Barking Spider

Introduction to Multitrack Computer Interface Recording.

2011-04-07T16:22:00.003-04:00

"I have a guitar and mic and... and i want to record music - how do I get it into my computer?" While I am by no means an expert on the subject, I have within the last year done a lot of research and tried several interfaces. I think this general breakdown will give you a good feel for what is available today.

I'm going to make this super basic and in plain English for the uninitiated. I have added some definitions and references at the bottom. I am sure there are many people here that will be able to add much knowledge and information to this thread. I would encourage this. Hopefully I have not made too many blatant errors and this will help some people get started with the appropriate equipment.

So here we go...

What is an audio interface?
Simply put the device between your instruments and mics and your computer. Essentially this is a single piece of equipment, one end plugs into your PC* via USB or Firewire (or God forbid your on-board mic input) and the other end plugs into your guitar or mic, or electric ukulele or what-have-you.

A simple interface may only have one or two inputs (or no inputs and just built in mics) while others may be a full multi-track mixing console. There is a huge range of price and variety, I am sticking with lower end devices (under $1000) with input jacks as this is an introduction to the devices and by no means meant to be the definitive guide.

Some manufactures sell sound cards that can take a mic input, I have limited experience with them although I have used them for voice over work. They do a simple job and are cheap but I prefer the external interface so that is what this article is about.

What you need to know when selecting your first computer audio interface.

Key Features of Interfaces.

There are a few things that are crucial to interfaces for beginners and they are not always very obvious or well stated on the product information and they can make or break an interface. So the 4 important features I am covering are:

1. Analog I/O (Already confused? See “What is I/O?” below in definitions.)
2. PC Interface (Digital I/O)
3. Pre-amps / Phantom Power
4. DAW Software

1. Analog I/O
For recording live music you will primarily be concerned with the XLR (mic) and Instrument Jacks (1/4”). The number of Analog inputs is how many sound sources (mics, instruments) you can run into the interface simultaneously. The number you need depends on what you are recording. A full traditional drum kit can easily eat up 8 inputs.

Basically you want to have an input for each mic and instrument you will be using. And as a word of advice, if you get more than you need you will not outgrow it as fast. If you are a solo artist you might get away with two inputs (guitar + mic) but if you want to add any more instruments or musicians you will need more channels/inputs.

So the Analog I/O is how many inputs and outputs you have on your interface/mixer. The import number is the inputs. Or how many sound sources you can record simultaneously.

2. PC Interface (Digital I/O)

The digital interface will usually be either USB or Firewire. USB 1.0 can usually only support 2 out, where USB 2.0/3.0 and Firewire can support 16 (or more) I/O. This is probably the most critical feature when it comes to mixing in a DAW (see item 4) The reason this is so important is that the number of digital outputs define whether you have true multi-track recording! If you have only the stereo mix output (2 Out) then you must perfect your mix prior to or while performing, as you will not be able to mix it again once its tracked in the DAW. You can get around this, (and many solo artists do this even with multi-tracks because you only have so many hands and mouths) by stacking tracks and recording multiple times. See “Overdubbing / Stacking Tracks”.

So if you want true multi-track recording without having to record each part individually you will need multiple outputs, and this isn’t always clearly stated on packaging or product descritptions. You can usually find it listed as digital I/O or Firewire-USB I/O. If you want multi track then you need a full-duplex interface, this means 8/8 or 16/16 which mean 8 in 8 out, or you can record 8 tracks simultaneously. If a device shows 8/2 it only gives you stereo out. Just because a device has a Firewire or USB connection DO NOT ASSUME it is full duplex!

3. Pre-amps / Phantom Power

Many interfaces offer both pre-amps and phantom power. So briefly:

Pre-amps give your mics a little gain before they hit the input channel so they can be heard along with other instruments which otherwise would be far louder. A standard mic run through a channel without a preamp has a very low volume level and pre-amps boost the signal. They can also make a big difference to the tone and feel of the microphone. This is an articles in itself.
Suffice it to say, if you are recording with microphones you need pre-amps. Most interfaces have at least one, many have several. You can also buy stand alone microphone pre-amps.

Phantom power is commonly found on the same channels that have pre-amps. Phantom power is a small current that runs through the XLR mic cable and supplies certain types of microphones with juice to make them active. It basically acts similar to a small preamp right in the mic. Phantom power mics are primarily studio vocal mics. I am not a mic expert but I have both standard and Phantom Power mics and they all have their specific uses. I get the best vocal tracks when using a nice studio mic with Phantom power. I can’t use them when I am recording with other musicians because they pick up all the ambient noise.

