Another attempt.. A personal milestone..
It was in the early 80s, When our family migrated from Chennai to the the foothills of the western ghats in the southern corner of the state. I was already in my first standard. I did not learn Tamil by then..
(City life means studying in an English medium school and Tamil did not even stand a chance as the second language, for French or probably Hindi is already vying for that honor.. And I am really sorry to assert that little has changed in the past 3 decades.. )
Not knowing the local language was the reason why I hated going to my new school back then. (well.. One of the reason.. er.. Ok.. probably the only one with some merit behind it)
Darkness under the Cot was my favorite retreat during the morning school departure time.. My Parents, after realizing that the first 3 ancient negotiating techniques of Sama (Peaceful), Beda (Political) and Dana (Coaxing and promising me the moon) have failed, would then finally resort to the last technique of Dhandam (by Force); Resembling an act of kidnapping, the whole house would be rearranged before they drag me with every available human assistance, pack me, carry me and toss me into the cycle rickshaw..
The cycle rickshaw driver (I still recall his name fondly as Michael Mama.. ) had to put additional latches that locked from outside to make sure I didn't break free and jump from the moving Vehicle.. !!
Once I reach the school, my teachers had a tough time in keeping me in the class. In order to be in the company of people who understand my language and feel secure, I used to march out of the class thats in full progress, looking out for my brothers.. I had two of them.. In Higher classes.. They too, like me didn’t know Tamil by then..
Its under these circumstances that my Father arranged for private Tamil classes at home for all the 3 of us after school hours. The master was a retired Tamil teacher called ‘Sethu Vaathiyaar'. A dynamic man in his late sixties who defied his age.. He comes to our home by cycle from the town few Kms away against the gusty easterly winds from the mountains.. His open mouthed laugh exposing that he had no teeth what so ever, was always accompanied by a gratifying conviction that had no hint of artificiality.
Thanks to the freehand that my father lend him, The laugh would still remain even as his stern hands sometime reaches to our ears when we refuse to toe the line. Slowly Tamil became our favorite subject.. With in a year, I was comfortable enough in the subject to top the class.
After that, the Tamil literature passages from the school text books, usual kids supplementary of the daily news paper, literary functions in temples, the Library of my village where I used to devour countless Tamil classics, Elocution competitions around my district.. All these are positive influences in my early days..
Sethu vaathiyaar’s contribution to all of this is foremost in my interest towards Tamil.. An interest that continues to date.
But last time I wrote in Tamil was 14 years ago...
The occasion was the higher secondary school board exam !!
After that I have not written Tamil.. Since I have stayed outside Tamilnadu for most of my professional life, unfortunately I also lost all opportunities to be in touch with the language. No reading... not even a chance to Watch Tamil. Speaking in Tamil with fellow friends often found me searching for words I wanted to convey and invariably became an English conversation with few Tamil words as prepositions.. Similar to Tamil TV anchors now a days, நீங்க வந்து இப்போ வந்து பாத்தீங்கன்னா எனக்கு தமிழே மறந்து போச்சுன்னு கூட சொல்லலாம். இல்லன்னா வந்து கொஞ்சம் ஞயாபகம் இருக்கு அப்பிடின்னி கூட சொல்லலாம். This is the type of Tamil that I seem to be talking now a days..
Finally I found my lost ground in the internet.. I was glad to see some quality writers and Tamil bloggers.. I slowly started nurturing the secret ambition of writing in Tamil as well.. For a few years now, it remained an ambition thanks to the laziness which appeared more blissful than the predicament to think so much to write in Tamil.
I would be romanticizing it if I said, I was sleeping.. Sethu vaathiyaar came in my dream.. He laughed in a deadly fashion.. First it was his same face with no teeth when he laughed.. Later two teeth emerged from his face.. My ear appeared like a guitar to him.. He started tuning it and asked "எங்க அந்த குறளைச் சொல்லு பாக்கலாம்".. I was shouting "சார்.. சார்..விட்டுருங்க சார்.. " Then I woke up in the middle of the night sweating....
No.. But the truth is somewhat close.. One of my old friends from college with the same name, offered me an opportunity to again write in Tamil, and finally I decided now there is no reason not to..
The result can be found here..
If you thought I have some weird memory to recite those verses in the article after all these years, be glad to know that my ears were paining (thanks to the hallucination of Sethu vaathiyaar) as I was recollecting them...
With Love
Vicky
August 7, 2009
April 12, 2009
Off the beaten tram tracks
"Don't sit on the window seat. Your face will become black..!".
