In this issue

From the soap box
�21 Million - how much?
Featured article
One of my clients wants to put some video on their web site.  What is involved?
Business intelligence
Information, statistics, surveys from the web.
Technical tip
This month's tip is about changing the shape of the mouse pointer.
News from the web
This month in the internet world.

£21 Million down the tubes - and that is just for starters

The government has let the first contact in its doomed e-conveyancing initiative. A snip at £21 meg but I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg - or to use a more accurate analogy, the bow of the Titanic. 

I have covered in previous newsletters the subject of e-conveyancing and why it is set to crash and burn.  Unfortunately the ill-judged attempt to replace paper contracts with digitally-signed electronic records may bring down other parts of the project which are sensibly aimed at modernising the whole conveyancing process.  

How do I put video on my web site

Next August bank holiday one of our clients will be running an unusual charity sporting event.  It involves bath ducks being raced on a Scottish river.  They want to broadcast a video of the event.  What are their options?  This is our topic this month.

When you see a still image on a web page, the browser downloads the image and presents it on the page.  However browsers are not set up to display movies, so they need the help of a program. There are three programs to consider, and each has its own proprietary standard:

• Windows media player (WMP)
• Real
• Quicktime
   

If you have a Mac then you probably have Quicktime, however if you have a PC you will almost certainly not. The main PC standards are WMP and Real.  So if you want total coverage, you really need to distribute the movie in all three formats. 

However to broadcast a movie in such as way that someone with a slow dial-up connection can see it, the movie has to be reduced to a tiny postage-stamp sized image.  But your broadband users will expect much better.  So movies need to be available for different download speeds. 

For total coverage you need six different download files - high and low speed versions in three formats. 

If the movie is short you can simply create a file and make a link to it on the web page.  The browser should pick up that this is a movie file, download it, and load up the appropriate program (say WMP).   However in most cases you need to stream the movie.  This means that the movie starts playing shortly after the download starts, and then plays while it is being downloaded.  To do this you need special software on the server end to feed the movie to the movie player on the PC. 

Fortunately the same software will stream all your different formats, but the cost runs into thousands of pounds.   It needs a lot of bandwidth as well and if the movie is popular you could easily blow the capability of your web server � especially if it is a shared server.

In practice you will normally want to use a streaming service.  There are a number of these in the UK and the cost is high because they are targeting high volume sites.  If your requirement is modest, look for alternatives.  We use Playstream which starts at $10 per month and which makes it really easy to set up and run your movie.

You have to convert your movie to the three formats.  Basic conversion software is free or (Quicktime) cheap.  More advanced programs cost more and if you want a Rolls Royce job call in an expert. Often the person creating the movie will be able to do the conversion for you.

Once you have the file converted and the streaming capability, you need to incorporate the streamed video on the web page.  You can embed the movie within the page and there are a lot of options. The normal approach is to ask the user to select preferred format and speed. Then the movie is played with a control bar that allows the user to stop the movie, rewind and so on.

However this assumes that the average punter has a preference and knows what to do with the toolbar.  We have experimented with code to figure out what players are available and select one automatically.  If the user has a player he/she gets a moving picture with no controls.  If there is no player available the web page simply shows a still picture.

What about a real-time broadcast? 

This is a different matter. You will need to bring in a specialist and you will need deep pockets.

• you need to convert several qualities and formats at the same time.  One computer may or may not be able to do this. 
• Whatever computer components you need � double it for backup.
• You need to be able to push all quality/format combinations simultaneously to the server, so a big upload capacity is needed. Don�t forget that ADSL upload speeds are quite modest whatever headline bandwidth you have purchased.
• if the internet upload speed cannot be obtained, you may need a satellite truck to  beam the TV to a datacentre for conversion.

If your client needs movies talk to us.      

Business intelligence

How important are Alt tags for search engine optimisation? Hardly at all.
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/alt.html

Does blogging help your marketing efforts?  A study of marketing to the IT community says yes � but.
http://library.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3030

Eye-tracking studies are fascinating.  An eye-tracking study of Google  will cost you, but the sample extract is worth reading.
 http://www.enquiro.com/eyetrackingreport.asp

IT Marketing again
The statistical results on IT marketing are applicable to other industries as well.  Information on the effectiveness of different lead generation methods here.
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3040
 

Technical tips - How do you change the mouse pointer

Have you ever been on web  sites where the mouse pointer changes to a question mark when you are hovering over a help link?  Have you ever wondered how they do that?

The answer is cascading style sheets.  Set the style attribute �cursor�.  For example

style="cursor:help"

There are several pre-defined cursor shapes available, in this case we are calling up the "help" cursor.  But of course being designers you will want to create your own.  The format for that is

style=�cursor url(mycursor.cur)�

To use this you need to create a cursor file and to create this you will need special software.  I use IconCool (www.iconcool.com) which costs �11.

News from the web

The Internet started as a project by the US Defence Dept.  Now it is workdwide, so it makes sense for the main computers that control it to be run by an international body � right?  Wrong � at least according to the US.
 

Someone is suing Google over the amount of click fraud they encountered.  This is when a web site owner that hosts Google ads fraudulently clicks through to generate more revenue.  Google has safeguards against this but of course nothing is perfect.
 

A new company plans to offer first-run films for downloading over the Internet � Yawwwnnn� heard it before� But this company is part-owned by Intel.
 

You are in a strange town, you plug in your laptop and hey � you can plug into someone's wireless network for free. Why not?  You could get arrested.
 

The low-life who wrote the Sasser internet work was given a suspended sentence. 
What !
 

More Britons are using broadband than dial-up now. 
 

Are you ready for Internet Explorer 7 ? 
 

Fed up with paying outrageous roaming charges when you are overseas, (try calling a Manhattan number from Manhattan on your UK mobile phone � the cost is jaw-dropping.)  The answer is to find a wi-fi network such as in your local Starbucks and then call over the Internet using your Voice Over IP (VOIP) account.  PC World tried it and they charitably call it �work in progress�.