We’ve added some new stuff like video support. The player can now play YouTube videos and movie trailers – just add a YouTube link or Yahoo! Movie page link to your page. And, at long last, we’ve added a seek slider to control the position of the audio or video! That bug where songs were stopping instead of pausing when clicking pause has been fixed, as well as a bunch of other small bug fixes.

Here is the new code you will need to embed on your site to test this out (remove the other player JavaScript first):

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://webplayer.yahooapis.com/player.js"></script>

Example:
Lake of Tears: Demon you / Lily Anne
Anime “Red thread”
Top 50 Songs of the 90s in under 9 Minutes

This announcement was posted in Yahoo! discussion group at tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/yhoomediaplayer/. Feel free to post examples of how you are using the player on your site to this group.

grep -E -v '^\s*#|^\s*$|^\s*;' file

or

egrep -v '^\s*#|^\s*$|^\s*;' file

The script uses canvas element that is a part of HTML5 specification. The element is currently supported by the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera. It is not natively implemented by Internet Explorer as of version 8.

LetsTalk customer care icon

Another question I am asking myself is there a connection between this and their low rating at ResellerRatings.com.

• Any project will qualify (even commercial ones!)
• You can use any of the music available in the Dev Center.
• There is no limit to how many pieces you want to use!
• No subscription fee is required – you just need to register (for free)

The only requirement is that you must insert the Dev Center splash screen at the start of your game.

Below is my favorite piece of David’s work:

David wrote music for games like Copy Cat: A Painter’s Puzzle and Colony. In these games the music alone can keep you playing for hours. Great work, David!

It was a long time since I built my computer so I chose to go with professional PC builder to avoid messing things up. Most importantly I wanted to build a custom desktop computer according to my specification. Other things that matter the most to me were:

• Ability to customize every aspect of the configuration
• Professionalism and reliability of the builder that will treat the computer as their own
• Warranty

After doing a research online for I found AVADirect (www.avadirect.com). This is a quote from their web site:

AVADirect Custom Computers is a custom computer manufacturing company located on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio. Our company specializes in building all kinds of custom computer systems including: Windows or Linux manageable and highly-reliable servers, high-end workstations and gaming systems, business PCs, and notebooks.

Their web site amazed me. First of all, clear navigation that easily gets you through the building and ordering process. Secondly, there is so called “Featured Systems Gallery” where they showcase most common configurations that you can review. They have easy to use online tool that offers extensive choice of components. Did I mention 3 Year limited warranty on parts, 3 year warranty on labor and lifetime toll-free technical support?

Prices

It would cost you more (10% in my case) to order a computer from AVADirect in comparison to prices for individual components on NewEgg.com. But you will get excellent service and 3 year warranty in return. I think it worth every penny.

Ordering

If you are not sure what you want, you would better call them by phone 1-866-766-4629 or send them an e-mail to help you with exact configuration. Otherwise you can proceed to ordering page using navigation menu. For example:

• Desktop Computers
  • Custom Desktop Computers
    • Socket 1366 Core i7 Desktop PC
      • Core™ i7 2-way CrossFire™ 24GB Performance Series System

There you can customize anything (Figure 1) starting from computer case and including operating system, software, games and warranty.

Figure 1. Customizing your configuration

It is so easy to get frustrated with so many choices of components. But if you made a mistake or unsure about certain component, don’t worry. Each order will be reviewed by a professional to make sure that all components match.

If you are uncertain about some components, I would recommend to get an account, build your computer using their online configurator, add it to cart and then instead of checking out send yourself a quote (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Getting a quote number

After you send a quote, you will receive a quote number in the details of your quote. You can reference this number either by phone or via e-mail to avoid explaining your configuration from the scratch. In my case I was recommended to use power supply with higher output and other things that I didn’t consider as important at first.

Being cautious about using my credit card online I also asked whether they support PayPal. Sure, they do that as well.

When unexpected happens

It was a surprise for me when a few days later I got a call from AVADirect. Due to high demand graphics card that I wanted was not available so they offered me to upgrade to the same card of different manufacturer for free even though it was priced $30 higher. Same thing happened with motherboard, it was out of stock so I got another upgrade to more expensive motherboard for free which cost them another $50.

It took AVADirect 10 business days to assemble and test the computer. According to their policy every assembled computer system needs to be tested under stress loads to make sure that there are no defects in system components and they all can work together in this particular system setup for a long period of time.

