Ink Pixels Paper

Life, or something like that… (personal reflections)

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:38:49 -0500

The cosmos has a twisted sense of humor. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been thrown some really screwed up situations. Maybe I brought them on myself. Some certainly do see it that way. My IQ is sufficiently high, and I’ve accomplished enough in my life, that I’d seriously question that idea. I do not like drama. I watch TNT, and when I’ve had enough, I turn off the damned thing. Having human beings in my life provides plenty of drama, TYVM.

In 2011, I re-met the love of my life, the one man I always thought I could fall in love with, if things had gone differently. It turned out he believed the same thing, about me. Timing is everything, as is communication. I communicated boundaries, what consequences would be, discussed repercussions and associations. There was no way for me to realize that he wasn’t capable of thinking beyond the end of his, <cough>, nose. I really didn’t think he was like that.

So, I got screwed. And not in any pleasurable way. For months, I was under a degree of stress that I thought was going to end, that I just had to support my beloved while he tried to accomplish something very difficult, and encountered resistance. Then things switched. My body must have decided the sand had run out of the glass… Heartbreak, shingles. I’ve never been so sick in my entire life. I wished for death. I still do, trying to pick up the pieces of my life. Abandoned, homeless, out of work, broke, and completely confused. This is where the real magic begins, or so the movies & books would have you believe. I’m at the bottom of life, grateful for the couch I sleep on, at the mercy of a dear friend.

If you have family who have never violated ultimate boundaries, significant others who trust you enough to show you their worst, a job that challenges you, a dog who gazes lovingly at you — you are blessed. I hope to join your ranks again someday.

Designer or Developer? Or, something more?

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:27:00 -0500

I consider myself a designer who codes. “Developer” is (in my mind) someone who can write JavaScript without just cutting & pasting, following directions. Sure, it is something I aspire to, but without a JavaScript Obi-wan, I will forever just look on wistfully. I can read, learn, code — on-my-own — for a while, but to really use it, I’ll need to work alongside someone who really knows their stuff. Even CSS, I’ve discovered “best practices” seem to be a subjective style, particularly when discussing CSS3 and responsive techniques. Everyone has an opinion, what works for them, and that’s just how it goes.

As far as design, that is definitely subjective. Designers have a style, there are trends, there are other styles out there — and a client can tell you what they like and want, and even if it isn’t your style, you can deliver it. It’s wonderful when a client comes to me because they actually like my style, although I don’t see it as “my style,” rather I evaluate their own goals, their audience, and work toward something that will serve them for at least five years. That’s what I’m thinking, anyway.

Recently, I worked on a project where I was the developer. The project was under another company’s product brand, so I wanted to be sure to deliver what they would want representing them. This meant building files in ways that were unfamiliar to me. Awesome! Learning! I love that! However, it also put me in the humbling position of having to ask a lot of questions and admitting that I didn’t know things. It made me feel stupid. I’m not stupid, but tell me that… I can’t fully hear it. Maybe that’s just me. I’m not sure. Due to schedules, it wasn’t really possible for me to have my questions answered, and I had to turn things over to be completed by the owner. I really feel defeated. Not only did I not deliver the final product, but I didn’t learn anything.

What can I learn from this? The one thing I know is that there must be communication for any endeavor to succeed. Communication needs to be scheduled, as much as any deliverables are. This is actually the real goal of AGILE or SCRUM, beyond any results. Communication is key. As humans, that’s what I bet LIFE is about, too. Not about any defeat over evil or wisdom, but COMMUNICATION. Communication development, for all of us.

formspring.me

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:17:21 -0400

Ask me something that might be interesting… http://formspring.me/j6n9

HTML5 DOCTYPE, to-go…

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:27:00 -0400

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> 
<head>
    <meta charset=utf-8 /> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<title>Subscriber | Delta Dental of Virginia</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheets/main.css" />
<link href="scripts/script.js" />
</head>

Resource: Accessible Table Base HTML

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:27:00 -0500

I’m hoping to provide this as a resource. Let me know if I have any errors here.

