Define "Portable"

Millions of us own digital video cameras today and only a few recall the clunkers that came before. I had a VHS video camera in the 1980's and I still have tapes shot in it on holiday trips, although I've since digitized all of them to save the material from the gradual disintegration of the tape media. But I don't go back as far as this Sony "portable". I pulled this image from a fascinating PowerPoint found in my "mail attachments" directory this morning, when I ventured in to house clean it. The images all go back to the '50's and 60's and since I do too (barely) many of them were familiar and charming in their depiction of a kinder, gentler world - on the surface if not much beyond. It was after all a time when public figures were assassinated and private citizens were sent to the back of the bus. And it was the beginning of our love affair with gadgets and "labour-saving" devices and above all electronics. What the picture omits is the bulky battery belt without which this baby is a boat anchor. For a larger view, click on the picture.

Web Audio Options with Flash

In the post immediately prior to this one I embedded a Flash audio player from NPR, because it plays an interview with on old friend. I also promised to build one of my own and of course I've kept my word. When I try something new to me I often grab whatever is handy to get the job started quickly, knowing that the first attempt won't create the product I ultimately want to provide. For this exercise I found a digitized recording my high school blues band did in 1967. In those days we played the Fort William Gardens dances, sharing the stage with Paul Shaffer and his band known as "The Fugitives" which his new book told me was started by sax player and percussionist Rick Lazar, with whom Paul and I shared a supper club gig one later summer during my University years. So, this sample of audio on a web page puts our old song in a player with some visual accompaniment, and is introduced by audio that auto-plays when the page loads. Over the next while I will be demonstrating other methods for introducing audio and diverse audiovisual Flash productions into existing web content. One of my objectives is to communicate that adding these "engagement objects" doesn't mean starting from scratch. As often as not they are nearly "copy and paste" into whatever html content is already being displayed. Feel free to contact me if you're curious to know more.

Inside Show Biz with Paul Shaffer

They say that timing is everything. For my grade school friend Paul Shaffer, his boss's recently admitted indiscretions probably couldn't have come at a better time for promoting Paul's just out autobiography "We'll Be Here For The Rest of Our Lives". While I only appear once (thank you, Shaf), on page 139, I highly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in show biz over the last few decades. Paul has worked with literally everyone you know and his anecdotes are priceless. For a taste of what's between the covers, listen to this short interview with NPR:

I'm loving the book and I enjoyed the interview, but equally cool for we web media guys is the Flash audio player NPR uses to present the material. I'll be cooking these up by sundown!