4. DAW
DAW: Digital Audio Workstation. This is the software you mix your music in. There are many flavors and brands. Some popular DAWs are Garageband, ProTools, Cubase, Cakewalk, Audacity, Reaper, etc. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_workstation
Many of these interfaces will come with a limited edition (LE) or even a full version of software to allow you to edit and mix your recordings. There are many many many DAWs - They all have their own unique features and drawbacks but they are all basically the same - record tracks, mix, add effects, export song. Don’t fret if the hardware you are buying doesn’t have software, you can get excellent free open source software like Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) or killer inexpensive shareware like Reaper (http://www.reaper.fm/) for like $40

OK, so there we have the basic features of common interfaces. By this point you should have a decent idea about what type of interface you need. Full duplex or just stereo I/O, how many channels, how many pre-amps, and what type of PC interface (USB/Firewire)

FireWire Vs. USB
If you are wondering which is better, Firewire or USB 2 (or 3) you are not alone. From what I have seen, Firewire is actually faster than USB 2, but USB is cheaper to implement and is more common. Also the recording quality is the same from everything I have read (since its all digital anyway). And even though Firewire is technically faster, it’s a moot point as either can record 16/16 duplex equally well. So it is really a matter of personal choice. I have not seen any compelling evidence to choose one over the other. I have used both with the same fine results.

So now lets look at some actual hardware. I have compiles a list of a few interfaces and noted what their basic specs are related to the 4 key features I just described. I am not recommending any of these. I have used some of them, others I have never even seen except on the internet. If you want more information about a specific piece of gear, or something similar to something listed here, just post a thread on the home recording forum and I am sure you will find someone who has used it.

Recording Interface Comparison

Here is a run down of a few of the countless audio interfaces out there and a brief spec. I tried to get the specs as accurate as possible, please verify for yourself. If anyone notices any errors please let me know and I will correct. Or if anyone has one for me to add, I will be happy to add it into the list also. Note- Many of the full duplex interface machines will say 8/10 - or 8 inputs 10 outputs - the extra two are the mix down so they are not a distinct usable track and I have chosen to omit them, the site may say 8/10 and you will see 8/8 here.

Cakewalk UA 1G USB $80
Interface: USB I/O 2/2 (stereo) DAW: Sonar LE
Connections: 2 XLR with Phantom and PreAmp, 4 ¼” TRS, 1 Mono ¼” Jack, S/PDIF, phones
Cool Stuff: About as easy as it gets for a guitar player/singer.
http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=1089

Lexicon Omega $150
Interface: USB I/O: 8x2 DAW: Cubase LE4
Connections: 2 XLR with Phantom and PreAmp, 4 ¼” TRS, 1 Mono ¼” Jack, S/PDIF, phones
Pros: Small footprint - nice knob placement. Cons: 2 out

http://www.lexiconpro.com/product.php?id=6

POD Studio UX2 $200
Interface: USB 2.0 I/O: 4/2 DAW: Abelton Live Lite
Connections: 2- XLR/1/4” with Phantom Power and Preamp, 4 - ¼” jacks, Midi, S/PDIF, phones
Cool Stuff: Lots of guitar amps and cool VU meters
http://www.avid.com/US/products/Mbox

Firewire Solo $180
Interface: Firewire I/O: 4/4 Full Duplex DAW: Abelton Live Lite
Connections: 1- XLR with Phantom Power and Preamp, 3- ¼” Guitar Jack, S/PDIF, phones
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FireWireSolo.html

M-Box $450
Interface: USB 2.0 I/O: 4/4 DAW: ProTools LE 8
Connections: 2- XLR/1/4” combo jacks with Phantom Power and Preamp, 2- ¼” jacks, Midi, S/PDIF, phones
http://www.avid.com/US/products/Mbox

PreSonus FireStudio Project $500
Interface: Firewire I/O: 8/8 DAW: StudioOne Artist
Connections: 8- XLR/1/4” combo jacks with Phantom Power and Preamp, 2- ¼”, Midi, S/PDIF, phones
Cool Stuff: Led Meters! Sweet. Eight Preamps! 4 GBs of software! Cons: No Faders
http://www.presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=43

Alesis MultiMix 8/16 USB 2.0 $300/$600
Interface: USB I/O: 8x8 /16x16 DAW: Cubase LE4
Connections: 4/8 - XLR/1/4” combo with Phantom Power and Preamp, 4/8- ¼” (4/8 mono/2/4stereo), phones
http://www.alesis.com/multimix8usb20

Lexicon I-ONIX FW810S $700
Interface: Firewire I/O: 10x10 DAW: Cubase LE4
Connections: 8 XLR with Phantom and PreAmp, 4 ¼” TRS, 1 Mono ¼” Jack, S/PDIF, MIDI, phones
Pros: dbx dynamics (compressor, limiter, gate, EQ) on all 8 channels
http://www.lexiconpro.com/product.php?id=150

Reference:

What is I/O?

