One of my accomplishments during 2008 was preparing and presenting a new talk, “Rickroll To Go With WURFL, PHP, and Other Open Source Tools”. This talk focused on some of the challenges with delivering content to mobile device users, such as limited bandwidth, limited resources on the device, and varying device support for video and audio formats. It illustrated how to use tools such as the imagick extension and FFmpeg to deliver content and an experience that was optimized for mobile devices.
Or, another way to refer to it: if you were ever at a PHP conference and heard of some dude Rickrolling a group during his talk, that was me.
I gave this talk at Atlanta PHP, ZendCon 2008 and PHP Appalachia, and received positive reception and feedback in all cases.
Now, in trying to knock out my New Year’s resolutions, I am adapting this talk into an article for php|architect, which will be published around October 2009.
I’ve only got 3,000 words to work with, so I may not be able to address all three major content areas – images, video, and audio – but I’ll do what I can. The focus of the issue will be “graphic manipulation,” so focusing on the image portion may end up making the most sense given the word limitations. You don’t want to read more than 3,000 words worth of my ramblings anyway.
So, keep your eyes open for that issue later in the year! Also, special thanks to Elizabeth Naramore, Beth Tucker Long, and Marco Tabini for the opportunity to grace the pages of their fantastic publication with my words, ideas, and experience.
Also, another special thanks to my co-workers JP Crevoiserat and Joseph Jorgensen who worked with me on a project that inspired the talk and this article. And as always, a special thanks for Schematic for always supporting the community-related efforts of its employees.