My Periyappa (Paternal uncle) used to shout. He should know better. He was a Ticket Collector...
It always fell on our deaf ears that were muted by the loud whistles of the steam engine. Clinging on to the window and treading the foothills of western ghats through and across the rivers, coconut grooves and water falls is a sight to behold before the Shencottah-Quilon express begins its slow but steady ascent through the impregnable mountain ranges; Its a journey of highly rewarding experiences.. Via ducts, dark long tunnels, coal dust swollen eyes and blackened face and arms.. !
Apart from the Newton's laws of physics, Steam engines - the wondrous locomotive of my childhood, operate based on two rules..
1.) They are capable of exciting kids;
2.) If you are not one, it will make you one
You would agree with me, Its this excitement that keeps the steam engine close to one's heart. However on an Easter weekend, I was left wondering why the Dutch tourism board didn't apply these rules to me while pegging the ticket fares!
Behind the hype of Keukenhofs and the Zaanse Schans', lot of graceful gems of Holland are usually lost. The historic triangle of Zuiderzee towns: Hoorn-Medemblik-Enkhuizen is surely one of them; This trip is certainly not in the check list of maddening tourists nor the locals who always look for something 'Gezellig'. At least the modest crowd turnout on a holiday weekend coupled with an empty returning tram suggested as much - much to our delight, if I may add!
In hindsight, traveling this route by the unique combination of Road, Steam Engine Tram, Boat and Train not only makes you feel like Phileas Fogg, it also rejuvenates you in such a way that you might actually consider blogging about it at the end of the day :-P !!
The best part about this trip is the way its designed. Five stars to the planners of this program.
Consider this..
- The tram station at the Hoorn is slap bang at the footsteps of a huge parking lot that charges you 2 Euros to park your car for the whole day;
- Vintage tram coaches leaving Hoorn to Medemblik pulled by an even enigmatic steam engine from the 1920s in all its full glory, chugging along a scenic Dutch country side at a speed of 15-20 Km/hr, providing every bit of romance it promises.
- After a leisurely 1 and half hours, The tram stops at Medemblik under the nose of a Jetty where a ferry is already waiting for you;
- With no reason to hurry, you are given a sizable chunk of an hour to extend the picnic on the banks of IJsselmeer to have that home packed Lunch or to walk around and explore the compact village of Medemblik.
- The next 75 minutes sees you in an Old fashioned steamer with its Saloon deck sails ferrying you to Enkhuizen, on the quite waters of the largest fresh water lake in the Western Europe.
- You may then alight at the Zuider Zee museum if you are a "touch-and-go" kind of a person or take a stroll around the pretty little harbor of Enkhuizen. Eitherways the ferry drops you at the door steps of your next point of interest;
- A fast double-decker Intercity train leaves Enkhuizen quite frequently, bringing you back to the 21st century as you arrive at your car park in Hoorn 20 minutes later.
The interoperability of this scheme seem to put the software I develop to shade !
Clearly the most alluring part of the trip was the Tram ride of 20 Kms from Hoorn to Medemblik; As the tram thunders away from the station every passer-by is waving at you. Waving back at them you feel like a certain Atal Behari Vaajpayee accepting the ceremonious welcome on a state visit, although it takes a while to strike to you that its the heritage of the tram that they are waving at and not at its measly passengers. The tram in the meanwhile is busy slithering through vast scenic stretches of canals and farm houses among which I was told a few were tulip fields as well. But we were probably a bit early for them.
Before the trip I had promised my son that we are going to go in the Thomas the Train Engine and I joked to him that I will introduce him to the Fat Controller. While my son was busy concluding that the engine pulling us is more a Skarloey than a Thomas (Becase Thomas is Blue in Color while Skarloey is red it seems. Our's was Red!!), the ticket collector indeed turned out to be a befitting personality whose prosperity was visibly exuberant romanticizing the image my son had in his mind; So when I requested him to pose for a photograph with my son, Mr. Fat Controller was more than happy to oblige. He even tossed around his hat to my son and the look on his eyes were suggesting that his fantasies were coming alive. Overall the support staff in the tram were extremely helpful (and were shrewd marketers as well selling cola to toy train on wheels to ensure that your wallet is empty to the last note!); They were giving you friendly safety tips as well as entertaining packets of information when poked, such as the engine consumes 500 KG of coal for the 20 KM trip and its capable of pushing as well as pulling the carriages at same speed etc.,
The beauty of this overall package is that, it makes such a lazy day by design since all you are doing is sitting on antique locomotives and soaking in the experience for 3 long hours or more. You can't do anything but relax even if you want to. A family day outing cannot be more unplugged.