I/O is a common term in stands for In/Out or Input/Output for the anal retentive. :) It can be used to describe any signal paths in a device be they analog or digital. Analog I/O includes the input jacks for guitars and mics. Most commonly there will be XLR (3 prong balanced mic cables) and ¼” (quarter inch standard guitar cable inputs or “jacks”). RCA jacks are also common (usually L/R red and white stereo) for line inputs/outputs.
Common analog outputs are similar to the inputs but ¼” jack outputs are probably the most common, usually a left and right.

Overdubbing / Stacking Tracks

If you are a solo artist, or if you just want to add some extra tracks to an existing mix you can easily overdub. While overdubbing implies erasing something, I am referring to the process of adding additional tracks to a mix in a DAW. So for example, lets say you have a small stereo interface that records one or two sources at a time. You can record the main guitar track, then play that back and sing along to it into a new track. Repeat as needed to add guitar solos, egg shakers, cowbell or what have you. This way you can record all your tracks then go back and add effects, EQ and adjust volume on your mix.

It can also give you a great sound if you stack and mix tracks to give them more depth. For instance, record your main guitar part. Load a new track, record it again. Now pan one track completely to the left, the other to the right. The tracks should be almost identical but just different enough to give you a rich wide sound that can not be achieved by using a single mono track.

Footnotes: *
PC: *I use the term PC in this article to stand for what it means which is Personal Computer - it should not be confused with any specific operating system (e.g. a PC can run Windows or MacOS (if its Apple hardware)). I know there is a common belief that PC means Windows but it does not, it means Personal Computer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer) and a Mac IS a PC as is a Linux laptop.

Thisng that broke in the past 7 days

2011-03-04T18:13:00.002-05:00

1) Tivo HD Series 3 - stuck on power up screen

2) Cannon D80 - CHA memory card error

3) Plymouth Fury - Some relay or the starter

4) Cocktail Arcade - ROM chip freak out (fixed this one)

5) e-cig auto battery

6) Rear wheel alignment ruining tires at a maddening rate

Nice week

theres more I just can't remember them all right now...

Taco Bell Responds to Where's the beef? Law suit

2011-01-28T17:26:00.000-05:00

Taco Bell went big and bold to respond to a lawsuit claiming its taco filling can't be called beef, buying up newspaper ads Friday that trumpet "Thank you for suing us."

The company says it is setting the record straight with full-page ads in Friday's editions of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other papers and a YouTube campaign.

"Here's the truth about our seasoned beef," the ads say, declaring the product is 88 percent ground beef, and the rest a mixture of spices and common food additives. Taco Bell is fighting a claim that the meat filling is only 35 percent beef.

The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in California, claims calling Taco Bell's filling "seasoned beef" is false advertising. The suit alleges the meat mixture has binders and extenders and does not meet federal requirements to be labeled beef.

Taco Bell denied those claims but went further by launching the advertising campaign after a week in which the story spread like wildfire, making national headlines, creating an internet stir and even prompting a bit by comedian Steven Colbert.

Experts say similar cases show the tempest in a tortilla is unlikely to hurt Taco Bell's business, but the aggressive counter-attack is drawing some attention.

"It is unusual for a company to take this on and challenge the allegations so boldly," said Gene Grabowski, chair of the crisis and litigation practice at Levick Strategic Communications in Washington. "A lot of companies are going to be watching how this turns out."

The tone and scope of the campaign indicates Taco Bell is confident in its facts, Grabowski said. Companies typically shy away from taking facts in a legal dispute public.

The lawsuit, filed by the Alabama law firm Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, doesn't specify what percentage of the mixture is meat. The lawyer on the case, Dee Miles, said the firm had the filling tested and found it contained 35 percent beef. The firm would not say who tested the meat or give any other specifics of the analysis.

Taco Bell says the filling contains 88 percent USDA-inspected beef and the rest is water, spices and a mixture of oats, starch and other ingredients that contribute to what it calls the "quality of its product."

The company said it uses no extenders to add volume to the filling.

Customers at a Taco Bell in parent company Yum Brands' hometown of Louisville, Ky., were unruffled.

Full Article

nuff said

2011-01-28T17:09:00.001-05:00

Politics as usual

2010-11-03T01:53:00.000-04:00

Politics in this country are a complete joke. It is pathetic. A media circus of inane socially dividing issues to keep people outraged and entertained while they are being sodomized by the bankers and corporations that purchased both parties decades ago.

The sad thing is that these polarized groups really think that the other party is the problem. Politicians do NOT dictate policy - corporations do. There are 535 members of congress, there are over 11,000 active "registered" lobbyist... (Thats about 20 to 1) and those lobbyist spent $3.5 billion in 2009.