You can track your order status online by logging into your account (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Order status

Unboxing

Since being placed, my order was delivered in 11 business days. It has arrived in a huge box filled to the top with packing peanuts. Inside there were computer case box and box for motherboard filled with all the supporting documents, drivers, manuals, etc.

The first thing I did is opened the case. The way cables were organized inside shows high level of professionalism and care (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Cable management

Conclusion

Overall I would recommend AVADirect to anyone who wants to buy a computer online. Their professionalism, prices and warranty are hard to beat. Although you are expected to have some knowledge about computers and their components, you can always contact AVADirect with any questions or recommendations. I am pretty sure they will patiently answer all of your questions and help you out building computer of your dream within your budget.

• About the player
• Updates
• How to use
  • How to use a playlist
• Appearance
  • How to change skin
  • How to adjust background color
  • How to adjust text color
  • How to update block with relevant information
  • How to remove block with relevant information
  • How to hide player buttons
  • How to change playlist colors
  • How to display album art
  • How to change default album art image
  • How to hide album art
  • How to change meta (album title/website URL) information
  • How to hide meta (album title/website URL) information
  • How to hide the player
  • How to hide MP3 links
  • How to hide link play/pause buttons
• Functionality
  • How to start player in a new window
  • How to disable Yahoo! search links
  • How to change default settings
• Links

About the player

The Yahoo! Media Player enhances your web site or blog by creating an embedded player for each audio link. All the links can be played with one click, turning the page into a playlist. This is done by adding just one line of code to your page.

Updates

2/15/2011 – Yahoo! Media Player beta version is released

There is beta version available with YouTube/Yahoo! Movie pages support, please see Yahoo! Media Player beta page or this post for more information. Please note that some hacks mentioned here might not work with beta version.

How to use

Please visit the Yahoo! Media Player web site (http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/) for more information.

How to use a playlist

Please visit the Yahoo! Media Player public wiki (http://yahoomediaplayer.wikia.com/wiki/How_to_link) for more information.

Note that you will not be able to test the functionality on your local computer because Yahoo! Media Player uses external service to retrieve and process XSPF files. It was done to avoid cross-domain access limitation for Flash objects and JavaScript code.

View example

How to change skin

If you want to dramatically change appearance of the player you would need to modify its skin. There are three images that player mostly uses however you will need to download just the skin image to change player’s appearance:

1. Skin image, links: Yahoo.com, PonticStar.com
2. Animated image used when player is minimized and playing a song, links: Yahoo.com, PonticStar.com
3. Animated image used to locate audio link on the page, links: Yahoo.com, PonticStar.com

Once you have downloaded the skin image, use your favorite image editing program to customize it. In order to apply the skin you would have to use the code below.

Instructions: Update path to your image file. Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Change default skin */
#ymp-player .ymp-color-main {
  background-color:transparent !important;
}

.ymp-skin {
  background-image:url(/path/to/your/mediaplayer-skin.png) !important;
}

/* Use original animated images */
#ymp-body #ymp-btn-max span.ymp-animarrow {
  background-image:url(http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/mus/ymwp/mediaplayer-animarrow-2.0.31.gif) !important;
}
a.ymp-btn-page-target em.ymp-skin,
a:hover.ymp-btn-page-target em.ymp-skin,
a:active.ymp-btn-page-target em.ymp-skin {
  background-image:url(http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/mus/ymwp/mediaplayer-findlink-2.0.31.gif)  !important;
}

If you want to use reduce loading time and avoid using two additional images, use the following code instead:

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Change default skin */
#ymp-player .ymp-color-main {
  background-color:transparent !important;
}

.ymp-skin {
  background-image:url(/path/to/your/mediaplayer-skin.png) !important;
}

/* Avoid using animated images (and reduce loading time) */
#ymp-body #ymp-btn-max span.ymp-animarrow {
  background-position:-119px -80px !important;
}
a.ymp-btn-page-target em.ymp-skin,
a:hover.ymp-btn-page-target em.ymp-skin,
a:active.ymp-btn-page-target em.ymp-skin {
  background-position:-624px -17px !important;
}

View example

How to adjust background color

Figure 1: Background color

Instructions: Update color values. Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Set background color */
#ymp-player .ymp-color-main,
#ymp-tray .ymp-color-tray {
  background-color:#2F437C !important;
}

