Dave McComb's Blog

Looks like MySpace must have turned on some new notification system in the past 24 hours because all of a sudden I started getting friend requests, updates, etc.  I haven’t gotten an email from them (or thought about them) in years.

This may be part of their plan to get people to come back to the site. And guess what? It worked. I went back to MySpace to modify my email preferences and unsubscribe from every list they had me on.  They have 31 different check boxes that you have to uncheck manually (no uncheck all option). The only reason I didn’t completely delete the account was because this one was set up for a business and it may get some minimal traffic…

The Chronotronix V400 Nixie Tube Clock may be one of the most elegant alarm clocks I have ever seen. This blend of electronics and style lends it well to the high-end geek lifestyle.  Though it begs the question: “Is $415 too much for an alarm clock?”

- via Nixie Clock | Chronotronix V400 [Buzz-Beast]

As the major video sites switch from using Flash for video towards using HTML5, you should think about doing the same on your WordPress blog.  By using the <iframe> tag instead of the <embed> tag it ensures that your video will be displayed for people on a computer, iPhone, iPad or whatever else may be coming down the road. Basically, it helps to future-proof your site and make it as accessible as possible.

The problem with using the iframe tag with WordPress is that (for security reasons), the iframe tag disappears when switching from Visual mode to HTML mode, and back again.  This can be very frustrating when you think you embed a video only to find out that it has disappeared from your post.

Luckily, WordPress plugins come to the rescue.  There are several plugins that allow you to properly use iframes in WordPress. The most popular of these seem to be: Embed Iframe, IFRAME Embed for Youtube and Insere Iframe.

While the other two may be worth checking out, I went with the last of these, Insere Iframe, because it was the one with the most flexibility and also allowed the easiest rewriting of the iframe code you will get from sites like Youtube and Vimeo.  Once you install and activate the plugin, you get a new [iframe: ] tag to use in your posts.

Here are two examples of how to copy and change the iframe code:

Using Vimeo Iframe Video Code in WordPress

Vimeo will give you iframe code that looks like this:

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14269383" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe>

With this new plugin, you simply change that code to:

[iframe:  src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14269383" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"]

Using Youtube Iframe Video Code in WordPress

Youtube will give you iframe code that looks like this:

<iframe type="text/html" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KDv5hnQ9ADk?hl=en_US" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Change that code to:

[iframe: type="text/html" width="400" height="325" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KDv5hnQ9ADk?hl=en_US" frameborder="0"]

That’s it. Simple and future-proof. I’d recommend making the switch now.