$3.5 Billion - let that sink in for a second... Lobbyist represent corporate and private organizations, spending twice the GDP of Greenland just to "influence" Washington.

So what is the real problem? Is it gay marriage? Muslims? welfare? Invading 3rd world countries? Childhood Obesity? The Taliban? Iraq? Afghanistan? The "war" on drugs? The "war" on terror? North Korea?

Who owns the media? (Not the people thats for damn sure) Why are we focused on these supposedly important issues while the only real threat to our freedom is public and foreign policy that is dictated purely by the drive to increase profits regardless of the toll on our citizens, our health and our freedom and liberty.

Our medical system and our penal system are privatized - we have the highest incarceration rate of any developed nation in the world, right here in the USA, the land of the Free. But our health care system isn't even in the top 30! Costa Rica ranks higher, as does Columbia and Saudi Arabia and 33 other countries. And all I hear people bitching about is immigration reform and homophobia. Please, please, please, get a freaking clue America.

Quit bickering over these irrelevant non-issues and start complaining about problems that actually affect our lives.

I'm sure they will come up with a pill soon that I can take and not worry about these kinds of things. My insurance company will be happy to cover it.

whatever...

----
"Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV And you think you're so clever and classless and free But you're still f*ing peasants as far as I can see"- John Lennon

Hell in a handbasket

2010-06-05T01:26:00.003-04:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/31/indonesia.smoking.baby/?hpt=T2

Smoking Baby Hooked on Cigarettes - Watch more Funny Videos

Oil spill beach cleanup.
Hands across the Sand.
“Thousands of Floridians from all walks of life will gather on beaches from Pensacola to Key West and Miami to Jacksonville Feb. 13, 2010, in a statewide coastal protest against legislative proposals to open Florida’s waters to offshore oil drilling.”

EVERY 10 seconds, one person dies in the world from the use of tobacco.

NEW YORK — The tobacco industry wants to snuff out a New York City regulation requiring cigarette retailers to post blunt warnings about the dangers of smoking. Cigarette giants Lorillard, Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds filed a lawsuit Wednesday

Clean up your Outlook Folders - End of year PC maintenance

2009-12-16T10:54:00.005-05:00

Searching your inbox can be a very slow and tedious process especially if you have 3 or 4 years worth of old mail in your inbox and sent folders.

Outlook searches oldest messages first by default, so when you are searching for a client email or even re-ordering your inbox it can be horribly slow. With the holidays here, there is a lot of slow time and its a great opportunity to do some PC maintenance that will help speed up your machine. I use Outlook but this same information applies to Thunderbird or any other mail program (except maybe Gmail which apparently can have 13,000,000 messages and still be fast)

I am very bad at that and looking at my inbox, I selected all the email from before 12/31/07 and found 12,889 messages! So if you are as bad as I am about cleaning up Outlook - I recommend you do this annual clean-up. I prefer to copy my old mail into a folder and not delete it since I may need to find a 3 year old email next week - you never know.

1) Pick a cut-off date (I am keeping all of 2008 just to be safe) then create a new folder named "Inbox-07-08" or whatever date range you like.

2) Order your mail by date and select the first message that matches the date, then scroll all the way to the bottom and select the last message.

3) Drage this whole list into the archive folder you made.

4) Repeat this process with your Sent and Deleted Items folder.

This will speed up your email searches quite a bit (and remove a lot of useless 2 year old search results).

Bonus Tip:

Another good tip to reduce disk space and speed up your mail program even more:

There are often email exchanges with attachments that go back and forth several times, or just garbage that was sent to you. These attachments take up a lot of room in your mail file and really slow things down. In Outlook its easy to sort by attachment, just click the paperclip and you can quickly browse all the emails that have attachments, viewing the message in the preview pain will show you the size of the attachment.

Take all the duplicates and grabage thats still in your inbox and delete them!

I will be posting a few more annual PC maintenance ideas over the next few days.

Till then

Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Delightful Diwali... (Killer Kwanzza?)

Congratulations to our Next Big Small Business Finalists!

2009-08-11T17:36:00.002-04:00

PhotographersQuote.com is a finalist!

http://www.dotster.com/nextbigsmb/

PhotographersQuote.com – Dotster’s Next Big Small Business Entry from Wesley Warren on Vimeo.