View example

How to adjust text color

Instructions: Update color values. Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Set text color */
#ymp-player .ymp-color-text-main {
  color:#000000 !important;
}

How to update block with relevant information

You may want to display your own message in the relevant information block instead of the default “learn more about this player” link. To do so you will need link to your media like this:

a song relevant info for this song

Instructions: Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: */
/* Modify contents of the block with relevant information */
#ymp-relevant-info {
  display:block;
  position:absolute;
  left:2px;
  top:10px;
  width:116px;
  font-size:12px;
  font-weight:bold;
  line-height:13px;
  text-align:center;
  z-index:2;
} 

#ymp-relevant-info a {
  color:#3D9AD0;
}

.relevant-info {
  display:none;
}

Instructions: Insert the code below right after the line that embeds the player into your page.

<script type="text/javascript">
   function apiReadyHandler(){
      YAHOO.ympyui.util.Event.onDOMReady(UpdateRelevantInfo);
      YAHOO.MediaPlayer.onTrackStart.subscribe(UpdateRelevantInfo);
   }

   /*
      Written by Jonathan Snook, http://www.snook.ca/jonathan
      Add-ons by Robert Nyman, http://www.robertnyman.com

http://robertnyman.com/2005/11/07/the-ultimate-getelementsbyclassname/

   */
   function getElementsByClassName(className, tag, elm){
      var testClass = new RegExp("(^|\\s)" + className + "(\\s|$)");
      var tag = tag || "*";
      var elm = elm || document;
      var elements = (tag == "*" && elm.all)
                        ? elm.all
                        : elm.getElementsByTagName(tag);
      var returnElements = [];
      var current;
      var length = elements.length;
      for(var i=0; i<length; i++){
         current = elements[i];
         if(testClass.test(current.className)){
            returnElements.push(current);
         }
      }
      return returnElements;
   }

   function UpdateRelevantInfo() {
      // Default text
      var info = 'Visit ponticstar.com for more information';

      // Retrieve information about the track
      var meta = YAHOO.MediaPlayer.getMetaData();

      // If element with class "relevant-info" is available
      // inside the anchor, use its content instead
      if(meta && meta.anchor){
         var el = meta.anchor;
         var a = (el.getElementsByClassName)
                    ? el.getElementsByClassName("relevant-info")
                    : getElementsByClassName("relevant-info", null, el);
         if(a.length > 0){ info = a[0].innerHTML; }
      }

      document.getElementById('ymp-relevance').innerHTML = '
' + info + '

';
   }

   YAHOO.MediaPlayer.onAPIReady.subscribe(apiReadyHandler);
</script>

View example

How to remove block with relevant information

Figure 2: Relevant information block is removed

Player displays “Learn more about this player” link along with lyrics or related videos. If you are trying to minimize size of the player, use the code below.

Instructions: Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: */
/* Remove block with relevant information */
#ymp-relevance { display:none !important; }
.ymp-player-max #ymp-body { width:570px !important; }
.ymp-player-max #ymp-body #ymp-body-strip { width:557px !important; }
.ymp-player-max #ymp-body #ymp-body-base  { width:560px !important; }

View example

How to hide various buttons

Instructions: Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Hide 'close window' button */
#ymp-btn-close { display:none !important; }

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Hide 'pop-up window' button */
#ymp-btn-pop { display:none !important; }

View example

How to change playlist colors

Figure 3: Playlist colors

Instructions: Update color values. Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Playlist colors */
/* Default color for playlist entries */
#ymp-tray .ymp-tray-track {
  color:#FFCE0C !important;
}

/* Highlighted track */
#ymp-tray .ymp-tray-track:hover {
  color:#FFFFFF !important;
  background-color:transparent !important;
}

/* Currently playing track */
#ymp-tray .ymp-tray-track.playing,
#ymp-tray .ymp-tray-track.playing:hover {
  color:#FFFFFF !important;
  background-color:#777777 !important;
}

How to display album art

Figure 4: Album art

You can set the image which is displayed in the player during a song. To do this, put an img element within the playable link.

For example:

<a href="example.mp3"><img src="example.png" alt="" />my song</a>

The dimensions of the image should be square, not rectangular. If you don’t want the image to show up directly in the main web page, add style="display:none" to your img tag:

<a href="example.mp3"><img src="example.png" alt="" style="display:none" />my song</a>

Source: http://yahoomediaplayer.wikia.com/wiki/How_to_link#Album_Art

View example

How to change default album art image

Insert the code below just before the line that embeds the player into your page.

