft-silverlight-warning/ I had an old version of MS Silverlight installed on my machine. This is Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Adobe’s (formerly Macromedia’s) Flash.  Way to go guys – that train left the station in, oh, I don’t know… 1996?

Bottom line is that nobody is really using Silverlight – besides MS’s attempts to force it down your throat on their own website and through some strategic marketing moves (ie. with NBC Olympics online coverage).  Plus, the sites that do offer streaming media via Silverlight were thankfully not stupid enough to make that your only option.  I haven’t been to a site yet that doesn’t offer me the same feature with Flash Video for example.

Anyway – there is a newer version of Silverlight out -  so when I visit a page that is trying to stream content via the Silverlight plugin, I get this error:

How awesome is that?  Did MS really think I could click the link and get to the update page? No – maybe I was expected remember that URL or write it down so that I could quickly download the newer version and get to my content.

How classic is that?!?!

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