This weekend, I’m kicking off a new feature here in Escamoteurettes-land: audio blog entries.
The first time I played with streaming audio was back in late 1994 or so using a product called Voxware. (There were beta products prior to that, but I don’t remember the names.) It was amazing what could be done over a dialup modem back then — and remember, we’re talking 14.4k.
Over the years I’ve toyed with other formats, including Macromedia, Real Audio, Windows Media, various incarnations of MP3 — but they all suffered from the requirement that the web site visitor had to have installed the software to listen to the audio. Even these days, a whole lot of people simply have none of the “default” players already installed and ready to go.
This time around is a little different. You don’t have to install any special player and, if you’re one of the luck 95% of visitors, you should be able to listen without a problem.
As I have time, I’ll record my blog entries and link to the audio version. The first audio blog entry is directly below. Have a listen.
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John, thank you for such an excellent Blog. A joy to read. I am having trouble with the audio, I am gettig the error message Could not find the audio clip specified in the HTML code>
Anything I can do?
Hello, Simon. First, thanks for the very kind words about the blog. Much appreciated.
I checked the server logs and your browser was served the files successfully. But since the applet sent you the lower bandwidth version, I’m thinking there must have been an issue with bandwidth between Houston, TX and where you are. This would have prevented the applet from being able to stream it. If you would, give it another try and let me know how that works for you. If you’re still having problems, I’ll see what we can do.
Thanks for the visit, and especially for leaving a comment. Would you kindly pass along the URL to this blog to your friends?