After reading two other Mini Missing Manuals by Matthew MacDonald, I did not have high hopes for this one. There is a fine line between simple to use and uselessly simply, and these manuals tend to ride that line a little too closely.
So I was pleasantly surprised that Add Audio & Video to Your Site: The Mini Missing Manual taught me a few new tricks. I went into this book resigned to reading a step by step introduction to embedding YouTube videos and was thrilled to see that while MacDonald does address embedding, he also walks us through a basic understanding of linking, embedding, and hosting multimedia files; preparing video for upload; using flash mp3 players; and embedding background music, a synthesized MIDI player, or sound effects into your site.
In addition to the mechanics there is a great resource list of free software along with free multimedia sites where you can find content of all kinds as well as ideas on how to prepare your own videos for seamless playback. There are detailed explanations of different media file types and how they compare in terms of quality and load times, along with copyright warnings and some best practice tips to stop a web design newbie from creating a loud and obnoxious internet pariah.
If you know your way around the web but just have a few questions and clarifications about multimedia files and how to appropriately use them in your web site, Add Audio & Video to Your Site: The Mini Missing Manual is a handy guide to the information you need in order to make that happen. I highly recommended this!
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