<table cellspacing="1" summary="This table contains a description.">
<caption>Your table heading</caption>
<thead>
	<tr>
		<th scope="col">th content</th>
		<th scope="colgroup" colspan="3">th content</th>
	<tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
	<tr>
		<td>cell content</td>
		<td>cell content</td>
		<td>cell content</td>
		<td>cell content</td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Resources

Who are you building for?

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:00:07 -0500

To best meet the needs of people, you need to empathize with and understand them.

The more you can identify with them, the better your work.

We learn from each other, as well as our own experiences.

These words are MY OPINION. If you find value in them, great. If you disagree, then let’s agree to disagree. I’m trying to help. I’m trying to create a bridge, not divide our community. This is not about women vs men. Don’t put that old battle on me. I wish I could call out all the people who are dissing me, putting their baggage on me, but… finger pointing. What’s it good for? People will only change when they choose to.

We need more voices in the web community. If you are not a white male, pick a topic & share what you know. If you’re a white male, sure, do it, too. But, right now, if you’re not a white male, you likely feel you don’t fully belong in this field (this is what I’ve heard from many) — so I’m trying to encourage you. You likely feel excluded, lonely, anxious, and like you have less to offer, that no one wants to hear from you because you’re not famous. There are others who feel like that.

There are kids in high school not choosing design & development, because they get the message that the field doesn’t welcome them.

For example, young minority high schoolers I spoke with believed Romney would win the last election. They didn’t believe a woman or a black man could be president. They voted Romney in their school election for that reason. That’s how little they feel valued, how little they feel their voice matters — they voted for ROMNEY! When Obama won, they were shocked. They literally cried. Really. This is a tough, urban high school, and these kids, boys & girls, cried in front of their classmates. They had a moment of hope. Hope can be terrifying because… it hurts when it fails to be.

I want to encourage people of as many different experiences as possible to share their knowledge, so we create a better community, better work, and dispel long-held myths and animosities. Some of the greatest voices in our field have incredible backgrounds. I’m thinking of a woman who was a carpenter before she became a well-known developer. There’s a man who was a A&R rep for music companies before he became an accessibility expert.

I don’t want to be a speaker, but I spoke recently and will continue to, because I want to give back to this community that has given so much to me. It turns out, although I’m not an expert in my own eyes, I do know some things that can help others, who know things that I don’t. If we share our knowledge… man, that’s beautiful.

I am not a feminist. I am for equality. I want equal rights for all. However, we are not all equal. Our differences make things different. It is our systems that fail to adapt to this. We can respect and value those differences instead of being afraid and angry about them. Nearly everything boils down to having genuine respect for others (oh, and ourselves, something I, personally, struggle with).

For example, the young man who refused to wrestle against the young woman he was matched with. I believe he had a valuable point. Sports like wrestling & boxing are not appropriate for coed participation because violence between the sexes is a serious problem. We need to teach to respect our differences, empathize with each other, honor our vulnerabilities, and have compassion for others. If it was tennis, I’d say go for it. The fact is, men and women are different. Our roles in society are different. Our experiences are different. In order to build empathy, we’re going to have to communicate.

I used to be offended when a man held a door for me, or walked on the street-side of the sidewalk when we were walking together. I interpreted it as him thinking I was weaker. Recently, I realized it is an act of respect. It is good manners. It does not mean he diminishes me. Thank you, Gerald Croteau and Juhan Sonin, for teaching me this.

You have to experience things to know what they feels like, to have empathy. The more experiences you have, the more you feel & know, the more you can empathize, and the better your work. You’ll code more intuitive interfaces if you have a broader understanding of human experience.

To learn, though, you have to be presented with opportunities. We spend so much time at computers, we lose opportunities to experience. Get out there, meet people who are different from you. Learn to do new things — take painting, cooking, hip hop classes. Volunteer in your community. You will become more emotionally intelligent and a better designer / developer for it.

Next: Compassion

Funding Your Vision (140 characters just aren't cutting it today.)

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:34:37 -0500

Today’s brouhaha over Kickstarter & Andy Rutledge’s essay on profit (http://www.andyrutledge.com/profit-lies-theft-and-idiocy.php) rankles me. For quite some time now, I’ve had a problem with Kickstarter. Kickstarter is an option for crowd-sourcing your project. It works for people with a reputation, usually for quality but not always. Sometimes, it’s the person who buys the most beers at an event. It’s a popularity contest, and I don’t mean that one knows the person personally, rather by reputation.