Photography Jobs at PhotographersQuote

I need a BMW Gina

2009-01-15T15:50:00.002-05:00

wonder what the crash testing looks like - maybe this is the vehical that crashed in Roswell, NM - got stuck in a woem hole and time traveled back to 1947

Love the LED turn signals

Stooges guitarist found dead - CNN.com

2009-01-06T15:14:00.000-05:00

Ron Asheton, the guitarist for Iggy and The Stooges, was found dead this morning in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Iggy and The Stooges helped launch the early 70's punk scene at CBGBs and played with many other great bands of that era like the Ramones, Blondie, The Sex Pistols and so many more. I'm suprised any of them lived to be 60 years old with the lifestyle they practiced which is excellently documented in "Please Kill Me" - The uncensored Oral History of Punk Rock.

He had some amazing talent and awesome riffs, the Raw Power record is an excellent example. RIP

Stooges guitarist found dead - CNN.com

Superbowl

2009-01-03T15:04:00.001-05:00

http://xkcd.com/60/

Rapid Prototyping

2008-12-01T18:00:00.001-05:00

2008-11-30T16:52:00.002-05:00

I found an interesting blog entry about quantum theory (and creationism?) and found a slight flaw in the presentation, which I pointed out with the information below:

“Programmers realized that the universe would take up an extreme amount of memory. In fact, it would use up everything in the superuniverse that it was created in to store that amount of data.”

Actually, in regards to your statement about needing an infinite amount of storage space to store the paths and information regarding every particle/wave in the universe, there are some more logical explainations.

The theory that there should exists a predetermined course for every particle can actually be ruled out by realization itself that it would take all the particles in the universe to hold that amount of information.

Advanced behavior modeling has actually been developed not by trying to account for every possible outcome, but by implementing basic rules within a system. This has allowed models to create exponentially complex behaviors with minimal data. So the same programmers you refer to also came up with a more logical theory of rule based systems.

Essentailly you can create a model of infinitly complex behaviors based on very small rule sets, this has been illustrated in some very basic applications such as modeling flocks of birds:
They enter a few simple rules such as: what other birds to avoid, maximum speed and turn radius, tendancy to move to the center of the flock, etc. - these rules then play themselves out and create a huge amount of complexity.

http://www.lalena.com/AI/Flock/Flock.aspx
http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/

Whether birds can collapse a wave function has yet to be determined…

Streaming video: Antikythera

2008-11-21T12:45:00.000-05:00

Amazing video of a 2000 year old greek astronomical clock predicted eclipses, lunar cycles and the olympic games.

There is a great video on Nature that gives a lot fo the details
Streaming video: Antikythera

Xbox360 rips off the wii mii's!

2008-11-19T14:51:00.003-05:00

Turned on my xbox today, it prompted me to download a new update, took forever to load, then it restarts and boom - did I switch on my Wii? There are a bunch of cute little 3D avatars running around and I am supposed to pick one!

I think the Wiis feature of avatar customization is awesome, and apparently so did Microsoft cause now it looks almost identicle - even the corny FinalFanatasy music!

"Good artists copy, great artists steal"
- Pablo Picasso

Antec - Skeleton

2008-11-14T20:01:00.000-05:00

This new case dsign looks pretty cool, the only thin I would worry about is dust and spills, But its a pretty sweet looking case all the same.

Antec - Skeleton

dont drink the water

2008-11-13T22:55:00.000-05:00

10 Great SEO Tips

2008-11-12T21:38:00.001-05:00

Great SEO Primer - 10 critical tips for good search engine optimization.

read more | digg story

20 Year High School Reunion

2008-10-28T16:54:00.007-04:00

Went to my 20 years Reunion at Clarenceville High School in Livonia Michigan last week. Was pretty fun even though I drank way too much the night of the party...

Saw some old friends:

I finally got to sneak into the teachers lounge...

And stopped by my old hangout Noir Leather (Keith was there!)

Had some great memories of Project F (aka The Fork Invasion) - here me and Ray find some evidence still remains of the fateful forking.

Ill tell you who I am, Im the repo man.

2008-10-15T15:13:00.001-04:00

Repo man success story.

It all goes back to the Repo code of ethics. (Great movie...)

Rush Limbaughs disinformation campaign - 57 states, the name of the 9/11 terrorist

2008-10-15T12:38:00.004-04:00

From Rush Limbaugh's radio show yesterday.....

First Rush rants about Obamas slip up saying he's visited 57 states (instead of 47) but hasnt yet visited Alaska or Hawaii... Limbaugh says this is because there are 57 Islamic states (not sure if Rush is counting Alaska and Hawaii) .

Snopes reveals a little about the "57" Islamic states:
"As for the next obvious question, depending upon the definitional criteria used, there are more or less than 57 Islamic countries/nations/states in the world. If an Islamic state is defined to mean any country in which a majority of the indigenous population is Muslim, then the total number of Islamic states is actually a little lower (about 52). All such numbers are estimates, however, and are subject to additional definitional criteria. "

Rush continues:

So did Obama just lose his bearings, or was this a slip of the tongue,
ladies and gentlemen?

