Stephen (Steve) Withington - Amazon Web Services

MuraMediaPlayer Plugin Released for ColdFusion-Powered Mura CMS

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:44:00 -0700

I was finally able to finish up my MuraMediaPlayer plugin for Mura CMS. This plugin uses JW Player™, the Internet's most popular and flexible media player. It supports playback of any format the Adobe Flash Player can handle (FLV, MP4, MP3 and AAC). It also supports RTMP, HTTP, live streaming, a wide range of settings and more.

This plugin is available in the Mura CMS App Store under plugins. Since the primary guts of the plugin are driven by my cfMediaPlayer project hosted on RIAForge (a ColdFusion wrapper of the JW Player™), I'm posting a copy of the license here just so there's no confusion.

License

By using MuraMediaPlayer, you agree to the 'non-commercial' license found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. For corporate use or if you're planning to generate revenue from your site (e.g., by running advertisements on the page, selling anything, etc.) you will need to buy a license for JW Player™. To obtain a commercial license of the JW Player™, please visit http://longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/commercial-license/

Installation

Installing the plugin is pretty simple. I've created a brief video tutorial and also included an outline of some simple steps to follow:

Download the plugin from the Mura CMS App Store's plugins section
Note the location of the 'muramediaplayer.zip' file that you downloaded
Log in to your Mura CMS Admin area
Click 'Site Settings' found on the top-right portion of the screen on the yellow bar
Select the 'Plugins' tab
'Browse' to the location of the 'muramediaplayer.zip' file and select it
Click 'Deploy' and the 'Plugin Settings' form should appear
If you want to change the 'Plugin Name,' feel free to do so
You can simply leave the 'Load Priority' alone or change it to anything you want to be if you have other plugins that require loading ahead of it
If you're Mura CMS install is using Amazon S3 for file storage and you've set up an Amazon CloudFront, you can enter the 'Cloud URL.' Otherwise, leave it blank.
If you're Mura CMS install is using Amazon S3 for file storage, you have an Amazon CloudFront set up and you've setup a Streaming Distribution to deliver content to end users in real time, you can enter the 'Streaming URL.' Otherwise, leave it blank.
Under 'Site Assignments,' select the site(s) you wish to enable the plugin to run on.
Click 'Update' when finished.
That's it! You're ready to create MuraMediaPlayer pages and/or use a new [mura] tag method that is now available to you.

Please visit Amazon for more information about their S3 and CloudFront services.

Usage/Instructions

Detailed instructions for using the plugin are available at http://www.getmura.com/index.cfm/app-store/plugins/muramediaplayer/documentation/. In addition, instructions can be found after you install the plugin simply by logging into the Admin area, click 'Plugins' (or go to 'Site Settings', then select 'Plugins' tab), then click the 'MuraMediaPlayer' link.

Launched ColdFusion + Mura CMS Powered Sites for EBL Canopy Zipline Tours

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:32:00 -0700

EBL Canopy Tours, launched their completely revamped online presence at www.ebl.org. Technically speaking, three (3) separate sites have been launched for EBL. The main site has become more of a "landing" page allowing visitors to choose the direction they wish to proceed: Canopy Zipline Adventures and Canopy Zipline Installations. The "adventures" site is geared towards those seeking zipline and canopy tour adventures, while the "installations" site is geared towards those seeking the "premier installer of Canopy Zipline Tours."

All of the sites are powered by Adobe® ColdFusion® and Microsoft® SQL Server with online content management provided via Mura CMS. Jaci M.'s fully customized designs were easily integrated into Mura CMS to allow our client the ability to add and edit content while maintaining the original design's integrity.

The sites feature a brand new Mura plugin I've developed called MuraMediaPlayer™ which will soon be released to the general public. MuraMediaPlayer allows our client to easily add media files to any page on their site. I also set up an Amazon S3 for storage of site assets and Amazon CloudFront account to allow for streaming video. In addition, the adventures and installations sites both feature a "weighted-randomized" header for the home pages. Using some Mura class extensions, I enabled the client to upload a header, location details, up to five (5) additional location images and also determine the "Weight for Randomness" for each canopy zipline tour location.

This was definitely a fun project to be a part of and hopefully one of these days, our client will invite us to one of his canopy zipline locations (hint hint!). Congratulations to everyone at EBL, and I look forward to working with you again soon.

Designer: Jaci M. | Developer: Stephen Withington | Content Management System: Mura CMS

Launched ColdFusion + Mura CMS Powered Site for Mitchell Swaback Charities

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:41:00 -0700

Every once in awhile, I'm fortunate enough to be involved in projects that truly "make a difference." This, for me, is one of those projects.

Mitchell Swaback Charities, formerly known as The Mitchell Swaback Foundation, launched their new web site at www.mitchellswabackcharities.org. Mitchell Swaback Charities was started in 2004 by family and friends of Mitchell Swaback after he suffered from a fatal accident on August 14, 2004. They wanted to continue Mitch's "compassion to serve in missions, the church and to honor God in the way Mitch did on a daily basis." For over five years now, they have been busy fulfilling their mission through a variety of projects and events that continue to impact people throughout the world.

The site is powered by Adobe® ColdFusion® and Microsoft® SQL Server with online content management provided via Mura CMS. I was able to fully integrate Jaci M.'s completely custom "bloggishy" design into Mura CMS without a hitch. I leveraged a number of class extensions and custom display objects in Mura CMS to pull everything together.

I was even able to pull in my cfMediaPlayer project from RIAForge to allow the client to upload and display video quickly and easily. Luckily, Amazon added streaming capabilities to CloudFront just in time for me to allow our client to stream their video as well.

Along with a typical "donate online" feature, the client had a few unique needs such as the ability to "flag" nearly any project as "supportable" which would then allow a visitor to direct their donation amount(s) towards that particular project. Other custom e-commerce applications included a "charity event participant sponsorship" application and a complete "golf outing sponsorship and registration" application.

I truly felt privileged to be a part of this project and hope that my work further enables MSC to continue thriving and growing in their mission to "Advance the Kingdom of Christ by Reaching Out to Others." Congratulations and thank you to everyone at Mitchell Swaback Charities.

Designer: Jaci M. | Developer: Stephen Withington | Content Management System: Mura CMS

Amazon Web Services Adds Streaming to CloudFront

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:30:00 -0700

In an announcement by Amazon Web Services (AWS) today, Amazon CloudFront now has the ability to stream audio and video files. The best part is that there are "no additional charges for streaming with Amazon CloudFront; you simply pay normal rates for the data that you transfer using the service."

For me personally, I had to partner with third-parties to allow my clients the ability to stream audio and/or video and trust me, it wasn't cheap. Granted, many of the companies that currently provide this service offer "value-added" products and services, but still, it wasn't exactly affordable for many of our smaller clients.

Thank you Amazon!

Amazon Web Services Slashes S3 Storage Pricing and More

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:17:00 -0700

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced huge pricing reductions in their popular S3 storage plans today. In addition, they're offering "Free Inbound Data Transfer" until June 30, 2010 which includes Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Relational Database Service, Amazon Simple Queue Service, and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud. Read the full announcement at http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2009/12/08/aws-announces-pricing-changes/.

Amazon Relational Database Service Announced

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:14:00 -0700

Amazon announced today the latest addition to their Web Services lineup: Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). They claim the new service "makes it easy to setup, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud." Apparently, the service will allow for the full capabilities of a "familiar MySQL database." The service does include backup storage as well.