If you do plan to take this package, here are a few tips that you might want to consider:
- Weather is the most crucial factor of this trip; Do your research on the forecast and please go only if it promises to be a nice sunny day.. I know this sounds like a no-go since sun light and Northern Lights share the same probability of appearing in Holland (!!); But believe me, this would still be the most crucial factor; After all there is no fun, standing on the upper deck of a steamer under the umbrella for the heck of it, with the chilly winds lashing you from all corners
- There is no advance booking for the tram unless you are a group of critical mass; While my guess is that the tram takes around 150 - 200 passengers, you might still want to arrive at least half an hour earlier to the scheduled departure of the tram to save the probable disappointment of tickets being sold out.
- When the Tram stops at Wognum (The first stop), it stops for a while. So get down and walk all the way to the engine; You won't regret it; If you have kids, they will be allowed on the engine cabin upon request and they love it.
- You may be left with no more than a couple of hours at the Zuider Zee Museum if you arrive at Enkhuizen by boat from Medemblik. So see if its something for you and if not do walk around Enkhuizen's compact harbor/ centrum; We opted for the later. Providentially we saw a skinny bridge opening for boat traffic and the mechanics of it was quite interesting.
- If you are family with 2 kids (not toddlers) then consider taking the family ticket as its relatively cheaper. The package costs around 23,50 per person including the intercity train and is not exactly cheap;
This trip is a genuine throw back to yesteryears. And that's probably THE charm of it.. and of course the program still seam to be a secret well kept. So as I said, The steam trams of Hoorn indeed run off the beaten track..
Quite literally...
With Love
Vicky
Trivia:
=====
- Shencottah - Kollam route which I referred initially runs through my home town in India and it was known as the Queen of the Meter gauges. Look for the relevant subsection on this page to learn more about it.
- For more a visual experience of Shencottah - Kollam route, You may see this you tube clip; Behind the obscure video, you can still get a glimpse of the train route back home that I mentioned. The via Ducts, The tunnels, the mountains all of them are nicely captured in this song. About this video itself - Why Maniratnam, One of India's celebrated directors, came all the way to this remote southern corner of Indian subcontinent to shoot an inconspicuous train sequence is not easily explained, Unless you are from this region; Its because, interestingly the time line of that movie sequence required an old fashioned steam engine. And my home town was still one of the last bastions of Indian Railways where those friendly monsters were part of every day life;
My Periyappa (Paternal uncle) used to shout. He should know better. He was a Ticket Collector...
It always fell on our deaf ears that were muted by the loud whistles of the steam engine. Clinging on to the window and treading the foothills of western ghats through and across the rivers, coconut grooves and water falls is a sight to behold before the Shencottah-Quilon express begins its slow but steady ascent through the impregnable mountain ranges; Its a journey of highly rewarding experiences.. Via ducts, dark long tunnels, coal dust swollen eyes and blackened face and arms.. !
Apart from the Newton's laws of physics, Steam engines - the wondrous locomotive of my childhood, operate based on two rules..
1.) They are capable of exciting kids;
2.) If you are not one, it will make you one
You would agree with me, Its this excitement that keeps the steam engine close to one's heart. However on an Easter weekend, I was left wondering why the Dutch tourism board didn't apply these rules to me while pegging the ticket fares!
Behind the hype of Keukenhofs and the Zaanse Schans', lot of graceful gems of Holland are usually lost. The historic triangle of Zuiderzee towns: Hoorn-Medemblik-Enkhuizen is surely one of them; This trip is certainly not in the check list of maddening tourists nor the locals who always look for something 'Gezellig'. At least the modest crowd turnout on a holiday weekend coupled with an empty returning tram suggested as much - much to our delight, if I may add!
In hindsight, traveling this route by the unique combination of Road, Steam Engine Tram, Boat and Train not only makes you feel like Phileas Fogg, it also rejuvenates you in such a way that you might actually consider blogging about it at the end of the day :-P !!
The best part about this trip is the way its designed. Five stars to the planners of this program.
Consider this..
- The tram station at the Hoorn is slap bang at the footsteps of a huge parking lot that charges you 2 Euros to park your car for the whole day;
- Vintage tram coaches leaving Hoorn to Medemblik pulled by an even enigmatic steam engine from the 1920s in all its full glory, chugging along a scenic Dutch country side at a speed of 15-20 Km/hr, providing every bit of romance it promises.
