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While I have just given some link love to the creators of my most used plug ins, that is not the point of this article.

The other day a friend of mine gave me a list of plug ins to check out that was quite long. I have no idea if he actually uses these or plans to use each and everyone of them on his blog at some point, but I got to thinking. What a nightmare it would be to use this many plug ins. I mean as often as they release a new version of WP, you will have to hope that the author of each plug in has updated it to work with the next version. If not, you either have to live without it until they do update, or your blog might look different than you had originally planned.

So my point is that while plug ins are great and I thank the author of each and everyone of them for their time and effort, I believe it is a bad idea to rely too heavily on 3rd party plug ins. (unless you are able to fix the issues yourself) as it just adds more work for you when it is time to upgrade and I am afraid this might lead to some not upgrading at all.

What are your thoughts and how many plug ins do you use?

1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) The original is better than any of the sequels or remakes and was way ahead of it’s time. Surprisingly this movie is not very gory (depending on what you mean by gory anyway) more of a psychological thriller but it is pretty scary and is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.

2. Maniac This guy has some serious issues, it’s like he is crazy or something. That’s an understatement to say the least. This is a gory one about a guy that likes to sleep with mannequins,(and thats the nice part) first he has to dress them up. Now, where to get new clothes and hair?

3. Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell Here’s one about a dog. Though this is no ordinary dog. This dog is in league with the devil. Little does the unsuspecting family know what lies in wait for them.

4. Dawn of the Dead (1974) Here’s one I am sure you have all seen. If not, this is a tongue in cheek look at how to survive when the dead come back to life. No better place to go than shopping, well sorta. This is a comedy but it has definite serious moments.

5. Bad Taste What did Peter Jackson do before he made it big with the LOTR trilogy? He made bad low budget horror movies about aliens that come to Earth and turn the people of a small town into their fast food delicacy.

6. Nekromantik This is a sick one for sure. A German movie about a couple that well, likes to sleep with dead things. A human body is their first choice but animal carcasses will do on a slow night. This is not for the squeamish but a must see for a real gore fanatic.

7. An American Werewolf in London Not sure if this is a really a horror movie but none the less when I was a kid it scared the S#%*@! out of me. 2 American dudes in London out for a stroll in the moors. Oh no a werewolf, this is another tongue in cheek horror type movie.

8. Motel Hell Here is another comedy horror movie, seems most of the movies on this list are funny in some way or another but none of them are all fun and games. Neither is this one about farmer Vincent and his fritters.

9. The Return of the Living Dead Here is another living dead movie. There have been many made but only a few stand the test of time. This is one. A group of punk rockers decide to wait in a graveyard until their buddy gets off work at the nearby medical supply warehouse. Again the massive amounts of gore are shrouded by comical scenarios but there is really nothing funny about what happens in this movie. The ending is what makes it a real winner.

10. House of 1000 Corpses Rob Zombies debut as a film maker was a success. It is definitely reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw… but wow what a great violent movie. Bill Moseley is by far a great actor if you need a crazy guy. He was great as Chop Top in TCM 2 and he revisits the same sort of character again. If I ever make a horror movie he gets a part no matter what!

Well there is a list of great horror movies. I could add more but I said I would do only 10. There are actually 11 but who’s counting? Do you like horror movies? If so what are some of your favorites that I did not list? Or if you like any that I did list feel free to comment on them.

The same can be said for the internet. Or at least with my RSS feeds and the various sites I frequent on a day to day basis. When I am away from my comp for an extended period (not very often) and return later that day or the next. I feel as though I have missed out. Part of this is just habit, to some extent it is addiction. Though it goes beyond missing out on the latest topics at a message board or chatting with friends on messenger or even work for that matter, but thats a whole other article.

The point of this article is to discuss how fast things change on the world wide web or with web related technology in general. If you are not a daily web surfer you can miss out on alot. I am generally on or around the net everyday, some days more than others but still, I tend to stay up to date on the latest releases of the software I use. Wether it be the latest version of Wordpress or the various browsers I have installed, windows updates, anti-virus, messenger, you name it. The list can go on and on and on.

