Tiki Brothers Manage Your Add-ons

Green: Ok Red, how about this one: W-H-E-E-Z-Y! Twenty four Points! Whoo Hoo!

Red: Uhm Dude, Green… that W is actually an upside M! What kind of wool are you trying to pull over my eyes?!

Green: Aw Dang… uh… fine… How about this! M-E! Two points! Heh, Heh!

Red: Oh Green… playing SCRABBLE with you is an exercise in futility. You are U-S-E-L-E-S-S! HA– seven letter word! 57 points, times two with a double word score, that’s 114! Haha!

Green: Oh man! Now I do feel useless!

Red: Hmm well… I guess you’re not totally useless. At least you’re good when it comes to helping Pogo customers. Lets do today’s question, shall we?

Green: Oh yeah… has the column started already? Oops! Hi everyone! Welcome to Tiki Brothers Talk Tech! Let’s jump into this week’s question shall we?

George J. from Los Angeles California asks:

My Internet Explorer browser is going crazy and I don’t know why! Sometimes it just crashes with an error message, and other times I can’t load the games it says my Java is not found and I’ve reinstalled it FIVE times! Can you help me get things working correctly?

Red: Thanks for the question, George. Hmm… that sounds like a case of an add-on in your browser that is out of whack. What do you think Green?

Green: That’s a reasonable assumption Red. Let’s give it a shot. First thing you might wonder is: what the heck is an add-on in the first place?

Red: Well, to put it simply: add-ons are small programs that add additional features to your browser. For instance, Sun Java will not run in Internet Explorer, unless the Sun Java add-on is installed in your browser. Another example of an add-on is the Google Toolbar. If you ran a fresh copy of Internet Explorer for the first time it would not have Java or the Google Toolbar loaded.

Green: So, now that we know what an add-on is, let’s go about fixin’ some stuff!

The first thing we will want to do is disable all but the bare minimum number of add-ons needed to run Pogo.

Click on the “Tools” button at the top of your browser. Then choose “Manage add-ons” I have included a screenshot for y’all. Note that in some cases you will need to choose “enable or disable add-ons”, depending on your browser version.

Red: This will take you to the “Manage add-ons” window for Internet Explorer. We’ve mentioned this before in other Tiki articles, but we are going to do a few things different this time.

Basically, we need to disable everything that is not needed for Pogo. Here is how we do it.

When lookint at the Add-ons screen, make sure the box at the top says: “Add-ons currently loaded in Internet Explorer”. This will show you all of your current add-ons.

Notice you may see a list of “Disabled” and “Enabled” add-ons. To disable, click on the add-on you want to disable and a small box at the bottom of the screen will light up. Click the radio button to “Disable” the add-on. You will likely get a message that pops up saying “Are you sure you want to do this?” Make sure you choose “Yes” to disable the add-on.

Green: Now, I know it sound sort of scary, but go through them one at a time and disable everything EXCEPT for the following 3 add-ons:

• “Shockwave Flash Object”
• “SSVHelper Class”
• “Sun Java Console”

You should end up with only 3 items in the enabled list, everything else should be disabled. After you’ve done that, simply close down all of your browser windows and restart it again.

Red: Thanks for that Green. Now, if everything went according to plan, your browser will now be running with a minimum number of add-ons. If the issue you were having was related to an add-on causing interference in your browser, these issues will now stop. You can now go about re-enabling your favorite add-ons one at a time.

This is as simple as clicking on the add-on you want to enable in the “disabled” list and then clicking the “Enable” button. The add-on will drop from the Disabled list into the Enabled list. After a browser reset your add-on should be back to normal.

Green: Oh yeah and in the off chance that one of the 3 add-ons mentioned earlier are disabled, simply enable the add-on in the same way. This will allow your Java to be fully enabled, and any “Java not found” error should go away.

Red: Finally, if you are re-enabling your browser add-ons and you get to one that starts causing problems again, take not of it. The publisher of the add-on is listed in the Manage Add-ons list. You might be able to contact them and get an update to the add-on causing you grief, or info on how to configure the add-on to work correctly.

Green: Great! That was easier than I expected. Shall we get back to our game?

Red: Sure thing Green. Hmm… OK, Here we go… L-A-Z-Y

SIXTEEN points, on a Triple Word Score, gives me a total of 48 points, plus it’s an apt description of your lifestyle! HAHAHA! Ahhahahhahahah! Ahhhhhahahha!

Green: GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Red: Ouch! You just poked me in the ribs! Just for that, I’m showing EVERYONE how lazy you are with this:

Green: Oh, that picture is so A-N-C-I-E-N-T !! Ha! SEVEN LETTER BINGO!

Red: Grrrrr… I’m just about done playing with you! I swear you C-H-E-A-T! Not worth many points, but it did help me *make* a point!

Green: Oh Snap! Okay– enough already! Goodbye everyone! It’s been great helping everybody!

Red: Farewell ’till we meet again!