Listen to Amazon.com CD track previews via VideoLan Client

Apr 23, '03 09:31:00AM

Contributed by: Mikey-San

I was at the Amazon.com page for the new Stephen Lynch record, and found that -- as is usual on Amazon.com -- the first several tracks have preview links next to them. They don't use QuickTime, so that puts off a lot of Mac users. The available formats are Real (ugh) and Windows Media (believe it or not, I'd rather have this than Real). Unfortunately, if you click on the link, depending on your browser, you might get hit with a .exe file.

The interesting part is that they're not always Windows executables. Sometimes, it appears, they're really streams or entire clips. If you have a copy of the awesome VideoLAN Client (VLC) player, your problems are easily solved. Hop into the Finder, assuming it was downloaded, and rename it from filename.exe to filename.asx, and then double-click it or drop it onto VLC. Whee!

I might get flamed for submitting an obvious and simple hint, but perhaps there are some novice users out there who haven't thought about this one yet.

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