I keep wondering just what it is about the name
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
that folks don't get. Did we all just forget those who died on
Sept. 11, 2001 and the names of the perpetrators?

This really gets me. "Did we forget who died on Sept 11 and the names of the perpetrators?"

I am guessing Rush is trying to tie in Saddam Hussein and 9/11? Even though its been thoroughly investigated and proven that Iraq's former leader had nothing to do with 9/11 (much to the disappointment of the current party).

Or maybe he is referring to the fact that Osama rhymes with Obama?

Either way its pretty sad.

The Republican demonizing of the Democratic candidate is not going to help this country.

From the looks of the polls, Obama is in the lead, although not by a huge amount. But if he holds this lead and does become the next president, we are going to have a huge population of Americans whothink the president is an arab islamic terrorist enemy of the country. This can not be good. Are the republicans trying to incite another civil war?

Its one thing to play to peoples fears for votes and attack policies of an opponent, however it is quite another thing to try to characterize your opponent as a criminal, we should be vary wary of this.

They need to get their pundits in-line, these fear mongers are turning people against each other for no good reason. It will not lead to anythng good.

-- On another note:
October 14, 2008 (10/14/08) has come and past and the giant space ship didn't appear as the Galactic Federation of Light predicted. I think if these people would spend a little more time trying to make the world a little better, instead of spending all there time making videos about aliens coming down to save the world, they might be able to make a difference.

These kids are all sitting around outting all there hopes in some alien race coming down to save the planet and take away the injustice in the world. They think its going to take some extra terrestrial super race to make the world better. This is just another way to avoid the responsibilty of making those changes themselves.

So my message to all the disappointed sky watchers is: "Stop waiting for someone else to come and solve your problems for you and get off your ass and do it yourself." -
maybe I could sell them "What would ET Do?" bracelets?

super fast and short login form - coldfusion

2008-10-08T15:40:00.002-04:00

Needed to protect one page in 5 minutes, wrote this quicl little 7 line script.

Requires session management to be active on the coldfusion server - this example is being used on a bluedragon server that doesnt require form actions, CF might require a form action


<cfif not isDefined('session.id')>
  <cfif isDefined('login')>
     <cfif login eq "hardcoded_password_here">
     <cfset session.id = login><a href="">Success</a><cfabort></cfif>
    </cfif>
<form>Password:
<input name="login">
</form><cfabort>
</cfif>

chi powers activate

2008-09-29T12:02:00.000-04:00

sweet case mod

2008-09-25T22:18:00.000-04:00

I need one of these

Congratulations Amar had a baby boy - looks just like him

2008-08-04T02:46:00.002-04:00

Just look at the little guy, readt to party. Say hello to my little friend Amar Jr.

magnetic movie

2008-08-03T20:06:00.000-04:00

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

NPR: Who's proud to be an American? This guy!

2008-08-03T19:14:00.000-04:00

NPR: Who's proud to be an American? This guy!
My crazy buddy Pete from back at Javastreet got his tatoos posted on NPR

2008-07-30T18:11:00.001-04:00

Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) has been rocketing up this past year over 400% over the past 5 years! http://finance.aol.com/quotes/chesapeake-energy-corporation/chk/nys

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The chief executive of natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) on Wednesday tried to broaden the market for natural gas by appealing to political concern over the U.S.'s energy crisis, telling Congress that the fuel can provide a solution to both high gasoline prices and climate change.

Hours after presiding over the release of a new report showing that the U.S. has enough natural gas supplies to meet more than 100 years of demand at current levels, Chesapeake Energy Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon told a U.S. House committee that the country could build more natural gas vehicles and gas-fired power plants without raising prices for fertilizer, chemicals and other products that are made with natural gas.

"Three years ago I would have said no," McClendon told Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Markey had asked whether natural gas supplies were enough to reduce the nation's reliance on coal-fired plants to about 35% of electricity from 50% currently, without raising natural gas prices. "Today, I say yes," said McClendon.

The pitch comes amid skepticism from companies that use natural gas and regulators who are currently focused more on high natural gas prices. This summer, regulators warned that high natural gas prices will mean higher summer electricity bills. Dow Chemical Co. (DOW), a major chemical maker, told Congress on Wednesday that it was wary of government policies that might increase demand for natural gas, saying that the U.S. may not be able to handle higher demand for natural gas without putting further strains on manufacturing, a heavy user of the fuel.

getting ready to launch sunglass outlet

2008-06-26T22:28:00.002-04:00

efrogz is about to become a great discount sunglass outlet. We are working out a deal with a wholsale distributor to start selling brand new high-end shades. We figured we would sell something we ourselves were big customer of.

eFrogz.com will be the home of our new store.

amazing animation outdoor

2008-06-20T13:58:00.000-04:00

Incredible Outdoor stop motion animation by BluBlu

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Vexcom Web Design News: The Joy of Flex: Adobe Air and the future of the desktop (with Ben Forta)

2008-04-11T16:35:00.000-04:00

Here is an article I wrote after attending a Flex seminar here in Atlanta. Its very cool technology.

