Unable to link directly to WMV video file - sharepoint

I have a wmv video hosted in SharePoint. I've created a Content Editor web part with a bit of custom content and I've placed a simple link to the video Click to view.
There is really nothing special going on here. Some users can click on the link and the video opens in their default video player. Other users see a range of different errors/prompts. Some users are prompted for their network credentials and others receive a generic "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.
The same problems occur if I create a generic HTML web page (outside of SharePoint) and have users try to launch the video.
I am trying to avoid embedding the video in the HTML and just have users link directly to the video itself.
Has anyone encountered this issue and do you have any suggestions for making this work?

This appears to be a combination of browser issues and file security.
People are being asked for their network credentials because the file itself is not "public"; it requires authentication to be read, or appears to do so from your description. Different browsers will display different messages when attempting to authenticate for the file.
Additionally, the default player for a browser may not be set or the browser may not allow passoff to third party programs, both of which will generate different messages for different browsers. This will always be an issue for hot-linked videos, and there's nothing you can do about it except use some guaranteed playback platform that all consuming browsers must have installed, such as Flash or Silverlight. That comes with issues all on its own, but such is the nature of the online world.

Related

Develop a task-specific web browser

I want to build a task-specific web browser. For example, when the user uses that browser, the program should give options like these:
What is your interest today? Please select from the following:
computer science
data science
web development
psychology
biology
social media
etc.
After the user selects their interest, the browser should allow the user to search or study only those selected content types, so the user cannot get diverted from their task. The purpose of this browser is to avoid time-wasting. Because whenever someone tries to study or do some professional work, they get diverted by opening social media tabs and movies.
Which programming language will be suitable for making this browser?
You could do this by making a custom version of an existing browser, as guest271314 suggested, but that would require far more effort than necessary. All you need to make is a browser extension, such as a Firefox Add-on or a Chrome Extension. Browser extensions are usually written with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Each browser needs to have an extension made individually, but you can usually share a lot of the code between them. Read the linked documentation for help creating an extension for each browser.
There are already existing browser extensions like you describe that prevent you from visiting sites that you put on a list ahead of time, such as StayFocusd and WasteNoTime. Maybe you just want to use one of those extensions instead of writing a new one.

Designing a multimedia website for CD

I need to design a mini website to give to clients. The site includes mp3s and videos which must be played within the site itself and not use any 3rd party media players. Is Flash the only / best solution?
I also need to protect these files. Is there a way that I can stop users 'exploring' the CD and not get access to the content?
Flash is a 3rd party component.
You might want to try experimenting with HTML 5 see the link below:
http://www.w3schools.com/html5/html5_audio.asp
This would make your websites functionality dependent on the browser the client is using.
It is unlikely you would be able to prevent users accessing the music files on the CD. Possibly you could store the data on the CD in an encrypted format and make your own custom active x control that decrypts the data on the fly. This would be difficult to do though. Do you mind if I ask why you want to distribute your site on CD? Why don't you just make a website and have user access control on it?

How to create a Mobile Website

I'm working on a project for class. To create a website and a website for mobile users. The site is to recongize the type of device/browser accessing the page and send the appropiate form. So if I was to visit the site on IE8 it will direct me to the mainpage for IE8, if I was to access the site with a mobile device it will direct me to the mobile website main page automatically.
Also, I need to design the website for at least two different screen sizes.
I'm coding in HTML5, I do not know the type of server the site will be hosted on. The use of Javascript is extra credited. The project details are to "design a small mobile web site. The web site should be tested on one or more mobile devices. The iPod Touch device will be used as the base for testing."
I know how to do 8/10 of the requirements (except the two mentioned). I looked at W3C and didn't find anything.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!
Do a Google for:
CSS Browser Detection
JavaScript Browser Detection
Also you should think twice about creating multiple sites - with basically the same content - or creating proper stylesheets that are referred from the same site.
Hope that get's you the other 2 requirements
NOTE: Since this is homework I won't post any links...
I suspect that ServerFault isn't the best place for this question...but aside from that, your question is a little vague. A google search for "designing a mobile website" turns up what looks to be several pages of relevant information. If you first try working with the information in those documents and then come back with specific questions (e.g., "I tried this and it behaved this way instead of the way I expected") you're apt to get better answers.

