Norad Santa help?
December 23, 2009 6:16 PM   Subscribe

Tracking Santa: I can't install the Google Earth Web Plug-in (mac).. help please! I have six hours to get this working for my nieces...

- I've downloaded the plugin, but when I doubleclick on it, nothing happens.
- The file info says it should open with Plug-in Installer, but I can't find that on my Mac.
- I've installed Google Earth, proper, but I don't think the whole Norad / Santa thing is part of the real app.
- This is a Powerbook running 10.4.11, and Firefox 3.5.6

Thanks for your help-
cgs
posted by cgs to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)
 
If push comes to shove you can always go to the NORAD site directly and watch online.
posted by kch at 6:26 PM on December 23, 2009


I have an Intel Mac running 10.5.8, and the file this page prompts me to download is googleearth-mac-plugin-intel.dmg. Is that similar to the name of what it had you download?

If so, it's a .dmg, or disk image file. When I double-clicked it, it put a little blue removable drive icon on my desktop called "Google Earth" to indicate that my computer had "mounted" the disk image. On my Mac, it also then popped open a little blue Finder window with a box in the middle that said "Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin," with text below that said "Double-click the plugin to install it."

When I double-clicked that box, it brought up an alert window that said "'Plug-in Installer.app' is an application which was downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it? 'Plug-in Installer.app' is on the disk image 'googleearth-mac-plugin-intel.dmg'. Firefox.app downloaded this disk image today at 8:42 PM."

Below that, there were three buttons: "Show Disk Image," "Cancel," and "Open." When I clicked "Open," a Copy dialog box came up that indicated a file was being copied to a directory somewhere on my computer (probably the plugins directory, if I had to guess).

After that, I ejected the Google Earth disk image. Once I restart Firefox, I'll tell you what happened next when I visited Google Maps...
posted by limeonaire at 6:52 PM on December 23, 2009


Oh, I see now. It doesn't really let you do anything new on Google Maps, but on this page, you can check out the Earth...

In any case, I don't know the answer to your Norad/Santa question, but that's how I installed the Google Earth Web Plug-in on my Intel Mac...
posted by limeonaire at 6:54 PM on December 23, 2009


Ah, I see. You can see the Norad/Santa thing here in a little more than four hours, per the countdown here.
posted by limeonaire at 6:57 PM on December 23, 2009


When I visit the site in Chrome (I'm running 10.6.2 on one of the new iMacs), I get a message stating that "the plugin is not supported on your browser or platform". I don't get that in Safari, though. Are you on an Intel or PowerPC Mac?
posted by DecemberBoy at 7:18 PM on December 23, 2009


Response by poster: this is a powerpc mac. i am familiar w/ disk images... but for some reason when i doubleclick the plugin itself (per the instructions beneath it) the installer.app does not load up. i will try the KML-load advice and keep poking around.
posted by cgs at 4:56 AM on December 24, 2009


« Older UK ergonomic keyboard   |   Good etymology book? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.