Thanks dad Weeks for this splendid holiday spectacle that is Navitoss!

Apparently, YouTube has a few undocumented parameters that can effect the display of certain elements of an embedded player. I ran across this post in their developer forums following a request by a work associate to figure out how to hide the options displayed at the end of a played movie. Here is the list of known parameters along with the URL to the actual post:

• rel = 0/1 -> value for showing related videos
• color1 = hexadecimal color code -> value for the base color
• color2 = hexadecimal color code -> value for the over color
• border = 0…x -> value for the border width
• autoplay 0/1 -> value for automatically starting the video to play
• eurl = http://www.yourwebsite.com -> I believe this is the referring URL. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
• iurl = Path to the thumbnail image (I believe)

Custom URL parameters for YouTube embedded players

While browsing one of my favorite automobile wallpaper web sites, I ran across this amazing video. I’ve seen the Lotus Elite against a combat helicopter, but a car vs. fighter jet, how much more wicked can it get!

While reading another Silverlight development articles, I ran across a new service/feature Microsoft is offering for Silverlight developers/practioners. They claim to offer 4GB streaming services for free. I’m not sure all the stipulations and/or limitations, but hey, it’s not YouTube!

• http://streaming.live.com/
• https://silverlight.live.com/

I ran across the new Microsoft downloads web site last night. Apparently, they have decided to program the entire site in Silverlight. First impression, nice work. Then came the questions: why did they do the entire page in Slight? Are they really expecting this sort of page load time for every Slight application? In spite of it’s snazzy new interface, I’m not sure I’m buying this move. It is reminiscent of the old Java applet days.

Tonight, whilst experimenting with the various advanced Google search techniques (hacks) to locate web content, I had an epiphany. Any web directory/folder that has indexes enabled (show an index of the contents of the folder of no directory index file exists) will list the contents of said directory with the phrase “Index of” followed by the actual root-relative path to available list of assets. This is due to the fact that the directory/folder does not have an index document/file present, so the web server spits out the entire list of the folder’s content. But I digress.

I have been using WordPress as my blogging platform for a few years now. Before that was a hybrid of PHPBB and custom PHP application I wrote. WordPress works great and has robust features that make blogging a snap for the more technical (such as myself, ehem) and also for the less technical netizens out there. Now, one of these great features is the ability to upload pictures and files (content) through a web interface. What a great concept (this is where the epiphany came in) except if you weren’t planning on listing up the contents of your entire uploads folder to the world. which happens to be the case with some (okay a lot of) default installations of WordPress.

Lets say you “Google” the “Index of” any WordPress uploads folders (/wp-content/uploads). You don’t have to be a rock scientist (yes, that was a joke) to realize the possible implications. Let me give you an idea of the figure as of tonight: 4,143,000 indexes. That’s 4,143,000 WordPress installations that have directory indexes enabled and are completely wide open to crawlers and spiders that can pilfer (argh) their content.

Try it yourself: http://www.google.com/search?q=Index+of+%2Fwp-content

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One of the greatest features of Flash is the ability to encode video for online playback. For those that have not done this, the quick notes version:

1. Create a blank Flash movie (somewhere near the dimensions of the source video)
2. File | Import | Import to library…
3. Select Windows | Library OR CTRL + L for those key-jockeys out there
4. Select the imported movie from the library
5. Right-click | Properties
6. In the Embedded Video Properties dialog box, click Export.
7. Save the movie for later use

Now, what if we want to be able to download an FLV movie from somewhere on the web. Lately I have been researching ways to leverage various online social media provider’s technologies (and uhm, assets.) In doing so, I rely heavily on Fiddler, an HTTP debugging proxy which logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet (that is all IE traffic.) By listening to the HTTP requests being sent from any embedded Flash application from your local computer, FLV assets from YouTube, Brightcove and others are easily retrievable. Although there are freely available plug-ins for Firefox and Internet Explorer that occasionally work, oftentimes it becomes necessary to dig in and get your hands dirty. Let’s dirty up…

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