- After a leisurely 1 and half hours, The tram stops at Medemblik under the nose of a Jetty where a ferry is already waiting for you;
- With no reason to hurry, you are given a sizable chunk of an hour to extend the picnic on the banks of IJsselmeer to have that home packed Lunch or to walk around and explore the compact village of Medemblik.
- The next 75 minutes sees you in an Old fashioned steamer with its Saloon deck sails ferrying you to Enkhuizen, on the quite waters of the largest fresh water lake in the Western Europe.
- You may then alight at the Zuider Zee museum if you are a "touch-and-go" kind of a person or take a stroll around the pretty little harbor of Enkhuizen. Eitherways the ferry drops you at the door steps of your next point of interest;
- A fast double-decker Intercity train leaves Enkhuizen quite frequently, bringing you back to the 21st century as you arrive at your car park in Hoorn 20 minutes later.
The interoperability of this scheme seem to put the software I develop to shade !
Clearly the most alluring part of the trip was the Tram ride of 20 Kms from Hoorn to Medemblik; As the tram thunders away from the station every passer-by is waving at you. Waving back at them you feel like a certain Atal Behari Vaajpayee accepting the ceremonious welcome on a state visit, although it takes a while to strike to you that its the heritage of the tram that they are waving at and not at its measly passengers. The tram in the meanwhile is busy slithering through vast scenic stretches of canals and farm houses among which I was told a few were tulip fields as well. But we were probably a bit early for them.
Before the trip I had promised my son that we are going to go in the Thomas the Train Engine and I joked to him that I will introduce him to the Fat Controller. While my son was busy concluding that the engine pulling us is more a Skarloey than a Thomas (Becase Thomas is Blue in Color while Skarloey is red it seems. Our's was Red!!), the ticket collector indeed turned out to be a befitting personality whose prosperity was visibly exuberant romanticizing the image my son had in his mind; So when I requested him to pose for a photograph with my son, Mr. Fat Controller was more than happy to oblige. He even tossed around his hat to my son and the look on his eyes were suggesting that his fantasies were coming alive. Overall the support staff in the tram were extremely helpful (and were shrewd marketers as well selling cola to toy train on wheels to ensure that your wallet is empty to the last note!); They were giving you friendly safety tips as well as entertaining packets of information when poked, such as the engine consumes 500 KG of coal for the 20 KM trip and its capable of pushing as well as pulling the carriages at same speed etc.,
The beauty of this overall package is that, it makes such a lazy day by design since all you are doing is sitting on antique locomotives and soaking in the experience for 3 long hours or more. You can't do anything but relax even if you want to. A family day outing cannot be more unplugged.
If you do plan to take this package, here are a few tips that you might want to consider:
- Weather is the most crucial factor of this trip; Do your research on the forecast and please go only if it promises to be a nice sunny day.. I know this sounds like a no-go since sun light and Northern Lights share the same probability of appearing in Holland (!!); But believe me, this would still be the most crucial factor; After all there is no fun, standing on the upper deck of a steamer under the umbrella for the heck of it, with the chilly winds lashing you from all corners
- There is no advance booking for the tram unless you are a group of critical mass; While my guess is that the tram takes around 150 - 200 passengers, you might still want to arrive at least half an hour earlier to the scheduled departure of the tram to save the probable disappointment of tickets being sold out.
- When the Tram stops at Wognum (The first stop), it stops for a while. So get down and walk all the way to the engine; You won't regret it; If you have kids, they will be allowed on the engine cabin upon request and they love it.
- You may be left with no more than a couple of hours at the Zuider Zee Museum if you arrive at Enkhuizen by boat from Medemblik. So see if its something for you and if not do walk around Enkhuizen's compact harbor/ centrum; We opted for the later. Providentially we saw a skinny bridge opening for boat traffic and the mechanics of it was quite interesting.
- If you are family with 2 kids (not toddlers) then consider taking the family ticket as its relatively cheaper. The package costs around 23,50 per person including the intercity train and is not exactly cheap;
This trip is a genuine throw back to yesteryears. And that's probably THE charm of it.. and of course the program still seam to be a secret well kept. So as I said, The steam trams of Hoorn indeed run off the beaten track..
Quite literally...
With Love
Vicky
Trivia:
=====
- Shencottah - Kollam route which I referred initially runs through my home town in India and it was known as the Queen of the Meter gauges. Look for the relevant subsection on this page to learn more about it.