Developing a web site that can be accessed through mobile phone applications

I am developing a site that is tested only in Firefox and IE. Now I need to make the site accessible from mobile also.
So I need to know whether I need to calculate the time needed to shift the site. Is this created as a new application or the same application is modified?
When accessing stackoverflow.com from my mobile the design is entire changed. How is this done? Is it a separate application?
Thanks
Whether or not you need to create a new application for mobile depends on the site you have. The website at my workplace could not possibly fit on a mobile phone screen (too many frames), but other sites that have a more adjustment-friendly layout might just need a little tweak.
I would test your site on a mobile browser emulator, there are a bunch of them listed on this site.
Also, you might consider switching your firefox's user agent (here) so you can browse popular site's mobile versions, along with the source they used to lay it out.
Usually different CSS templates chosen using UA string matching. My phone has a fairly fully enabled web browser on it, so I get the whole of stackoverflow the same.
Some phone browser may also "mobile optimise" the layout, or in the case of opera mini, it does it on opera's proxy server and then sends modified data to the phone.
Javascript support is more of a problem, expect it to be minimal in most cases, although it is getting better.

How to safely embed any flash file (swf)?

I want to allow my users to embed their own Flash animations in their posts. Usually the actual file is hosted on some free image hosting site. I wouldn't actually load the flash unless the user clicked a button to play (so that nothing auto-plays on page load). I know people can make some really annoying crap in flash, but I can't find any information about potential serious damage a flash app could cause to the viewer.
Is it unsafe to embed just any flash file from the internets? If so, how can I let users embed innocent animations but still keep out the harmful apps?
edit:
From what I can gather, the most obvious threat is for actionscript to redirect you to a malicious site.
Adobe says you can set allowScriptAccess=never and allowNetworking=none and the swf should have no access to anything outside of itself. Will this solve all my problems?
Flash has some neat security measures in place. Allowing users to upload swf's to your site and embedding them is unsafe, you're basically setting yourself up for an XSS attack.
However, allowing them to hotlink should not be a problem. The swf will be locked to the domain that is hosting it and is not allowed calling url's outside of that space.
It will still be open to "evil links" (i'm sure theres a proper word for them), and by that I mean having regular links to yoursite.com/admin/deleteallpages.php which it tries to load "as" you. It will not however be able to use this data in any way, it'll basically be the same as a normal link, and I'd guess modern cms' are protected from that type of attacks.
You could get the same protection by hosting your flashes on a different subdomain, since flash considers this the same as a completely different domain.
When embedding SWFs from unknown sources, it is also best practice to throw a mask on the Loader so that the loaded SWF can't take over more screen real estate than expected.
Pseudo-code to do so:
var maskSpr : Sprite = new Sprite();
maskSpr.graphics.beginFill();
maskSpr.graphics.drawRect(0,0,safeWidth,safeHeight);
maskSpr.graphics.endFill();
myLdr.mask = maskSpr;
There is actually more than one option.
To be totally safe, set allowScriptAccess=never and allowNetworking=none and the swf will have no access to anything outside of itself.
NOTE: allowNetworking is only in Flash Player 9 (it was created in response to various myspace worms), so you'll need to use SWF Object to insure that only users with the right flash player version or better have the flash loaded.
If you want to enable things like youtube videos, though, you can't set allowNetworking to "none". Fortunately, there is an intermediate level of security for this field - "internal" which lets the SWF talk to its hosted domain.
Also note that you better not have a crossdomain.xml file on your site - read more about those dangers here and other places.
Here are some other sites that are mentioned by other answers that go into more detail:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/secure_swf_apps_04.html
http://blogs.adobe.com/stateofsecurity/2007/07/how_to_restrict_swf_content_fr_1.html
As an example Drupal has a scenario of how allowing flash content from users could be a security concern.
Adobe says you can set allowScriptAccess=never and allowNetworking=none and the swf should have no access to anything outside of itself. Although allowNetworking is only in Flash Player 9, so users with earlier versions of Flash would still be susceptible to some exploits.
Creating more secure SWF web applications : Security Controls Within the HTML Code
How to restrict SWF content from HTML
Yes, it's unsafe.
There's no easy way of allowing it. You could have a domain whitelist that allowed YouTube, Hulu, etc. through, but whitelisting is inherently painstaking - you'd be constantly updating.

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