<script type="text/javascript">
var YMPParams =
{
   defaultalbumart:'http://somedomain.com/path/someimage.gif'
};
</script>

Source: http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/api/#param_defaultalbumart

How to hide album art

Figure 5: Hidden album art

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Hide album art */
#ymp-meta-image { display:none !important; }
#ymp-body #ymp-meta-top,
#ymp-body #ymp-meta-bottom {
  left:8px !important;
  width:330px !important;
}

View example

How to change meta (album title/web site URL) information

Instructions: Insert the code below right after the line that embeds the player into your page.

<script type="text/javascript">
   function apiReadyHandler(){
      YAHOO.ympyui.util.Event.onDOMReady(UpdateAlbumTitle);
      YAHOO.MediaPlayer.onTrackStart.subscribe(UpdateAlbumTitle);
   }

   /*
      Written by Jonathan Snook, http://www.snook.ca/jonathan
      Add-ons by Robert Nyman, http://www.robertnyman.com

http://robertnyman.com/2005/11/07/the-ultimate-getelementsbyclassname/

   */
   function getElementsByClassName(className, tag, elm){
      var testClass = new RegExp("(^|\\s)" + className + "(\\s|$)");
      var tag = tag || "*";
      var elm = elm || document;
      var elements = (tag == "*" && elm.all)
                        ? elm.all
                        : elm.getElementsByTagName(tag);
      var returnElements = [];
      var current;
      var length = elements.length;
      for(var i=0; i<length; i++){
         current = elements[i];
         if(testClass.test(current.className)){
            returnElements.push(current);
         }
      }
      return returnElements;
   }

   function UpdateAlbumTitle() {
      var meta_bottom = document.getElementById('ymp-meta-bottom');
      var el = getElementsByClassName('ymp-meta-box', 'div', meta_bottom);
      if(el.length > 0){
         el[0].innerHTML = 'Visit www.lakeoftears.net for more info';
      }
   }

   YAHOO.MediaPlayer.onAPIReady.subscribe(apiReadyHandler);
</script>

View example

How to hide meta (album title/web site URL) information

Instructions: Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Hide album title / web site URL */
#ymp-meta-album-title { display:none !important; }

View example

How to hide the player

Sometimes you may want to display only small play button next to MP3 links. To hide the player use the code below.

Instructions: Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Hide player */
#ymp-player,
#ymp-tray,
#ymp-error-bubble,
#ymp-secret-bubble {
  display:none !important;
}

There is another way to do it using parameter displaystate which is described at http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/api/#param_displaystate

View example

How to hide MP3 links

Instructions: Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Hide MP3 links */
.ymp-btn-page-play,
.ymp-btn-page-pause {
  display:none;
}

How to hide link play/pause buttons

Instructions: Append the following lines to CSS file or include them into HTML page somewhere in between <head> and </head> tags enclosing the block with tags <style type="text/css"> and </style>.

/* Yahoo! Media Player: Hide play/pause button */
a.ymp-btn-page-play,
a.ymp-btn-page-pause {
  margin-left:-20px !important;
}

a.ymp-btn-page-play em.ymp-skin,
a.ymp-btn-page-pause em.ymp-skin {
  display: none !important;
}

View example

How to start player in a new window

The code below tries to launch player in a new window automatically which allows user to navigate your site without interrupting the player. However my code for displaying pop-under window doesn’t work as expected for all browsers which results in pop-up window instead.

Instructions: Insert the code below right after the line that embeds the player into your page.

<script type="text/javascript">
    var ymp_pop_num_tries = 0;
    var ymp_pop_max_num_tries = 20;
    function ympPopPlayer(){
       var ymp = YAHOO.mediaplayer;
       if(ymp_pop_num_tries > ymp_pop_max_num_tries){ return; }
       if(ymp.Controller && ymp.Controller.view){
          // Create a pop-under window
          // works in IE, doesn't work in Firefox 3.5.x
          var ymp_pop = window.open("", "ymediaplayer");
          if(ymp_pop){ ymp_pop.blur(); }
          window.focus();

          ymp.Controller.view.popPlayer({});
       } else {
         ymp_pop_num_tries++;
         setTimeout(ympPopPlayer, 1000);
       }
    }

    function apiReadyHandler(){
       ympPopPlayer();
    }

    YAHOO.MediaPlayer.onAPIReady.subscribe(apiReadyHandler);
</script>

View example

How to disable Yahoo! search links

Instructions: Insert the code below right after the line that embeds the player into your page.

