One more to go...

Well, the rebuild of my music site is practically complete. There is a bit more jazzing up that can be done, but that's as far as I'm going to go on it for now. I'm not producing music at the moment, having swung back to photography so there isn't much point in spending time and effort on the site.

However, my main site needs an update. I'll be totally re-doing the photograph section but the whole site I want to upgrade to 4.01 strict which means changing all the back end stuff. This is a lot of effort considering that on the outside it'll look pretty much the same.

Having said that, my primary focus is going to be the photography stuff.

I've already been sorting out through all of my photos looking for which ones to put up and have a fair stack sorted out. There's still more to go though, but I'm getting there. I'll need to re-organize the main page as well (plus write more articles, but I've been saying that for years).

Final thing on the to-do list is sort out the media computer and get it sorted out. It is too noisy and is running out of space. We'll see how that goes.

Hosting Upgraded

All-right! I have managed to get the hosting package on my main site updated from a basic personal plan to a business plan. This means more storage space and more bandwidth (not that I'm using that much) plus more reliable performance. It also means additional cost, but that's to be expected.

I'll be starting to upload all my photos (meaning all the best ones, not every single one) and organising things into folders and such to share with the world. In my experience, more images with descriptions means more people are likely to visit the site - which can be a good thing or a bad thing.

This also means that I need to be taking more photos. This is fine with me as it is what I want to do plus I have all the fancy new gear to play with.

Speaking of new gear, I do have a small issue with flashes. I've been buying Yongnuo YN460 flashes which are pretty cheap and they have worked out pretty good for the most part (review / tutorial coming soon). The problem is that I want three of them. I bought one, liked it, then bought two more. Turns out that one of them was DOA but because I didn't get around to testing them for a few months I wasn't able to get it replaced.

Recently I bought another one and this one arrived faulty. It works in the sense that it turns on and the flash fires if you press the "test" button but the trigger on the bottom does not respond. So neither the camera nor the wireless triggers will make the flash go off, rendering it useless. I corresponded with the seller who said they'd send a replacement (I think) so now I'm waiting for the replacement one to arrive. I offered to send the faulty one back to them to which they asked how much shipping would be. I sent them a message saying how much it was and have not had a reply, so not 100% sure what's going on.

Hopefully they'll send a replacement, but will wait and see. Might need to buy another one from another seller.

Lucky I am patient.

Website woes

Well, sometimes upgrades work without a hitch and sometimes ... they don't.

Upgrading the hosting plan on my main site and it's gone a little pear shaped. Mind you, it's partly my fault as I'm moving it from an Australian host to an American host (still the same company, they just offer hosting on both continents). I could have gone with hosting in Australia but the  American plans offer twice as much storage and twice as much bandwidth for the same price.

At any rate, at the moment the site returns a "domain not found" error message, but hopefully it'll be up again in a day or so.

Hopefully...

Celebrating 300,000

This was kind of cool.

Got home the other day and looked down at the tacho on the car and it read exactly 300,000km's (that's just over 186,400 miles for those using Imperial).



It isn't the insane amount of distance covered that I found cool, just that it happened to land on 300,000 as I stopped at home. I knew it was going to change over soon, but it didn't occur to me to carry the camera around and pull over when it clicked to it's thirtyeth millenia.

But I'm glad that it came up when it did, so I ran inside and grabbed the camera. That's why the oil and battery lights are on - the engine is switched off (no, I wouldn't try and take a photo of the dash as I'm driving along!).

No longer a twit

Well, I had enough and deleted my Twitter account. Not that I was doing much with it, but it created a conflict. I'd provide a link but, you know - I deleted it...

Nearly there

Waddling along at the moment. Today has been a little disapointing, but we keep moving onwards.

Tried a new antenna for the main tv but reception was a little spotty. Picked up most of the channels really nicely but didn't pick up all the channels. If we can't get decent reception out here then there isn't much point in getting a PVR. Maybe once we move back closer to the city?

At least internet has been sorted out. More or less, that's another battle and I'm tired. Off to bed now... though I should have something interesting  for tomorrow.

It's getting closer

Woohoo! I've upgraded my music box a bit. It's now running Windows 7 and I splashed out and got some better software including a DAW. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but I'm hoping that it'll really get my production levels up.

I'm looking at a couple of microphone setups. My choice at the moment would be a Behringer B1 Condensor microphone. They are supposed to be pretty decent and they are cheaper than most condensor mics (which are better than standard dynamic mics). The downside is that they need phantom power to run which needs to be supplied by the mixer.

My current mixer (Behringer UB502) is pretty nice but it is a basic unit that does not have phantom power. So to run a decent mic I need to upgrade the mixer. I'm looking at the Behringer 1204USB which is pretty nice but carries a hefty price tag. I'd be looking to drop about $500 between the mixer and the mic (plus some cable and a pop guard and probably a stand).

Considering that my voice ain't that crash hot and that I have not recorded any lyrics since setting out (repeatedly) to record more lyrics, it makes me wonder if it is worth the effort to spend that much on a microphone. It will definitly be worth it if I manage to collaborate with someone who can sing, but not yet.

So before I can splash out on a mic and mixer I need to release my fourth album (which is where I am stuck at the moment). On the plus side, if I can get my music output up, then I'll be picking up the mixer, mic and assorted bit but also a camera and some accessories for that as well.