A couple of months ago my stereo system died. All I have left are these small computer speakers that came with my comp. They are small and sound rather tiny (especially when listening to heavy metal).

I am too cheap and/or lazy to go by another. So needless to say I have not been enjoying as much music as I usually do. Though every now and then the desire to hear some music outweighs my lack of desire to hear it through these speakers and I start up my audio app.

Each time I have started iTunes over the last 2 months it starts up and tells me there is a new version. So I download that, it updates Quicktime too so it takes a few, even on my DSL connection. By the time it is done I am either no longer in the mood or have to get up and go do something else.

This even extends off the web to cell phones, MP3 players, video game machines, even computers themselves. Again the list can go on and on and on. As soon as a product is released, the maker starts working on the next version. So you are out of style as soon as you open the box.

Hey look at my new: Insert product title here
Wow, that is nice but I just got the new version and it does this and this and this…

<embed src="audio_file.wav" autostart="true" loop="true" volume="100" hidden="true"><noembed><bgsound src="audio_file.wav"></noembed>

No, no no…
There are a few issues with the above, but mostly you know there needs to be an off button, and you do not want users to have to turn the sound off every time they come back to the site.

The best way (or at least the way I would do it) is with Flash by using a SharedObject (a flash cookie) to remember if the user has pressed the stop button.

Things you are going to need to follow along with this tutorial:

• A basic understanding of Flash/AS/HTML
• Flash software
• A small audio file

Example:

Here is what we are going to make:

As you can see the main part of this article is not a pretty flash player, it’s the SharedObject. We are going to use it to store the users decision to turn off the sound (which is what I would assume most people will do) when they visit this page. Once you have clicked stop then it will not play again until you delete the SharedObject from your hard drive. If you have clicked stop, go ahead and refresh the page, you will not hear the sound again.

If you want to delete the SO it is stored at:

Win:
C:\Documents and Settings\[Your_Username]\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects

Mac:
/Users/[Your_Username]/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player

Linux:
~/.macromedia

Okay, so on with how to make it. The first thing we need to do is prepare our flash document. Most of this is going to be accomplished with Actionscript so the first part of this is creating and naming a few symbols.

The Steps:

1. Open Flash and create a new file. Size it to 100 width x 70 height (or whatever) just make it big enough to create a couple of small buttons. Then save (file + save/ctrl + shift + s) it to your hard drive give it a name
2. Next use the tools (rectangle, oval…) to create a shape for your button
3. With the shape you made selected on the stage press F8
4. In the dialog box that appears select movieclip and give it a name of button click OK
5. Now in the properties inspector give it an instance name of play_but
6. Open the library (window > Library) and drag another instance of the button MC from the library to the stage in the properties inspector give it an instance name of stop_but
7. In the timeline name that layer buttons and lock it
8. Goto (file > import > import to library), browse to the audio file you wish to import, and select it. Open the library (window > library) right click this audio file, select linkage then in the dialog box that appears select “Export for Actionscript” then give it an Identifier name of my_audio and click OK
9. Create a new layer in the timeline and name it “actions”

The Actionscript

Create the sound object:

Now open the actions panel (window > actions) and with the empty keyframe of the actions layer selected, type the following.

var my_snd_obj:Sound = new Sound();

The above actionscript creates a sound object and stores it in a variable named my_snd_obj. You can name this variable anything you like, though check flash help for reserved names.

Attach the library sound file to the sound object:

my_snd_obj.attachSound("my_audio");

The above line attaches the sound my_audio to the sound object my_snd_obj. The name my_audio is the linkage Identifier you gave the sound back in step 8. Now that we have attached the sound to the my_snd_obj variable we can use that variable name to manipulate the sound.

For example:

my_snd_obj.setVolume(15);

Would set the volume of the sound to 15 out of 100.

Now the SharedObject

var my_so:SharedObject = SharedObject.getLocal("userPref");

The above declares a SharedObject and assigns it to a variable named my_so. Then looks for it on the users computer, if it does not exist it creates it and names it userPref. Though currently it’s value is undefined.

