Hi all.

Sorry for the lack of postings lately. I’m kinda going through a “uhg I just don’t want to blog” phase. I get these phases every now and again but the good news is that they pass … and when they do I usually come back with vengeance.

One thing I wanted to share with you is a new feature I’m working on for DavidMeade.com: The Episode Archive. This page is still considered in BETA, but I’m pretty happy with it so far.

The Episode Archive dynamically generates a thumbnail view of all videoblog/podcasts here at DavidMeade.com. For those who are techie enough to care (or other videobloggers/podcasters) here are some things about the Episode Archive I really like:

• It is dynamic so it automatically updates as I add episodes to the site. (Naturally, it is the 21st century after all)
• If there isn’t a thumbnail for an episode when the page is called, it will actually go and create a thumbnail for such an episode. (It of course doesn’t bother if a thumbnail already exists for an episode.)
• It uses the poster image that was used in the actual posting as the source for the thumbnail it creates. (Rather than grabbing a random frame from the video … I pick the poster image for an episode very carefully and want that care to work for the thumbnail as well)
• The thumbnails it creates are named based on the episode name and the md5 hash of the enclosure file. (This ensures unique and predictable names for the thumbnails, and thus doesn’t require any additional storage to a database)
• If it has to create a thumbnail but fails to find a poster image to use as a source it uses a default thumbnail image. (But so far it’s be really really good at finding the poster frame.)
• It has a cool Ajax hover effect to give episode info for whatever thumbnail you’re mouse is hovering over.

As I still consider this in BETA you can expect the current features to be polished up a bit and perhaps a few more features before I push it live (give it it’s own link on the toolbar).

I may even decide to make a wordpress plugin out of this, but I haven’t decided yet.

Anyway, I’m still alive and I’m still playing around with the website some … I’m just not blogging alot lately.

Thanks for your continued viewing of DavidMeade.com. If you haven’t already subscribed to DavidMeade.com, this would be a great time to do so! Subscribing to the DavidMeade.com RSS feed lets you sit back and relax and automatically receive the latest from DavidMeade.com whenever there is new stuff to see … without having to check the site all the time … and without having to join some email newsletter.

Also … be watching for some changes at DougMeade.com. Doug and I have been working behind the scenes there as well. Kevin also has an interesting blog at HicksFamilyOnline.com khicks.com where you can contribute! You can find a quick summary of each site on the right hand side sidebar here at DavidMeade.com.