By popular demand

That post I made a couple of weeks ago about the Agent Provocateur video has been the most popular thing I ever posted on this blog (Aside from boob shots. Everyone always loves the boob shots). So all thanks again to Xenia LaFleur for providing the link.

Several of you have asked me how to download the video for yourselves, so here you go. This is Download Helper, a free Firefox extension that allows you to grab videos, audio, and images from all kinds of different sources. You do have to use Firefox as your internet browser, to use Download Helper, but I'd recommend Firefox even if DH never existed because it has so many useful add-ons.

Anyway, let's say you're using Firefox and you've installed Download Helper. Now you should see a DH icon on your toolbar, but if you don't, just change your toolbar layout to add it in (I'm assuming you can get this far on your own, but if you have any trouble, feel free to email me. I don't bite). Before you try to download anything, make sure your settings are correct. Right-click on the DH icon, then choose "General" and "Behavior." The last option under the Behavior tab says, "Upon clicking on the icon" - and then it gives you a drop-down menu to choose what you want to happen. Select "Open Menu."

Now you're ready to download all kinds of content from all kinds of places. YouTube is easiest because every time you view a video there, you'll see a DH icon right next to the title and all you have to do is click it to start downloading. If you're anywhere else on the web, it's just a tiny bit harder to get what you want.

Here's how to snag that Agent Provocateur video. At left is a (carefully cropped, hah) shot of my screen after I've clicked the DH icon. The left-hand arrow is pointing to the icon, which is lit up to show the page has content which can be downloaded. Notice the file name beneath the icon. Sometimes DH will give you several file names to choose from because there are multiple media items available to download, but in this case it's easy. There's only Agent_Provocateur_Fleurs_du_Mal_mp4.mp4. Click on that, and your private copy of "Fleurs du Mal" is on its way.

Now here's an extra piece of advice. If you're on another webpage with several available files to download and you're not sure which one is the right one, you have a couple of options. The easiest thing to do is select "All links to media files." You'll end up with a folder full of everything DH could find on the page - JPG's, audio, video, whatever - and you can sort through it and pick out what you want. Alternately, if it's a video you're after, look for a file name with the extension .mp4 (or sometimes .flv or .wmv). Notice that .mp4 is the extension of the "Fleurs du Mal" video - and notice also that the second screen grab doesn't include any mp4 options. This page of Ulorin Vex's LiveJournal only has images, so DH is giving you a few individual choices and then offering you the whole batch of 50 items at once.

Lastly, here are a couple of other notes, just in case you use DH a lot:

1. If you're after an audio clip, or sometimes a video, the download might be unavailable until the clip starts playing. In that case you have to hit the "play" button before the DH icon lights up and/or offers you the right choice for downloading.
2. Occasionally a website will block downloading of its content. This doesn't happen often, and sometimes you can root around in the source code and find a way to skirt the issue; but in most of these cases you're out of luck. Just be glad most site designers don't care enough to block you.

And that's it for today. Have fun downloading, and don't forget to credit your sources if you repost anything.