Viewing Youtube in Mac OS 9

As long as we're talking about OS 9, Dr. Dave alerted me to a couple of Japanese-authored apps for viewing Youtube and flv files in 9.2.2 (I didn't test these in earlier systems). The instructions and interface are written in Japanese, so it's a little confusing if you don't speak it, but I managed to more or less work it out.

(UPDATE: The YTBrowser9 link below is an outdated version. Try this new version here.)

They're called YTBrowser9 and FLVPlayer9. You also need a Flash browser plug-in, the one I tested with was version 7.

For YTBrowser9, after downloading and unpacking double click on it and it'll ask which browser you're using. Since I'm using Classilla, I clicked on Mozilla. Then, when you click through a couple of other boxes in Japanese and click cancel when it asks you to enter a Youtube url, Classilla should open up a welcome screen, again in Japanese. Find a link on that page that goes to an index file. Once you've found the index, you should see a red bar at the top with links to search, preferences, history, and a few others. Click on search, enter a search phrase, and then once you see a video you want to watch, copy its link, then navigate back to the index and click "?? URL" (its full url is "ytbb://www.youtube.com/dialog") and paste your link. Then you should see something like this:



Notice the download button. You need javascript enabled to use it with "Save Link Target As..." for downloading.

To make YTBrowser9 easier to use, I added bookmarks for the search and enter URL links. I'm not sure if this is exactly how you're supposed to use it, but that happens when your Japanese is as rusty as mine, har.

As for FLVPlayer9, it apears to be a simple drag and drop application. Just take a saved FLV file and drop it over the app, then it'll open it in a web browser window.



One final note, I notice the most recent version of Classilla defaults to a site's mobile page by setting its user agent to a Nokia mobile device. Really cool move. Makes Youtube and other sites zip. Though you can change it back to "normal" on a site-by-site basis via cookies, or globally by changing the user agent.

UPDATE: It looks like YTBrowser9 is similar to MacTubes in that you have to downlaod a new version whenever Youtube changes something in their url protocol.

Copy a Bootable Mac OS 9 Install Disc

So with the recent turning of the calendar, I looked at my Tiger and OS 9 install discs and it occurred to me they're getting on in years and very far from invincible. Time to make backups, I thought. So I fired up my burning app of choice, Burn.app, and made quick copies thinking I was done. Unfortunately I got a nasty surprise when I went to boot my iBook with the OS 9 copy to fix Debian's notorious disappearing partitions bug and found it unbootable. The Tiger DVD copy booted fine. It was only the OS 9 CD that was blurgged.

Okay, I thought, there's something wrong with the way Burn copies OS 9 discs. I'll just fire up Disk Utility and do it that way. One burned disc later and, crap, that won't boot either. So after googling this a bit and filtering out forum posts responding to questions saying, "Google it!" it appears the only way to burn a bootable OS 9 disc is with Toast. I tried it with my ancient copy of Toast 4.1.1 (that was a good year) which still runs in 9.2.2 and can confirm it works. The procedure is simple. It just takes a quick read through of the documentation to get it. I did not investigate whether you can do this with an OS X copy of Toast.

I'm still a bit clueless as to why the earlier copies were unbootable. They both had the correct file systems and had the hidden Trash and Desktop Folders. So I don't know.

This vexes me. I'm terribly vexed.

Note to Forum Posters

Dear Forum Posters,

When you respond to someone's support question by telling them to google it, my google searches end up at your posts. Please stop.

Sincerely,

Dan at ppcluddite.blogspot.com