i finished my university project “YourTubeMix.com – The Crossfader for YouTube”!

it’s available to all my readers under this url: http://yourtubemix.com/index1.html

it will be open to public on wednesday 28th of January (the day of my project presentation at my uni).

feedback is much appreciated – i will try to give my best although i won’t have too much free time during the next weeks.

Use this page to explore the YouTube Data API.

sprites are no new kids around the block. but they are still worth to mention because they are very efficient in decreasing the HTTP GETs.
e.g. instead of loading two images for two states of one button, just use one image and swap it with the sprites technique.

#crossfaderHandler { background: transparent url(../img/regler.png) 0 0 no-repeat; }
#crossfaderHandler:hover { background: transparent url(../img/regler.png) -70px 0 no-repeat; }


i was looking for a nice way using intervals / timers in my project. i am quite happy about finding a jQuery Plugin called “jQuery Timers” by a guy called Blair Mitchelmore (Blog), since nearly the whole project is based on YouTube APIs and jQuery anyway.

the plugin is licensed under the WTFPL – Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License, which i never heard of before.

jQuery Plugin Page
Project Homepage

a big role in the project plays the ui.jquery library. wanna know what’s all about jQuery and ui.jQuery? i read an informative post in the ui newsgroup.

yesterday youtube launched their application gallery, a place where everyone can promote their youtube based application or comment on others’ projects.

the youtube pages got expanded to 960px width to give more space for bigger videos. it looks a bit odd on old 4:3 videos but i guess soon lots of the videos will be in better quality and the black border will disappear. at the moment some users are pretty upset about it, but i am sure those things will be fixed sooner or later. anyway, i welcome that change.

i have been working with youtube’s chromeless player for a few weeks now.
first i thought i might just use one of the players build upon it (e.g. jw flv player) to save some time learning the whole chromeless player and js player API. but since there always are problems using a component build on another (e.g. no multiple videos on one page, or simply user interface issues which take longer to fix than actually doing it directly with the chromeless player) i decided to go the long way.
so now i am struggling with some stuff and luckily i just found “Ext JS Ext.ux.YoutubePlayer“, an open source player build upon the chromeless player. so i am going to have a look at the code, maybe i will get some hints on how to do it.

the AJAX Libraries API (blog post) takes away the pain of managing your JavaScript libraries. the list will get updated with the latest versions of the APIs as well as additional APIs.

i am currently using it in my project (a youtube mashup… soon more about that) for loading the SWF Object as well as jQuery and jQuery UI.

it doesn’t only save you time developing, also the loading process for the end user should decrease.

i am currently working on a project using vairous youtube APIs. i am kind of a youtube power user and always very interested in other projects.
i read about streamdrag at dr web (german article) . it’s a online tool for creating youtube playlists, which will get lost after leaving their site. it focuses on music videos and doesn’t display the videos, only the sound. i’s developed by this german company: vaib
very interesting and a little bit similar to my project. more about this as soon as it reaches a viewable status.

Crossfader: tick

i just read on my google reader that “Soocial Now In Public Beta, Adds Outlook And Blackberry Support” on tech crunch. but it seems like they removed the post from their site.
maby they are going to wait for the official announcement by soocial first? so stay tuned (their blog)!

i just found the video of stefan’s presentation at the FOWA (future of web apps) conference where he talks a little bit about their plans with social, the future of mobile and his thoughts that being boring can be a good thing:

i had the joy meeting the soocial founders at the FUEL conference in london a few month ago. i wish them the best for their project and to see more of their entertaining and educating presentations.

as mentioned: i am currently working on a uni project using the youtube api.

The JW FLW Media Player by Jeroen Wijering is probably the most used FLV player. it is nicely done, you can control quite a lot and there are even plugins and skins and stuff available to use.

but one thing bothers me about the latest version (v.4.2) of JW player:

this problem was raised already a few times in the player’s forum and it seems like it is going to be fixed in the next version (v.4.3).

workaround
i read that previous versions (e.g. v.3.6) were able to play multiple videos. i am going to try this one now.

Das Jabber University Network, kurz JUNe, ist ein lockerer Zusammenschluss von Universitäten auf Initiative der RWTH Aachen. Alle Mitglieder betreiben einen eigenen Jabber-Server. Ziel des Netzwerks ist es, zu zeigen wie verbreitet Jabber bereits ist und die Studierenden weiterer Universitäten zu motivieren, ebenfalls einen eigenen Jabber-Server zu betreiben.

 http://jabber.rwth-aachen.de/JUNe

messi mischt da auch mit.