Now the real action begins:

if (my_so.data.stopped == undefined) {
	my_snd_obj.start(0, 1000);
} else {
	my_snd_obj.stop();
}

The above says: if the userPref SharedObject we created a minute ago has a data property with an attribute of stopped who’s value is undefined then go ahead and play the my_audio sound from the beginning looping it 1000 times, else if the data property’s attribute does have a value then stop the audio before it plays.

This works because if the user has NOT pushed the stop button then the SharedObject’s data property attribute (stopped) has no value.

Now for some more action:

stop_but.onRelease = function() {
	my_so.data.stopped = 1;
	my_snd_obj.stop();
};

The above function targets the stop_but movieclip symbol you created earlier. If clicked it sets the SharedObjects data property attribute to 1 and stops the my_audio sound.

A side note:

It is important to note that the data property MUST have a attribute name. It will not work if you attempt to assign a value directly to the data property itself.

my_so.data = 1;

Will not work.

my_so.data.attributeName = 1;

Will work because you are assigning the value to the attributeName and not the data property itself. You can name it anything you like, though check flash help for reserved names.

The extras:

Then you need to add an action for the play button should the user decide they want to hear the audio after all.

play_but.onRelease = function() {
	if (my_so.data.stopped == !undefined) {
		my_so.clear();
		my_snd_obj.start(0, 1000);
	}
};

If the SharedObject’s data property has an attribute value that is NOT undefined (meaning it exists and has a value) delete it, and start playing the audio again. This prevents the audio from starting again while it is already playing.

That is pretty much it. There are obviously many more uses for a SharedObject, this is just one example. I will try to come up with some other examples in the future. In the meantime, if you have any questions, opinions on this article or an alltogether better way to do it feel free to post it in the comments below.

Download the Flash 8 source file here (.fla}

Credits: jazz.mp3: Flash Kit

Things you will need to create this effect:

1. A graphics program (photoshop, fireworks)
2. An image or an icon of some sort

I am going to be using Fireworks for this, but I am sure this can also be done basically the same way with Photoshop or another graphics/image software that you may have.

Examples:

This effect looks better (at least to me) on black (or a dark) background. I have also created this effect on a light background so I know it will work, but cannot guarantee that it will work with all colors.

In my example files I am using the standard RSS icon available from feed icons. Though my image looks alot like theirs, I did not swipe it, I promise!

I was however inspired by it, and thus created mine based on how theirs looks. You can use any image you would like as it should have no effect but if you want you can download a sample file to use (Adobe, Fireworks CS3 .png).

The Steps:

1. Open Fireworks and import (file > import or ctrl + r) the rss image/icon
2. Copy the image (crtl + c) and paste (ctrl + v) it, move it below the original
3. Right click the newly pasted image and choose transform » rotate 180°
4. Then choose transform » flip horizontal
5. Then fade the pasted image to like 36 or so
6. Next select the rectangle tool and with the same color as the background selected draw a small rectangle over the bottom half of the pasted image
7. Then select the brush tool, again select the same color as the background set it to soft rounded and it’s tip size to 13 and brush a small line across the visible bottom portion of the pasted image
8. Fade this brush bitmap to like 55 or so
9. That is pretty much it, position and fade the 2 until it looks good to you.

Hope this is helpful to someone. Here is the finished source file if you want to look at it download the finished source file (Adobe, Fireworks CS3 .png). If you have tips or a better way altogether post it below.

So I asked Amit who knows just about everything Wordpress does, and/or what can be done with it. It took him about 30 seconds to come up with a nifty little plug in that does just what I wanted.

Thanks, Amit!

He did not seem as excited with it as I was, but I see that quite a few people have been asking for this same request at the Wordpress support forums so I have decided to just create a page for it in hopes that maybe others will find it as useful, as I have.

Download
no-excerpt-p.zip

Installation

1. Unzip
2. Upload to: http://yoursite.com/wp-content/plugins/
3. Goto: http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/plugins.php
4. Activate the plugin

Your good to go.

Of course, if you want the <p> tags around some “excerpts” and not around others you can always add the tags manually.

<p><?php the_excerpt() ?></p>