- For more a visual experience of Shencottah - Kollam route, You may see this you tube clip; Behind the obscure video, you can still get a glimpse of the train route back home that I mentioned. The via Ducts, The tunnels, the mountains all of them are nicely captured in this song. About this video itself - Why Maniratnam, One of India's celebrated directors, came all the way to this remote southern corner of Indian subcontinent to shoot an inconspicuous train sequence is not easily explained, Unless you are from this region; Its because, interestingly the time line of that movie sequence required an old fashioned steam engine. And my home town was still one of the last bastions of Indian Railways where those friendly monsters were part of every day life;
January 5, 2009
Embedding Music in Blogs
Updated: 28th March 2009
Like they say "A Picture is worth more than a thousand words", for people who write about music (or at least those who think they write... like me!) or if you are a music artist, its better to let your music do the talking rather than you :-P. That way, the point couldn't be driven home more. Further, you may not fool around the reader to sound as if you know more than you actually do (!!) when the evidence for your view is provided side by side..
But the problem is when it comes to hosting a music clip (mostly mp3) on blogs, the "how to do" part is not always very straight forward;
So here is a Dummy's guide on how to host your own music in your website/ blogs;
There are primarily 3 ways to do this:
Category 1:
You go to a one stop shop, where You let someone else control both your music file and the player it uses.
Mostly these are websites with file upload feature + a (usually flash based) player; Most of the time they allow streaming (i.e., playing the file already while its still downloading). The playback mechanism is native to the player. Since they take care of a to z, nothing specific is needed from you other than, 1.) uploading your file, 2.)Getting the code for 'sharing' and 3.) placing it in your blog post.. All these steps are rather self explanatory once you visit the web site who offers you this service.
There are too many websites who provide this service, both paid and free; You can google out and I am sure you will find zillions of them; I am mentioning two of my favorites;
1.) In the free category, the basic package offered by Soundcloud looks cool; They have lot of cool things such as non-technical easy presentation language in their site which makes the layman orient himself better. The player also allows you to insert comment on the sections of the song while its playing so you can communicate more effectively with your reader about a particular span of the clip while they are listening;
2.) In the paid category, hipcast looks complete; Its very popular among the Indian Audio bloggers in internet. As a regular listener to some of those audio blogs, I find it pretty Ok; But remember it burns a hole in your purse;
esnips seems to be very popular as well; But I've had playback issues with it, although it could be only me.. Plus, their plugin themes are always "hip" and playful; Thats fine for "da ma n newayz" crowd, while their plain themes are rather bulky; Would be nice if they could rework more on their plugin layouts..
I've also seen Muziboo and Picklecast that people use; Haven't tried them myself to comment;
I used boomp3 for sometime and ditched it due to its inconsistent playback;
Category 2:
You control both the file that is played and the audio player used inside the browser. This is a 2 step manual process and
Here is how you can do it
1.) First find yourself where to host your file. Choose one of the many free storage providers in the internet. Pay attention to two factors while you do this. One, They should offer direct access of the file through URLs (Not all do, like MSN's Sky drive is great but as I write this, it doesn't yet offer a direct anonymous access); Two, it should provide a decent bandwidth limit so that your readers are guaranteed most of the time that the file is available (Google pages or its new avatar Google site falls flat here; from my personal experience it blacks out the file after a few many times its been accessed); And then upload your file there. Note down the direct URL of this file;
Note: I use Fileden's free account; It provides 5GB of bandwidth per account per month; Put in perspective, if you are hosting about 5 MB of music in your blog, it plays up to 5000 times per month; I have only about 600 hits or so a month on my music blog; So it works fine for me so far..
2.) Copy the following piece of HTML code and paste it in your blog post:
<embed src="change me" type="application/octet-stream" autostart="false" loop="true"></embed>
Replace the change me with your actual file location noted on step 1;
That's it; You are ready to go;
For the more curious ones, what this code snippet does is, it lets the browser to play the music via the plug-in that you have asked it to to use (this is already configured in IE by default. It uses Windows media player plugin by default; For Mozilla, you may have to install additional plugins). the <embed> tag used here is a native part of HTML specifications and will work for all browsers; Also As you can see, there are two other self explaining parameters in that HTML code snippet; Autostart and loop; if the former is set to true, the file plays automatically when the page is loaded and if the later is set to true, the file will be played repeatedly until you quit the page.
