The State of HTML5 Video
Excellent article by LongTailVideo on current (Jan 2012 article, Nov 2011 data) support of HTML5 video features on various devices and browsers.
Keep in mind that this is specific research and should be balanced using your own site analytics (eg. Your site gets mostly Firefox traffic vs IE you can move towards certain features sooner).
QR Codes and vCards
While playing around with QR Codes as discussed here and here I found myself wondering if I could throw together a dynamic QR Code for creating a vCard. The answer was yes. With a couple small caveats, it looks ugly and I’ve tested it but you need to test it yourself before publishing the QR Code, I’m pretty happy with the results.
I did find that my favorite QR Scanner I use on my iPhone was one of the many that suffers from poor vCard support so data was getting put in the wrong fields. Once I tried QRafter (vCard support is good, but I’m still not sold on the rest of it) I was able to properly test the images.
Feel free to give it a try, right-click on the preferred image to save and post your comments or feedback here. I get the feeling I will be updating this to make it more useful.
Using ShortCodes in WordPress Text Widgets
Shortcodes can be incredibly useful in WordPress posts but have you ever tried to put them into a text widget? Not much luck there when all you get is the text showing the [shortcode] you entered.
Well, there is a quick and easy solution. Just add this to your functions.php file:
add_filter( 'widget_text', 'shortcode_unautop'); add_filter( 'widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
Source: using shortcodes everywhere
Simple. Now you’ll be able to use your cool shortcodes within text widgets.
iPhone, 1 Pixel Out Audio Player and HTML5 – The Prequel
Lots of response to my original article about HTML5 and the 1 Pixel Out Audio Player. Unfortunately, most of it was because the original code and links died. I was able to get in touch with the author and he was kind enough to send all his files for me to repost and host here. Below is Ryan’s original article (with a couple minor edits requested):
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Solution to WordPress “File param is missing” no CSS
If you’ve loaded up your WordPress site and found the CSS gone, you’re not alone.
Turns out there is a new bug in the W3 Total Cache plugin of WordPress where the minified CSS and JS files aren’t accessible. Your site will throw a 400 Bad Request error and if you try to access the referenced file directly you’ll get a “File param is missing” message.
The quick fix until it is addressed by the folks at W3 Total Cache is to disable the “Rewrite URL structure” option on the Minify tab in the W3 Total Cache options panel. Hopefully it’s just temporary and the next update will resolve the issue and you can turn the rewrite back on.
Loads.in Web Page Loading Time
Test how fast your web page is loading by visiting Loads.in This can be a good first step in determining if your site is performing well. Of course, there are many other tools and techniques for determining when and where your slowdowns are occurring…or you can just give me a shout to have a look.
iPhone, 1 Pixel Out Audio Player and HTML5
Update September 2011: Looks like blueprint is offline so I contacted Ryan and he was gracious enough to provide his source files. See his original article and code now on my site.
Ryan over at intereactive.net posted an excellent fix way back in late 2009 for the 1 Pixel Out Audio Player (ETA: now on my blog since intereactive is gone). The player is widely used as a standalone item and as a WordPress plugin. The problem is that being Flash-based it isn’t supported on iDevices — iPhone, iPad, iPod — so Ryan came up with the fix. His solution detects if an iDevice is accessing the page then replaces the Flash player with an icon linking to the audio file.
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