Vexcom Web Design News: The Joy of Flex: Adobe Air and the future of the desktop (with Ben Forta)

Affordable Website Promotion Search Engine Optimization Specialist

2008-03-22T00:25:00.000-04:00

Affordable Website Promotion Search Engine Optimization Specialist

Updated the site with the new lush XHTML template from usefuldesign.org

looks much better!

Awareness test: count the passes

2008-03-17T16:14:00.001-04:00

I just got a new bike so watch.

Awareness Test - Watch more free videos

Strange places to find links

2008-03-16T12:47:00.004-04:00

Doing a littel research and I have found some strange links to a few of our sites, I have listed them her for your enjoyment.

Vexcom:
http://students.kennesaw.edu/~asolfa/2300/careerpage.html

Freelancedesigners.com:
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/cs195/demos/siteplans/siteplan_su06_195.htm

http://web.acd.ccac.edu/~ssher2d/

http://www.skidmore.edu/administration/career/free.htm

http://homepages.evansville.edu/ae36/design/resources.html

UsefulDesign.org - Wallpaper - Backgrounds

2008-03-15T22:32:00.000-04:00

Useful design has added free CSS web design templates. The first one is named "water"

templates are valid XHTML transitional and Valid CSS

Free CSS templates

How to behave on the internet

2008-03-08T14:25:00.002-05:00

This is a great video Rachel over at allgraphicdesign.com sent me on proper internet forum etiquette

How To Behave On An Internet Forum

Micro Laser projector for your laptop

2008-03-06T12:54:00.000-05:00

The new micro sized projector from Microvision isnt much bigger than a ipod and uses 3-color lasers to project your laptop or cell phone onto the wall! Because it uses lasers it doesnt need much power or buly lenses, in a normal lit room it can produce a 8x11 image, but switch off the lights and you can go up to a 100" picture!

This will be awesome for meetings at clients offices when they dont have a projector.

Must have device for 08!

Microvision: Accessory Pico Projector Displays

Must love lasers

Window Boxes: 10 Questions When Choosing a Window Box

2008-03-06T00:34:00.000-05:00

Window Boxes: 10 Questions When Choosing a Window Box: "

10 Questions When Choosing a Window Box"

Spring time is coming - Jess will be planting flowers

What flowers do I want to plant in my box?
A. This is an important question. Different flowers and plants require different amount of soil space. Make sure you know the dimensions of the box such as how deep and how tall it is and consult with a professional on knowing the ideal soil space needed for what you want to plant.

That was written by the guys that sell window boxes at the right products.

Custom Web Design

2008-03-05T22:21:00.000-05:00

Check out my sweet photo next to my signed and numbered Dali Print.

Its on Custom Web Design a new site that will cover articles and info on custom web design.

"Web Design is the use of visual aids, pictures and text by an artist to communicate information via the internet. This can be purley informative or can also be a service, or ecommerce enabled online shopping. Custom web design creates a unique site built specifically for the client in order to achieve their goals."

Key terms people, key terms.

GOALS

How Much Does a Web site Cost? Web Design Pricing Guide

2008-03-04T21:04:00.000-05:00

Every web site is different, which makes it impossible to set standard pricing. This being the case, all web developers use different methods to determine the cost for web design.

How Much Does a Web site Cost? Web Design Pricing Guide

How Much Does a Web Site cost dot com

dungeon and Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax dies at 69

2008-03-04T15:49:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press: Dungeons & Dragons Co-Creator Dies at 69

Man I was a total D&D geek when I was a kid. This guy helped created one of the most influential games of the past century, sparking the entire RPG genre.

i loved all the complexity of the game, the detail was extrordinary.

Maybe the headline should read "Gary Gygax Advances to the Deep Ethereal Plane at age 69"

He must be a level 1000 wizard by now.

See the Outer Planes on wikipedia.

Biological SDD Storage using lasers circa 1980

2008-03-02T15:59:00.003-05:00

Professor Robert Birge (a visionary) demostrates a 1cm x 1cm bilogical moleculer device that stores digital information 100 Gigs worth using red and green lasers to set and reset bits.

Today Professor Birge is at the University of Connecticut

Robert R. Birge, Ph.D. is Harold S. Schwenk Sr. Distinguished Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Connecticut.

