I really disklike having any kind of Flash on websites and/or blogs that I own or design, and I know there are many designers and developers out there who agree with me. Using flash also makes SEO more challenging for websites and blogs, which is another reason to stay away from flash if you can.

In addition to working by day as a Technical Trainer, working by night as a freelance web and blog designer, as well as dabbling in photography here and there on the side, I also compose my own music. I have a separate website for my music that is also (of course) WordPress-based, and I used to use an audio plugin to allow people to hear streaming mp3s of my compositions, however, it used Flash, which meant I’d never been the biggest fan of this particular plugin.

Recently, someone on the ProBlogger.com community forum<-- [notice that I'm featured on that page!] posted an entry on audio plugins for WordPress and what people generally use, and he mentioned what he’s been using lately:

My only minor complaint is that it doesn’t have a volume control option, but really, how hard is it for people to use the volume controls on their speakers or operating system? As I said, minor complaint, and not a big enough deal for me to not use this plugin. I also like the fact that you can customize the colors to match your site, which I’ve done for my music site (default colors are blue)… the screenshot below shows black/grey colors, but when you mouse over the song title, it changes the text to green (feel free to click on the image – it’ll open my music site in a new page/tab):

Apparently, you can also add images, though I haven’t tried that option yet.

I just wanted to share this awesome little resource for those of you who may want to feature podcasts or any other type of audio on your WordPress sites or blogs… remember, FLASH = BAD! Avoid it at all costs!

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