JibJab: Safari Gets New Political Video. Mac Free.

I’m not sure where I read about this little killer tip, but it’s been very helpful. Safari has a Window called Activity. Click “Window”, then click “Activity.

That opens a resizeable window which you can move around on the screen. Inside the window is a list of all the files that are opened for each web page window that’s open in Safari. Double-click on a .gif or .jpg image to see what happens.

The double-click should open a new window with the image inside. That’s Step #1.

Step #2: Go back to the Activity Window. Now, hold down the Mac’s “option” key and double-click on a .gif or .jpg image. The same image (or whatever) is downloaded to your Mac’s desktop. Ahhhhh. Now some possibilities open up.

For a couple of years Windows users have had utilities that can save Flash .swf animation files. The utilities range from $10 to $30. With Safari, the same capability to save files, including Flash animation, is built in. Free. This is how to use it.

Step #3: Take Safari to a page with some Flash animation. In the activity window for that web page you should see a file name that ends with .swf. Double click the file name and the Flash animation will open in a new Safari window.

Try it first with just one window open in Safari. Too many windows open makes it difficult to find the files in the Activity Window. Are you having fun yet?

Jay Leno’s Tonight Show introduced the first two JibJab political parody, “This Lands” and “Good To Be In DC.” All the usual political characters are in the parodies; Bush, Cheney, Kerry, Edwards, McCain, Clinton, and many more.

Now, JibJab has introduced a third musical parody called “Second Term.”

The Secret in Safari
If you click over to the JibJab web site you’ll be able to view the Flash animations of the newest and the original parodies. Click Here to open a JibJab window in Safari.

The Jib Jab home page now features both the original “This Land” Flash animation parody, and the newest, “Good To Be In DC” (sung to the tune of ‘Good To Be in Dixie’).

JibJab’s an American company all the way. Own all three of the JibJab parodies on DVD for just $19.95, or download each for just $2.99, or use Safari to download them to your Mac. For FREE.

Here’s the step-by-step.

Ready To Go?
It’s easier if you have only one Safari window open (the Activity window can get cluttered when many Safari browser windows are open). Click Here to open JibJab.com.

Play It Again, Sam
Now, in Safari, click the Window men and select Activity. What you’ll see in the Activity window is all the files that make up the JibJab web site home page.

On the JibJab web site home page you’ll see two promo boxes. One is for “Good To Be In DC” and the other is for the original “This Land.” Click on either one, or the new one, “Second Term.”

That gives you a pop up window and the JibJab Flash animation will begin to load, and then play. If you noticed, there were also some changes inside Safari’s Activity window. The JibJab web site has about a dozen files. Some .jpg files, two Flash .swf files, and so on.

Once you opened one of the JibJab animations, that .swf file was added to Safari’s Activity window. It’s called “this_land.swf” and is about 3.9 megabytes in size. Look for a long text string that ends with “JibJam/JibJab_SecondTerm_2.swf.”

Almost There
Click on the file name, hold down the Option key and double click. The file should begin downloading. Repeat for the other JibJab files.

It’s that easy. You can use this technique to download nearly any .swf Shockwave/Flash animation from a web site and save the file to your hard drive.

The real trick is to find the file in the Activity viewer window. Sometimes a web page will have what appears to be a hundred files; .css, .gif, .jpg, .js and many, many others.

Simply double-clicking the .swf Shockwave Flash animation file will open it in another Safari window. However, it opens it full size, so it could own your screen’s real estate rather quickly.

Looks cool, though.

Give it a try. The JibJab parodies are hilarious spoofs of life in Washington with the whole crowd of villains (are politicians ever really heroes when they become politicians?); Bush, Kerry, Cheney, Edwards, Kennedy, Clinton, McCain and many more.

Enjoy. If you have the standalone Flash Player, you can play the .swf file. If not, just use Safari. Click on File/Open File, and select the .swf file. It’ll play inside a Safari window.

Cool, huh?