The problem I’ve had with it is that a complete unknown has zero chance of their project being funded via Kickstarter. That wasn’t Kickstarter’s initial mission. It was great when it was practically an anonymous funding project, there was a project outline or brief, with a name that meant nothing, and people funded based on the idea/project. I thought that was pretty cool. The idea merited the funding, not the popularity. Let’s take the names off! Let the merit of the idea speak, not the reputation of the person.

My issues with Kickstarter definitely does not say that anyone is lacking in talent. I just come from a school where we fund our own visions. Some of the folks submitting Kickstarter proposals have the income to fund their own vision, have stable careers, and just need to budget and save to finance their project. They want a traditional book advance to allow them to focus on their project. That’s what the profits of their careers ought to be applied to.

Amanda Palmer is guaranteed success because everyone knows who she is. She’s built a solid fanbase by socializing. She was smart to create a very public persona, initially in Harvard Square as a living statue, then blogging like a woman possessed, and every single action since then. She certainly isn’t the most talented musician in the world, but, boy, is she passionate about the spotlight. Madonna worked the system in a similar way. If you’re not the most talented, be the most charismatic. If you are the most talented, you’ll still need to figure out how to work the system.

Frank Chimero is a brilliant designer and writer who regularly contributes great value to our community. I’m sure his book will further his influence and result in great profits for himself.

I disagree with Ryan Carson about Ethan Marcotte’s choice to go with A Book Apart being one that didn’t allow him as much freedom as the choice Frank has made. The traditional book advance system is more helpful, the publisher is taking a chance, providing funding so the writer can focus on the project, and will recoup the outlay if the book is successful. If the book fails, the publisher is out the advance. Record companies blew it by making the advance a loan that must be paid back, regardless of success.

I’d like to see Kickstarter benefit the project and the folks who fund it, by seeing a return on their investment.

When these Kickstarter-funded projects pull in the big bucks, will the people who funded them get a percentage of the profits? Will there be a full accounting of how the funds were spent?

How is this any different than Arianna Huffington & her volunteer contributors that everyone seems to be bitching about?

My focus is elsewhere at the moment, as I’m trying to finalize my first presentation. This is eating at my attention, though, so I wanted to try to get my thoughts down. The Tumblr format for writing blog posts doesn’t quite work as well for me as I’d like, often resulting in an all-over-the-place post. I still need to find a solution that works for me.

Quotes are powerful inspiration for change, for me.

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:33:00 -0500

I wonder why. Do you find inspiration in quotes?

It seems odd to me that reflecting upon someone else’s words allows me better self-understanding, which prompts change for me.

Often, I send messages to folks, asking big questions without providing background. Their answers motivate me.

Words have power. Use them positively.

140 is not enough.

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 13:54:00 -0500

Be the CHANGE you want to see in the world.

COMMUNICATE.

Be COMPASSIONATE.

Take RESPONSIBILITY for your actions.

APOLOGIZE when you screw up, especially if you hurt someone. Acknowledge exactly what you did, how you hurt them, and do not do it again.

GIVE others a chance to repair damage they cause you.

Set an EXAMPLE.

INSPIRE others.

CHOOSE the people in your life wisely.

ACCEPT them for who they are, and be GENEROUS with your LOVE, WISDOM, FORGIVENESS, UNDERSTANDING, and TIME.

CONSEQUENCES are a part of any action.

You can’t make anyone change. They will change when they are ready to. No matter how much you care for them, it is what it is and they’re only willing to do what they are willing to do. If you love them, be tolerant and patient while they learn. Take the time to show them you believe in them. Who knows? Maybe you’ll discover they’re right.

Use @font-face today

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:23:00 -0500

*NOTE: Now, thanks to @jasonsantamaria, I remember why I was waiting! Doh! I meant to provide a step-by-step guide on how to use @font-face yourself, without one of the online vendors, such as Typekit, Fontdeck, Kernest and Typotheque. And, I forgot to complete the steps! I’ve corrected that below.

You’re a brave soul! Hah!