Adv:
----
a.) Total freedom on your hands; You can always choose where to host the file and you are using an audio player plugin installed in your computer; If at all you chose any provider from category 1 and if tomorrow he shuts down the free service, you might be left in lurch.
b.)It supports not just mp3 but any file type (such as midi or ogg files) as long as your browser has a plugin for the given file type.
c.) Though manual, Category 2 is very simple (uses native provisions of HTML) but very effective (like it allows streaming as well)
DisAdv:
-------
a.) In the context of the above point, the 'embed' tag is not a hyperlink and hence it also downloads the file when the page is loaded. Therefore this leads both you and your reader at disadvantage. While your precisous bandwidth is wasted irrespective of the reader listens the track or not, for the reader it takes forever the page to load depending on the amount of content you hosted in the page and his network speed. Besides bandwidth to host the file is a premium now a days; Unless you have your own web server or a private host who can hold your content (Like your ISP), you are at the mercy of free storage providers in the internet for hosting your file. All said, normally they all have a bandwidth limit; The free accounts certainly do.
b.) Although this works in the most common scenario (i.e., if you use Windows and an IE browser, this approach is almost guaranteed to work by default), sadly most popular media files (such as mp3) are not often understood by default in (all) browsers. So sometimes you have to install additional plugins which automatically solves the problems; But if your stars are bad, you may also have to tweak the browser settings on top of that. Check the trouble shooting section below for more info;
But as I said, If you use Internet Explorer, don't bother too much. It will work without any extra efforts.
Trouble Shooting:
================
A General trouble shooting guide to all plugins related problems in browsers can be found here.
Although its guaranteed to work in IE, often an additional plugin is required for other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox; You have to install Apple Quicktime (or VLC Media player plugin) in your computer. Quicktime should also work for other popular browsers. Personally I have had problems with Google Chrome and further looking up revealed that since the browser is still nascent, it might have to travel some distance before it supports lot of features taken for granted now a days. Anyways, Often installing one of this should solve the problem automatically; If it doesn't, try this page for some tips. If you use other browsers, then you may have to look for appropriate audio plugins specific to your browser. (Che.. By giving that useless info, I am sounding too much like the documentation we write for the software we make!!)
Category 3
This is a kind of hybrid option between category 1 and 2; You control the file to play but depend on someone else for the player; The advantages of this category is immense.
1.) Normally these players are browser independent and you shouldn't face any plugin problem and such whichever browser you use.
2.) Unlike the embed tag, the audio track is hosted as a hyperlink. This means the file is streamed/ downloaded only when someone clicks on it. So you save bandwidth and the page loads faster to your reader.
I have seen odeo being one of the most popular player in this space; But I am sure there are many more in this category too. More info on Odeo can be found here and here. However in my personal opinion, the the streaming rate of Odeo is not smooth and leaves one much to be wanting.
For reasons unknown to me, Yahoo Media Player is not so widely used as far as I have seen. However I find this as the magic bullet that solves all the problems discussed above across the categories. The player is sleek, it is guaranteed to work on all browsers. Streaming is really seamless. It aggregates all tracks in your page into a nice integrated playlist (although on some occasions this can be a nuisance). The code to integrate the player to your page is lean and mean; It is supported by a very vibrant community in the internet (so you get nice support from fellow Yahoo Media Player users). The player can be placed inline with the texts in your post. It has some cool features such as tracing the location of song within the page from the player (like a song locator); The code to evoke the player refers to a common link which means, when there is a latest and greatest version of the player released, you are automatically upgraded without any code change; The hidden capabilities and user specific customization possibilities that one can achieve in this player by tweaking its code are immense; At the same time, its also a bit esoteric. For instance, you need a special code to turn off the auto start of next song that you wouldn't know normally unless you google it out or if you are part of the YMP community.
Verdict:
My verdict is the combination of Fileden (to host the files) + Yahoo Media Player (to play it in your page). You can find all about how I have used it in my music blog.
The biggest unintended impact this player has is, since the clips are Hyperlinked, it allows one to link a clip over the portion of text that talks about the clip. The embedding is seamless even if its amidst the paragraphs. The icons indicating the clips are unmissable and non-intrusive. This gives the reader an unique experience of listening to the clip while simultaneously reading about it.
Audio Editing:
For audio editing, Such as clipping only part of a music file, stitching many clips into one file etc., I use Audacity. I find it more than sufficient for my blogging needs.
