Words from Alejandro U. Alvarez
Posts tagged flash
JW Player Captions
Jun 1st
JW Player with captions
Captions are a great way to offer multi-lingual media content on your site, but they don't seem easy to add right? Well with the right tools and guidance, it will be very easy:
Setting everything up:
In order for captions to work flawlessly on every major browser, we will be using JW Player version 4.5 (At the time of writing, version 5 and 5.1 don't seem to work well in Internet Explorer)
Once you have that version ready, add the following Flashvars:
<param name="flashvars" value="plugins=captions-1&captions=/captions.xml" />
Of course you may leave all the other Flashvars you had before (Specially file 
)
The XML file:
Now that the player is ready, we need to setup the XML file with the captions, so create captions.xml and write the following:
<tt xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2006/10/ttaf1" xmlns:tts="http://www.w3.org/2006/10/ttaf1#style"> <body> <div xml:id="captions"> <p begin="00:00:00" end="00:00:4">Subtitle 1</ p> <p begin="00:00:4" end="00:00:6">Subtitle 2</ p> <p begin="00:00:10" end="00:00:12">Subtitle 3</ p> </div> </body> </tt>
As you can see, all we need is to change the Subtitle text, and the begin and end times of each, to set those up.
Generate the XML file with PHP:
If you want to change the language dynamically, you could use PHP to generate the XML using the following headers:
header("Content-type: text/xml"); header("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate"); // HTTP/1.1 header("Expires: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT"); // Date in the past (no cache) // And now all the XML data as before
If you want to learn how to easily translate your website read my article on that too!
Hope you found this useful!
Bypass/Flash BIOS password:
Sep 12th
Have you ever tried to access a computer's BIOS settings to find they are protected? Or maybe it was you and forgot the password. Either way don't worry since bypassing this simple password is as simple as following the following solutions:
Solution 1
The simplest solution, although it may not work on some computers. This solution is called a keystroke backdoor, and it bypasses the password check (Meaning that you won't change it or get to know it)
When prompted with the auth box, press:
Control+Shift+F8 Control+Shift+F8 Backspace Enter
And if this worked you will enter normally the BIOS settings page. If you can't enter try a couple times to make sure or switch to the next method.
Solution 2
Flashing the BIOS, this might be dangerous if it is the first time you do it, but it shouldn't be a problem if you follow this steps carefully.
The easiest method of doing this is by removing the battery and waiting a couple minutes to ensure that it has completely turned off. Since the memory is ROM (usually flash memory), in the moment you take the battery off the data will disappear. Now put the battery back in place and switch the computer ON again.
There shouldn't be any problem, except for the time and date (You'll have to set it again).
You can flash the BIOS using the jumper you'll find nearby, but it depends on the manufacturer so I won't go into detail.
For other types of passwords you can check ScratchDrive for some good information and free programs, although I won't go into detail here.
Any comments or problems you find ask them below.
Cheers,
sIFR – Use custom fonts in your website safely
May 1st
UPDATE: The sIFR WordPress plugin is now available!
This is probably one of the most amazing scripts I've seen nowadays. It was developed by Mike Davidson and Mark Wubben, and what it does is it allows you to change the fonts used in your website to custom fonts without having to worry about them changing in the user's computer.
How this is accomplished is actually very simple. First of all you need a folder with all your fonts (.ttf files), then a JavaScript file has to be called from your html pages which will first check if Flash is enabled, and then if it is it will read through the code and determine where it should insert the flash movies.
Those flash movies take the font you selected and the text that the script found and create a static "animation" with the same text and size but with the new font. Since they are overlayed exactly over the original text, no change is noticed.
The only thing I'm afraid won't work fine is the background color. If you have a solid background it will work perfectly probably, but what if you use a textured background, like I do in this blog? I haven't tested it yet, but their test page works perfectly on solid backgrounds...
As a piece of advice don't over-use it, it is intended only for headlines, quotes, and other small bits of text.
Visit sIRF's homepage for more information on this subject
Visit their demo page
Future planning
Right after I found this tool I thought to my self, "I have to create a WP plugin that will automatically change selected tags or ids to themed fonts!". So well, I am developing now the plugin.
I started today so I guess it will take me no longer that this Sunday. I have about three days, considering that here in Spain we are on holidays... Yea I know, Spain is always on holidays 
So that is pretty much it, I'll keep on posting about the plugin status, and if you want me to notify you simply post a comment saying so and when I'm done I'll email you
Enjoy sIFR!