Using @font-face should be a lot more straightforward than it actually is, but the only way to get used to it is to actually do it. I’m going to outline the steps here to using Chunk. Another time I’ll choose another font, because if the font has italics, you have to go through a few more hoops.

Handy-dandy tool: FontSquirrel’s @Font-face Generator. This is probably the safest bet for generating the right files, css, and getting the attributes spec’d right.

You’ll need to choose a font that is legally allowed to be used on the web. There are a variety of options for this, from free fonts to buying fonts. The League of Movable Type has some free options, as does Font Squirrel.

Which Browser needs which font format?

IE: proprietary format called EOT, or Embedded Open Type, .eot

Firefox (Mozilla): .ttf, .otf, & .woff

Safari: .ttf, .otf, & .svg

Chrome: .ttf & .svg

Opera: .ttf, .otf, & .svg

If you want to know which specific browser version, you can search for that. This is just a guideline.

Be sure to follow the instructions/demo in the @font-face kit generator exactly. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent chasing a bug, only to find I wasn’t using the same spelling of the font-family name throughout my files. *facepalm*

You’ll need to include those fonts that Font Squirrel generates on your site. I generally include them in my stylesheets folder, so that the css doesn’t have too far to go to look for them. I’ve tried putting them in a separate folder, but experienced issues with some of the fonts breaking the path to them. Next, include the css that Font Squirrel generates at the top of your css file.

/*font-face*/

/* Generated by Font Squirrel (http://www.fontsquirrel.com) on May 15, 2010 */

@font-face {

	font-family: 'ChunkFive';

	src: url('/stylesheets/chunkfive-webfont.eot');

	src: local('?'), url('/stylesheets/chunkfive-webfont.woff') format('woff'), url('/stylesheets/chunkfive-webfont.ttf') format('truetype'), url('/stylesheets/chunkfive-webfont.svg#webfontmi976L8G') format('svg');

	font-weight: normal;

	font-style: normal;

}



.ChunkFive {font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;line-height:normal; font-family: 'ChunkFive', Georgia, serif;}

Next, indicate in the style you want to use the font, the name of the font, like this:

h2 { color:#468c82; font:1.4em 'ChunkFive', Georgia, serif; font-weight:normal; margin-bottom:.3em; }

Now, make sure you’ve uploaded all your font files, saved and uploaded your css.

View your site in the whole range of browsers you’re looking to support. How’d you do? Let me know, in case I’ve forgotten a step or three. :)

Other than using @font-face, you can also be more thoughtful about what font stacks you spec. Mark Boulton wrote an article for 24ways on the typography choices and this article at A Way Back on Revised Font Stack, has been really helpful to me.

Additionally…

Paul Irish on @font-face

Paul Irish’s update on @font-face gotchas

Snook: Becoming a Font Embedding Master

Snook: Bugs in Font-face in Chrome

Snook: 24-ways Spruce it Up

Fluid Web Typography, a guide, by Jason Cranford Teague

[OMG! I just realized I never PUBLISHED this! What was I waiting for?!]

CSS3 Background Gradient Plus Background Image

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:47:00 -0400

Yesterday, I asked my Twitterverse for guidance on a css issue: I needed/wanted to have a background gradient plus a background image. I’d tried it, but wasn’t getting the expected results. @girlie_mac, @cdmuench, @estellevw & @denisejacobs all came to my rescue. Sweethearts, that they are!

Tomomi Imura (@girlie_mac) had the link that led me to a solution, in Mozilla: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/using_gradients

Great, Firefox works. It turns out that Webkit uses the same sort of configuration, too, so it’s working in Safari & Chrome, now.

Here’s my sample.

For any browser that doesn’t support background gradients and background images, they’re just going to see a flat yellow background and the icon. That’s fine.

I wonder… it's worth a try.