Disclaimer:
-----------
Please note, options to host music in Blogs is an ever changing space; I am not surprised if a free service for audio hosting is launched tomorrow in this web 2.0 world, which makes this blog post obsolete. Like for instance, I have seen Wordpress blogs having a much more integrated approach to host clips (provided by wordpress) that I didn't even mention. So please keep yourself up to date with latest developments;
And yes, I don't encourage or discourage readers to use any of the vendors listed here; Its just an unbiased amateurish review based on some personal experience; So please be your own judge !
With Love
Vicky
Like they say "A Picture is worth more than a thousand words", for people who write about music (or at least those who think they write... like me!) or if you are a music artist, its better to let your music do the talking rather than you :-P. That way, the point couldn't be driven home more. Further, you may not fool around the reader to sound as if you know more than you actually do (!!) when the evidence for your view is provided side by side..
But the problem is when it comes to hosting a music clip (mostly mp3) on blogs, the "how to do" part is not always very straight forward;
So here is a Dummy's guide on how to host your own music in your website/ blogs;
There are primarily 3 ways to do this:
Category 1:
You go to a one stop shop, where You let someone else control both your music file and the player it uses.
Mostly these are websites with file upload feature + a (usually flash based) player; Most of the time they allow streaming (i.e., playing the file already while its still downloading). The playback mechanism is native to the player. Since they take care of a to z, nothing specific is needed from you other than, 1.) uploading your file, 2.)Getting the code for 'sharing' and 3.) placing it in your blog post.. All these steps are rather self explanatory once you visit the web site who offers you this service.
There are too many websites who provide this service, both paid and free; You can google out and I am sure you will find zillions of them; I am mentioning two of my favorites;
1.) In the free category, the basic package offered by Soundcloud looks cool; They have lot of cool things such as non-technical easy presentation language in their site which makes the layman orient himself better. The player also allows you to insert comment on the sections of the song while its playing so you can communicate more effectively with your reader about a particular span of the clip while they are listening;
2.) In the paid category, hipcast looks complete; Its very popular among the Indian Audio bloggers in internet. As a regular listener to some of those audio blogs, I find it pretty Ok; But remember it burns a hole in your purse;
esnips seems to be very popular as well; But I've had playback issues with it, although it could be only me.. Plus, their plugin themes are always "hip" and playful; Thats fine for "da ma n newayz" crowd, while their plain themes are rather bulky; Would be nice if they could rework more on their plugin layouts..
I've also seen Muziboo and Picklecast that people use; Haven't tried them myself to comment;
I used boomp3 for sometime and ditched it due to its inconsistent playback;
Category 2:
You control both the file that is played and the audio player used inside the browser. This is a 2 step manual process and
Here is how you can do it
1.) First find yourself where to host your file. Choose one of the many free storage providers in the internet. Pay attention to two factors while you do this. One, They should offer direct access of the file through URLs (Not all do, like MSN's Sky drive is great but as I write this, it doesn't yet offer a direct anonymous access); Two, it should provide a decent bandwidth limit so that your readers are guaranteed most of the time that the file is available (Google pages or its new avatar Google site falls flat here; from my personal experience it blacks out the file after a few many times its been accessed); And then upload your file there. Note down the direct URL of this file;
Note: I use Fileden's free account; It provides 5GB of bandwidth per account per month; Put in perspective, if you are hosting about 5 MB of music in your blog, it plays up to 5000 times per month; I have only about 600 hits or so a month on my music blog; So it works fine for me so far..
2.) Copy the following piece of HTML code and paste it in your blog post:
<embed src="change me" type="application/octet-stream" autostart="false" loop="true"></embed>
Replace the change me with your actual file location noted on step 1;
That's it; You are ready to go;
For the more curious ones, what this code snippet does is, it lets the browser to play the music via the plug-in that you have asked it to to use (this is already configured in IE by default. It uses Windows media player plugin by default; For Mozilla, you may have to install additional plugins). the <embed> tag used here is a native part of HTML specifications and will work for all browsers; Also As you can see, there are two other self explaining parameters in that HTML code snippet; Autostart and loop; if the former is set to true, the file plays automatically when the page is loaded and if the later is set to true, the file will be played repeatedly until you quit the page.
