Tech Tips for Writers is an (almost) weekly post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future Tip.
Q: I’m trying to use a website and it keeps telling me Flash isn’t installed. I know it is. I even re-installed it and it wouldn’t work. What do I do?
A: Change browsers. I have this problem more often now than I used to. I have no idea why. It seems when browsers are upgraded, they should be sure they work with everything. But the reality is: They are all quirky. I’ve tried IE, Firefox, Chrome and now keep them all available on my computer for when I need to switch. When an internet page doesn’t load/run correctly, the first thing I do is switch browsers. That more often than not fixes it.
Jacqui Murray is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for TeachHUB and Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog,Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog,Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Fully agree on the browser switch tip. I’m a Google Chrome ‘loyalist’ on both the PC and the Mac, but when it has the occasional hiccup (and they all do at one time or another), I switch to MSIE on the PC and Safrari on the MacBook Pro. There are other, more complex solutions that one can employ, but as a quick fix, the browser switch works well as the Flash issue resolves itself.
By: jargontalk on January 8, 2013
at 1:06 am
Yes–there are more complicated fixes, but more often than not, this fixes it. It’s always my first rec.
By: Jacqui Murray on January 8, 2013
at 4:37 pm
Totally agree, Jacqui. I switched to Chrome when I couldn’t ‘like’ anyone’s blog posts anymore and it completely fixed the problem. If I ever have trouble with a site now, I switch browsers and it usually does the trick
By: diannegray on January 8, 2013
at 12:49 pm
I switched to Firefox because IE gave me problems (and never looked back) and now keep FF and Chrome up all the time. Just for the type of reason you mentioned.
By: Jacqui Murray on January 8, 2013
at 4:38 pm