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:53:00 -0400

Perhaps many people don’t know where I come from. You might think I come from another planet. I could see that. ;P

For one thing, my father was in the U.S. Air Force. When I was four years old, my family moved to rural West Germany, and I’m thankful for the childhood experience there. The farms, the cultural aesthetics, the bread, the schnitzel, the language… it was so potent and colorful. The quality of life, goods, food and travel informed much of my design sensibilities. We traveled all over Europe, so I saw Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Vienna, Munich, Frankfurt, and a few other places. Blessed for the visual history. Later we moved to DC which allowed for regular trips to the Smithsonian and national monuments, the Atlantic seashore, colonial Williamsburg, Gettysburg, Hershey, and so much more. I had no idea how special these experiences were. When we were reassigned to Los Angeles, our family drove cross-country. It wasn’t the most peaceful family trip (we fought like demons) but seeing Four Corners, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Boulder, Colorado, are memories that stuck. I wish there were more. Living in Southern California was interesting. We were in the San Bernadino Valley, rather than in L.A., so… it wasn’t very hip, but it was cool. Between my freshman & sophomore years we moved to Northern Maine. I’ve picked potatoes in the field, on a harvester, and loaded them into the storage barn. They let us out of school for six weeks in the fall to help with the potato harvest. I’ve even gone hunting! Although I did everything I could to undermine our success (we saw & shot at nothing!). I’ve shot more guns that you can probably name, and am an excellent shot. For example, do you know that an M-16 kicks back hard, but an M-60 pulls you forward? That M-16 gave me a nasty bruise on my shoulder.

After leaving the military world during college, I became immersed in the underground music world. Punk rock saved my life! But, what people don’t know is how many flavors of punk rock there are. It’s not all Sex Pistols and drugs and tattoos and piercings and destruction. There’s an amazing punk movement that is about art, peace, integrity, and do-it-yourself — this is *my* punk rock. Bands like Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Shellac, Crass,… I can’t even list them all, work to advance our cultural awareness, exploring sonic art. This is what interests me. I believe that Nirvana reached so many because the sonic waves vibrate on a universal consciousness that speak to many on a subconscious level. They’re not the only band out there, either. Mainstream media encourages people to listen to them about what is good, and people don’t really know how to *hear* for themselves anymore. This is one of my lifetime fights — to teach people to feel, hear and see for themselves, to discover their own ethical motivations and communicate about them appropriately. This is how I piss people off. People are resistant to and terrified of change. I suspect they are scared to even think for themselves. I don’t mean to say that what I think is the only ‘right’ either. I want to hear what other people think, and discuss things. We may not agree and that’s okay.

In 1994 I had the opportunity to work with Ian MacKaye. The moment when we were counting the cash on the floor of the gym was a major epiphany for me. My instincts are true. My instincts are worth fighting for and believing in. I am strong and honest. Yeah, I come across as kind of ‘different’ and maybe even a bit of a hippy, but I’m not. I’m the truth you want to believe in, that scares you, that you can’t run from. Don’t run. It’s worth being real, worth being honest, worth working hard for a better world. There are some universal “right” things, and sure, there are things we will have to agree to disagree on, but we should always communicate with compassion and strive to do better.

Be Thorough - a checklist in-progress

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:00:00 -0400

I’m going to update this post once in a while and go ahead and post it now, even though it is pretty rough.

Today, HTML5 is being hammered out but there are a few things you can use today to be forward-thinking. Microformats make your web content more valuable by adding additonal context and allowing API’s to repurpose it. Implementing the different flavors of ARIA makes your content more accessible. But what is what, how to begin, and what’s ready to use? I’m going to try to document what I’m using and hopefully, it will be useful to you.

First thing: change your doctype! This one is fun and very satisfying. Your current doctype is probably something like:

 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

But HTML5 has a nice succinct doctype that you can actually use today (and code from memory):

<!doctype html>

Seriously. That’s it and, yup, it’s ready for prime time.

Next, add microformats. This one has many levels of intricacy and I strongly recommend Emily Lewis’ book Microformats Made Simple. Another handy reference is http://microformats.org/ and, specifically, http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard, for the hcard property list since this is the one that, I think, is probably going to be a great place to start and something you can use today. Using hcard properties to tag

Improve your site’s accessibility by implementing ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), and a great place to start is Document Landmark Roles. The roles define the structure of your document so that users of assistive technology can orient themselves and navigate within your document. Gez Lemon wrote a great rundown on the basics, available at: http://juicystudio.com/article/examining-wai-aria-document-andmark-roles.php

Frustration / F*ckstration?