Adv:
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a.) Total freedom on your hands; You can always choose where to host the file and you are using an audio player plugin installed in your computer; If at all you chose any provider from category 1 and if tomorrow he shuts down the free service, you might be left in lurch.
b.)It supports not just mp3 but any file type (such as midi or ogg files) as long as your browser has a plugin for the given file type.
c.) Though manual, Category 2 is very simple (uses native provisions of HTML) but very effective (like it allows streaming as well)
DisAdv:
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a.) In the context of the above point, the 'embed' tag is not a hyperlink and hence it also downloads the file when the page is loaded. Therefore this leads both you and your reader at disadvantage. While your precisous bandwidth is wasted irrespective of the reader listens the track or not, for the reader it takes forever the page to load depending on the amount of content you hosted in the page and his network speed. Besides bandwidth to host the file is a premium now a days; Unless you have your own web server or a private host who can hold your content (Like your ISP), you are at the mercy of free storage providers in the internet for hosting your file. All said, normally they all have a bandwidth limit; The free accounts certainly do.
b.) Although this works in the most common scenario (i.e., if you use Windows and an IE browser, this approach is almost guaranteed to work by default), sadly most popular media files (such as mp3) are not often understood by default in (all) browsers. So sometimes you have to install additional plugins which automatically solves the problems; But if your stars are bad, you may also have to tweak the browser settings on top of that. Check the trouble shooting section below for more info;
But as I said, If you use Internet Explorer, don't bother too much. It will work without any extra efforts.
Trouble Shooting:
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A General trouble shooting guide to all plugins related problems in browsers can be found here.
Although its guaranteed to work in IE, often an additional plugin is required for other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox; You have to install Apple Quicktime (or VLC Media player plugin) in your computer. Quicktime should also work for other popular browsers. Personally I have had problems with Google Chrome and further looking up revealed that since the browser is still nascent, it might have to travel some distance before it supports lot of features taken for granted now a days. Anyways, Often installing one of this should solve the problem automatically; If it doesn't, try this page for some tips. If you use other browsers, then you may have to look for appropriate audio plugins specific to your browser. (Che.. By giving that useless info, I am sounding too much like the documentation we write for the software we make!!)
Category 3
This is a kind of hybrid option between category 1 and 2; You control the file to play but depend on someone else for the player; The advantages of this category is immense.
1.) Normally these players are browser independent and you shouldn't face any plugin problem and such whichever browser you use.
2.) Unlike the embed tag, the audio track is hosted as a hyperlink. This means the file is streamed/ downloaded only when someone clicks on it. So you save bandwidth and the page loads faster to your reader.
I have seen odeo being one of the most popular player in this space; But I am sure there are many more in this category too. More info on Odeo can be found here and here. However in my personal opinion, the the streaming rate of Odeo is not smooth and leaves one much to be wanting.
For reasons unknown to me, Yahoo Media Player is not so widely used as far as I have seen. However I find this as the magic bullet that solves all the problems discussed above across the categories. The player is sleek, it is guaranteed to work on all browsers. Streaming is really seamless. It aggregates all tracks in your page into a nice integrated playlist (although on some occasions this can be a nuisance). The code to integrate the player to your page is lean and mean; It is supported by a very vibrant community in the internet (so you get nice support from fellow Yahoo Media Player users). The player can be placed inline with the texts in your post. It has some cool features such as tracing the location of song within the page from the player (like a song locator); The code to evoke the player refers to a common link which means, when there is a latest and greatest version of the player released, you are automatically upgraded without any code change; The hidden capabilities and user specific customization possibilities that one can achieve in this player by tweaking its code are immense; At the same time, its also a bit esoteric. For instance, you need a special code to turn off the auto start of next song that you wouldn't know normally unless you google it out or if you are part of the YMP community.
Verdict:
My verdict is the combination of Fileden (to host the files) + Yahoo Media Player (to play it in your page). You can find all about how I have used it in my music blog.
The biggest unintended impact this player has is, since the clips are Hyperlinked, it allows one to link a clip over the portion of text that talks about the clip. The embedding is seamless even if its amidst the paragraphs. The icons indicating the clips are unmissable and non-intrusive. This gives the reader an unique experience of listening to the clip while simultaneously reading about it.
Audio Editing:
For audio editing, Such as clipping only part of a music file, stitching many clips into one file etc., I use Audacity. I find it more than sufficient for my blogging needs.
Disclaimer:
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Please note, options to host music in Blogs is an ever changing space; I am not surprised if a free service for audio hosting is launched tomorrow in this web 2.0 world, which makes this blog post obsolete. Like for instance, I have seen Wordpress blogs having a much more integrated approach to host clips (provided by wordpress) that I didn't even mention. So please keep yourself up to date with latest developments;
And yes, I don't encourage or discourage readers to use any of the vendors listed here; Its just an unbiased amateurish review based on some personal experience; So please be your own judge !
With Love
Vicky
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