I think Flowplayer is the first decent Flash Video player that you can use on your website completely free of charge.

Flash Video Player is also nice, but free only for non-commercial use.

One issue I did have with Flowplayer, when I used the basic code for embedding, was that it seemed to ignore the setting not to loop the video. Eventually I solved the problem by using a simple playlist instead.

Playlists are a great feature. You can line up a series of videos and mix in still images too. If you don’t set a duration for a still, it will pause the playback until the user clicks.

Here is an example of the code I’m using to embed Flowplayer and you can see the player in action in yesterday’s entry.

Britain was hit by high winds today and here in the north-west they reached 100 miles per hour. I’ve lived on the 8th floor for more than seven years and have never felt the building shake in the wind the way it did today.

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In the 1970’s the BBC’s VT department produced an annual tape of out-takes and specially recorded items by the stars of the day. It was intended exclusively for BBC staff at the time. But now, inevitably, a number of them have got out onto YouTube.

Warning: strong language!

Christmas Eve On BBC One

Legs & Co. do a full musical number (1979)

Shirley Bassey, Pan’s People, Noel Edmonds/Jukebox Jury with Pan’s People

Swap Shop out-takes

News and Weather clips 1979

If there was a prize for the website with the most downtime then Manchester City Council’s so-called ‘online payments’ page would surely win it.

It surprises me the number of friends who tell me that they get 200 spam emails a day or something similar. I get very few.

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