Tue, 25 May 2010 13:24:00 -0400

I wanted my next post to be this great one I’m drafting on @font-face & typography, with a great step-by-step tutorial and review of Jason Cranford Teague’s Fluid Web Typography, but… I’m so F*CKSTRATED!!!

Backstory: I’ve been freelancing for fifteen years, in varying degrees. Sure, I know there are periods of feast or famine, but I never seem prepared for either. That’s frustration.

Now: Over the years, I’ve pretty much been a recluse, leaning on a close group of friends to commiserate or glean advice from. Now that I’ve become more web-entrenched, that group of friends can’t really relate as well, so I’ve turned to AIM, Skype, Twitter & tech meetups — but I really don’t think it’s providing quite the same degree of satisfaction. This is f*ckstration!

Last night I attended Kristina Halvorson’s talk at Content Strategy New England, and I am even more frustrated! Currently, I do design, development, production, project management — for print & web & interface. I do a bit of copy writing and information architecture, but I find it very difficult to change gears effectively and definitely would prefer to coordinate efforts with someone more adept at content strategy. However, where is the budget going to come from?

Content is where design comes from. Design is where development comes from. If the content is crap, the design & development will be. Our clients cannot write their own content and produce anything that will be truly useful to their users, unless they’re unbelievably brilliant, and that just doesn’t happen.

I want to produce incredible work. I don’t care about the attention, but I want to create work that serves the needs of the audience, that doesn’t simply add to the garbage that exists, that doesn’t slowly die a bit more every day that it sits there on the internet or shelf. At the moment, I feel at my wit’s end because I truly can’t find the budget to bring in anyone else and I don’t have the financial means to charge any less than I am.

Right now, I am swamped with work and I need every bit of it, since I recently hit a Perfect Storm of coincidences that resulted in personal crises and I’m digging out now. Trying to balance self-care and meeting the needs of my clients, I am sliding around right now. Sure, I’ve been here before, and I know that I will regain my balance and be strong and purposeful (probably later this afternoon!), but at the moment, I want to sit down and draw up a map of all of my objectives and find my way through them.

And I really really wanted to talk this out last night, try to make sense of a clear path to work out how to approach things more constructively, but… my usual sounding board was busy with something pretty darned important and I really didn’t know where else to turn. So, I turned off all devices and went to bed, hoping that I’d have clarity in the morning. Nope. I still don’t see a way to make things better, nor do I feel that I can communicate any better. Do you see why I call it f*ckstration? :)

I need people.

What the !@#$ is .ogv?

Wed, 12 May 2010 14:14:00 -0400

Originally written on March 22, 2010

Recently I wanted to download a video file to play offline. Since it was offered for download, I saved it. It had an .ogv file extension. I was like: “Say what?!” I’d never heard of the .ogv file extension. I double-clicked it and nothing happened. I searched and nothing made any sense. I gave up and presumed it was something weird.

When I attended SXSWi 2010, the .ogg format was mentioned in many presentations on HTML5 video and audio; I realized I needed to get to the bottom of this unknown format.

A quick web search resulted in the usual Wikipedia overview (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg) that ogg is a free, open standard container format from the Xiph.Org Foundation, intended to provide a high quality digital multimedia format without the usual proprietary restrictions. The three ogg formats are:

.oga for audio only files
.ogv for video with or without sound
.ogx for applications

All I want to do is play this video when and where I want to! So, how do I play an ogv?

Initially, someone suggested a visit http://www.vorbis.com/, where I downloaded a Xiph Quicktime Component (XiphQT) to allow iTunes and other Quicktime apps to play ogg vorbis files. Nada. No result.

Then someone else suggested VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/). Voila! I downloaded it, copied it to my Applications folder, opened it, dragged the file into the interface, and instantly viewed the video. Happy camper!

Well, almost… I’d really like to have it in a format I can play on my iPhone whenever I wish. How to convert it to an mp4? For Mac OsX, Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/) did the job quite nicely.

Additionally…

Simon Pieters recently wrote an article on the subject at dev.opera.com (http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/everything-you-need-to-know-about-html5-video-and-audio/) that provides an excellent overview of the larger subject of HTML5 video and audio.

Free (open-source) encoder to Ogg and mp4: Miro Video Converter http://bit.ly/axfGyk