I've been cleaning up the course website for Drexel's PHYS405
(Parallel Computing), and I wasn't a fan of the [latex2html][]
equations and their resulting PNGs.  Searching around for a solution,
I found a few command line [MathML][] generators: [itex2MML][] and
[blahtexml][].  itex2MML struck me as cleaner after a brief spin with
blahtexml.  Jason Blevins has written an [ikiwiki plugin using
itex2MML][plugin] so you don't have to bother with MathML in your blog
postings (there is an [alternative implementation][plugin2] by Gustaf
Thorslund):

\[ e^{i \pi} + 1 = 0 \]

Now that you can generate MathML, you'll need to [serve it
correctly][XHTML].  For simple cases, you can try something like
[this][negotiate].

That takes care of generating the MathML, but can we view it?
[Gecko][] has supported MathML [since 1.8.0][Gecko support] (Firefox
1.5), so Firefox support [is quite good][Firefox].  MathML has also
recently (August 17th) [moved into the WebKit trunk][WebKit], so new
builds of [Safari][] and [Chrome][] should have native support as
well, although at such an early stage there are bound to be some
[issues][WebKit support].  Opera has supported MathML since
[9.5][Opera] (June 2008), although again there were some [growing
pains][Opera support].  For those using [IE][], the [MathPlayer][]
plugin can render MathML.  MathPlayer can even [speak][] MathML for
the visually impaired.  Unfortunately, I don't have all those browsers
installed to test out my above claims.  [[Let me know|contact]] if
something's not working!

[latex2html]: http://www.latex2html.org/
[MathML]: http://www.w3.org/Math/
[itex2MML]: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/itex2MML.html
[blahtexml]: http://gva.noekeon.org/blahtexml/
[plugin]: http://jblevins.org/git/ikiwiki/plugins.git/plain/mdwn_itex.pm
[plugin2]: http://blog.thorslund.org/posts/2010/Getting_math_into_the_blog/
[XHTML]: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000167.html
[negotiate]: http://protempore.net/~calvins/howto/xhtml-apache/
[Gecko]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Gecko
[Gecko support]: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Accessibility/AT-APIs/Web_Specifications#MathML
[Firefox]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla_MathML_Project/Status
[WebKit]: http://webkit.org/blog/1366/announcing%E2%80%A6mathml/
[WebKit support]: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3251
[Safari]: http://www.apple.com/safari/
[Chrome]: http://www.google.com/chrome/
[Opera]: http://my.opera.com/mathml/blog/2008/06/12/opera-9-5-released
[Opera support]: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/001588.html
[IE]: http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/tech/IE9compatibility_bug.htm
[MathPlayer]: http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/
[speak]: http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/tech/accessibility.htm

[[!tag tags/blogging]]