<script type="text/javascript">
   // Disable Yahoo! Media Player search links
   function apiReadyHandler(){
      YAHOO.MediaPlayer.onMediaUpdate.subscribe(DisableYahooLinks);
      YAHOO.MediaPlayer.onTrackStart.subscribe(DisableYahooLinks);
      setTimeout(DisableYahooLinks, 2000);
   }

   function DisableYahooLinks(){
      DisableLink(document.getElementById('ymp-meta-track-title'));
      DisableLink(document.getElementById('ymp-meta-artist-title'));
      DisableLink(document.getElementById('ymp-meta-image'));
      DisableLink(document.getElementById('ymp-meta-album-title'));
   }

   function DisableLink(el){
      if(el){
         el.href = 'javascript:void(0)';
         el.onclick = function(){ return false; };
      }
   }

   YAHOO.MediaPlayer.onAPIReady.subscribe(apiReadyHandler);
</script>

View example

How to change default settings

See http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/api for more information.

Links

• Yahoo! Media Player official page
• Discussion group at Yahoo! Groups
• Yahoo! Media Player API
• Yahoo! Media Player public Wiki
• Yahoo! Music Blog

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

If you want to force secure connection only in certain directory (for example /secure), use this code instead.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^secure
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

After upgrading PostgreSQL from 7.4 to 8.2 it started crashing sporadically with the following entries in the log file:

LOG:  server process (pid 21460) was terminated by signal 11
LOG:  terminating any other active server processes
LOG:  all server processes terminated; reinitializing shared memory and semaphores

CAUSE:

There were changes between PostgreSQL releases in functions definition used by pgcrypto module.

According to [1] and [3] in PostgreSQL 8.0 the pgcrypto functions were non-strict and checked for NULLs, in PostgreSQL 8.1 they were made STRICT, in PostgreSQL 8.2 the NULL checks were removed from code.

SOLUTION:

In order to correct the problem these functions are needed to be recreated. Required SQL commands are defined in pgcrypto.sql which is usually located in
/usr/local/pgsql/share/contrib when pgcrypto is installed.

psql -d DBNAME -f /usr/local/pgsql/share/contrib/pgcrypto.sql

Also it is a good idea to add functions to template1 database if you use pgcrypto often. template1 is the default source database name when using CREATE DATABASE command.

REFERENCES:

1. http://marc.info/?l=postgresql-general&m=118794006505296&w=2
2. http://www.mail-archive.com/pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org/msg109917.html
3. http://anoncvs.postgresql.org/cvsweb.cgi/pgsql/contrib/pgcrypto/pgcrypto.sql.in

E:\SETUP\acmsetup.exe /T E:\SETUP\PRODUCT.STF /s E:\ /n "NAME" /o "ORGANIZATION" /k 1234567890

where:

• E: – your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive letter. Also you can replace E:\ with path to the folder where you have your installation files.
• PRODUCT – File name of the product you are installing with .stf extension. The specific .stf file that is required for the manual command line will vary depending on the specific product you are installing. Search the \SETUP folder on the CD-ROM of the product you are installing for the .stf to use. For example, for Visual Basic 6.0 Professional, use vb98pro.stf; for Visual C++ 6.0 Professional, use vc98pro.stf.
• NAME – your name
• ORGANIZATION – your organization
• 1234567890 – your CD key

If you get the message “You must first run the Installation Wizard before running this setup”, run the following command and repeat.

regedit /s E:\key.dat

In the same way you should install service packs.

Service Pack 5:

C:\SP5\acmsetup.exe /T C:\SP5\sp598ent.stf /s C:\SP5 /n "NAME" /o "ORGANIZATION"

Service Pack 6:

C:\SP6\acmsetup.exe /T C:\SP6\sp698ent.stf /s C:\SP6 /n "NAME" /o "ORGANIZATION"

where:

• C:\SP5 and C:\SP6 – folders where you have extracted service pack files.

Microsoft published an article regarding this problem at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/250343. However they suggest to use /B1 (or /B 1) command line argument, which in my case resulted in product options dialog being skipped.