A SMIL practice

SMIL represents Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language recommended by W3C. It is one of the XML applied domains which can control multiple images, videos, sounds, and texts. It is theoretically known as easy to develop, fairly accessible, and web native while it is not accessible in most common environment, only supported partly by a few web agents or players.

I developed a simple SMIL file for practice purpose. I just started to learn its syntax by myself and I am still far from making it highly compatible, standard-compliant, or accessible. I tested this first SMIL presentation with RealOne player and Ambulant Player 1.8. Ambulant Player is the only player who supports SMIL version 2.1 and RealOne supports 2.0 while Apple's QuickTime supports 1.0. Although Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher supports XHTML+SMIL, this combination does not work on other browsers.

Therefore, I tried to embed the SMIL file in my web page using standard <object> HTML element with type="application/smil+xml" attribute but failed because I could not find any browser which supports this MIME type automatically. I had no choice but to include non-standard deprecated <embed> element for non-Internet Explorer browsers with RealPlayer ActiveX for Internet Explorer.

Download the SMIL presentation file: October Trip to Haneul Park with CMHV Befrienders(2007)

Any feedback including comments, suggestions, or critiques for more accessible SMIL and more compatible SMIL embedding in a web page would be welcomed.

The presentation shows a series of photos taken at Haneul Park with my community members in CMHV paralleled with a background musical piece which was composed by me long time ago.

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He passed away

I was shocked yesterday that one of our members in CMHV took his checquered life by himself. Some of CMHV members including me visited his funeral home in Korea University Anam Hospital. He had suffered from chronic mental illness, maybe schizophrenia (and bipolar disorder) since his early twenties. I clearly remember: he was almost always grumbling that he had not enough money to join us when we tried to visit, eat, or go somewhere. Although CMHV does not provide any monetary support for individuals, we always chose the option which is nearly free or so cheap. I felt sorry for his poverty and sometimes would like to give him some pennies, but didn't do a lot in our casual meetings. I could not decide if his grumbling was caused from his real destitution or it was one of his symptoms. He was always drunken -- suspected alcoholic, so we had to figure out with our ears flapping what he was trying to say.

However, I deeply regret his death and feel really sorry about that we did not do anything although his prognosis was not so good recent days when we observed him in our monthly meeting. We might have to report it to a doctor. We talked about his death after visiting the funeral place, and I felt helpless that we, as a volunteer friend will be able to do only a little in the future to prevent this kind of suicide.

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