Midnight Coward

I’m working on something kinda new.

It’s always been my dream that people could here the songs which I name the entires after. The problem’s always been that embedding audio is a royal pain, as Real, Windows Media Player, and Quicktime never came seem to agree on a happy medium.

So screw that. I found a stat which says that 97% of web users have Macromedia (Now Adobe, I believe) Flashplayer. Odds are that you are one of the 97%, and so I found a flash-based solution. Originally, I had tried XSPF Web Player, which was a small, simple player that actually uses an open source architecture for the structure of the playlists, which is rockin’, but it was too hard for me to get the hang of. [I couldn’t get the *.xspf files to behave correctly.]

A much simpler solution was the Audio Player for WordPress Plugin. It integrates directly with WordPress, and has a lot of customization without me needing to learn any crazy programming stuff. Which is neat.

So without further ado:

      Midnight Coward - Stars

I think in the future I’ll just stick these right at the top. You can listen to the song and read the entry concurrently. Any feedback on this little feature would be stellar. Right now I’ll upload some legacy tracks to the entries on the homepage. I’m not sure if I’ll be leaving them there forever, but we’ll see.

I don’t want people munching up my bandwidth just listening to MP3s and not reading the posts, so it might be a “only 10 audio files online” at a time thing. We’ll see. For now though, enjoy!

[Ed. Note (09/10/17): Turns out bandwidth wasn’t ever an issue, so all the songs still get to be heard. This functionality was updated to a different plugin eventually. Image of the old player included below for posterity:]

I should also say: I got so distracted working on this little tweak that I neglected to study for a German test I had Wednesday until like… 2 AM on Wednesday… Which was dumb. But this thing’s really cool, and the test was a joke, so I guess it’s all good.

That probably was my latest college night this year, clocking in at 4:30 AM before I was in bed and turning off the light. I was fine the next day though, which is encouraging; though sleep-fest of this semester has made me soft, I still got it where it counts, you know?

3 comments

  1. That’s neat, but I think that if you are going to do that you should start naming your posts after Tchaikovsky pieces. Of course, something like the 1812 Overture might be slightly distracting whilst reading. At the very least you should do Beatles songs.

  2. 1812 Overture is not entirely out of the question. I used a movement of Beethoven’s 9th (Choral, IV) last year, and waaaaay back in my old blog, I used the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life“. It’s more becoming a reflection of new music, like what I’m currently listening to a lot;

    However, you make a good point.
    I should be more mindful of how relevant my older stuff is.

  3. I really like this new feature, Tom. And I’m thoroughly impressed with your computer skills!!! Seriously….I wouldn’t know where to begin.
    On the downside, I feel as though you putting these songs up is just going to deplete my iTunes account because I like the song and want it for myself…

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