Tech Help

Adobe Flash player no longer supports computers built with the Power PC chip although there are many of these machines in use, still serving their owners reliably. This morning I received a call from a G4 Power book Mac owner running Leopard OSX 5.8, he called because of an error message that insisted he upgrade his flash player. When he tried to upgrade, he found the new version did not support his chip or operating system.

One of the reasons I started writing this blog is that I act as a help desk for many of my friends, so I searched for a solution and found Elmedia Player, a free download on Cnet. Elmedia Player, from Eltima Software, is more than a player, it also helps you organize media files using an iTunes type of interface.  The Pro version also allows you to download and copy internet hosted media files, but there is a cost for this functionality.

Please note — anything after this content is an ad and I do not endorse the product or even know what it is.

My friend reports the free version is working on his notebook for Flash (flv) playback. The website claims El Media Player supports playback of FLV, SWF, XAP (Silverlight), RM and RV (Real), AVI, MOV, MP4, and many other formats.

These older computers are still functional and the push to constantly upgrade by Adobe and other companies can be resisted. Keep your faithful computer out of the landfill as long as possible. I am keeping older computer hardware functional using a combination of these types of helper programs and/or converting to the Ubuntu operating system.