Current research update:

When the protein is in some of these states, its ability to absorb light allows it to form holograms. In the natural environment, each of the states lasts only briefly: the whole cycle takes just 10 to 20 milliseconds. But prior research has shown that shining red light on the protein as it nears the end of its chemical cycle can force it into a useful state — known as the "Q state" — that can last for years.

The problem is that the Q state is difficult to produce in the naturally occurring protein. So molecular biologists at UConn, led by Robert Birge of the chemistry department, are genetically manipulating Halobacterium salinarum so that it can produce a protein that enters the Q state more easily.

To serve as part of a holographic system, the protein is suspended in a polymer gel. A green laser beam is split in two, and one beam is encoded with data. The beams are then recombined in the gel, imprinting the proteins with an interference pattern that stores the data. To read the data, the system sends a single, lower-power, red laser beam back through the interference pattern. A blue laser erases the data.

Attack of the wiki-nazis

2008-02-29T18:02:00.002-05:00

You would think that the accomplishments of my life would at least get me a freakin wikipedia page, but apparently I am not worthy...

Maybe I will have to wait until my cover story comes out in Wired.

timebomb

2008-02-29T11:47:00.000-05:00

My Friend Dave

2008-02-28T14:38:00.003-05:00

My Buddy Dave wrote a great song about the atlanta drought: pray for rain

My other friends Matt and Kurt are expanding their company to a new facility. They make custom pvc rot-proof window boxes.

Why math makes sense.

2008-02-27T20:15:00.002-05:00

Jon sent me these: Beauty of Math!

Pretty cool -

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

Dont like math ? How about Matt Damon? Sarah Silverman is hilarious.

And Jimmy Gets Revenge

This is interesting

2008-02-03T15:25:00.000-05:00

Vexcom is in a similar position as Rand over at SEOmoz

A) Continue to serve clients, provide SEO and web marketing consultation and generate relatively robust profits as a firm. We're poised to grow to 8 full-time employees in the next month (from the 3 that we had last October) and from that vantage, we'll be in a position to bring in between $700K and $1.25 million in revenue over the next 12 months. Even with significant overhead and expenses, it makes for a well paid team and a decent budget for growth.

B) Ween ourselves off clients and develop our own content play in the Web 2.0 landscape. As fun as it is to see the traffic, visibility and revenues of our clients launch skyward as we work with them, temptation begs the question... “why not do it for yourself?” Indeed, I can't think of a meeting with a venture capitalist or experienced entrepreneur in which the question hasn't been raised - “If you're so good at this, why serve the interests of others?” I think I know how stock brokers must feel.

http://www.seomoz.org/users/view/57860

How to spam proof your email links with javascript.

2008-01-29T14:38:00.000-05:00

If you post a link to your email on your website using the classic HTML tag mailto:me@domain.com then you are almost sure to get your self added to spam list.

Spammers use software robots (bots) called harvesters that go through search engines, find websites, then scour the sites looking for the mailto tag - then they take the email out and add it to their spam mailing list.

There is an easy way to avoid this problem.

How to create a Javascript email link.

You can copy and paste this code, just change the vars name and domain in the quotes - it will create a regular looking email link on your site and cannot be read by harvestor bots.

The code here shows how to make a link for the email address me@mysite.com
with the text "email me" as the link:

<script language="JavaScript">

</script>

Note: make sure you dont put your email in the link var! if you want to use your email use the HTML code for the @ symbol which is & #64; (no spaces) so you owuld write it as
me&# 64;mysite.com which will appear on the page as me@mysite.com

New Atlanta Metro Blog

2008-01-28T16:30:00.000-05:00

Another blog surprise surprise. Needed aplace to help promote our friends.

I created my first wikipedia article

2008-01-16T18:50:00.000-05:00

For my friend Tom Sullivan, I hope I did it right!

Im sure if i didn't, i will hear about it from the wiki-police.

Hes already referenced ina few wiki articles so i went in and updated them, hopefully it will work out correctly.

I think we are having dinner with him and a few other friends this weekend, maybe i can suprise him with this.

Its Snowing In Atlanta

2008-01-16T17:39:00.000-05:00

Hotep enjoys a brew and watches the flakes fall

Thanks Peter

Expanding my driveway

2008-01-11T18:47:00.001-05:00

My handyman dale is going to finally expand my driveway this weekend so I dont have to park in the mud anymore. Woohoo - concrete gets poured Monday.

Update: Heres an action shot in the middle of the concrete pour:

This is a horrible photo someone showed me - im sure this dog is going to burn in hell for this, although i guess its not really his fault. (probably ophotoshopped but hey, its nice work)

This is terrible, aweful, but its uncanny really - I think this is actually Jesus' brother JeesAss

PS: you know im kidding around right God? please don't strike me dead...

I never posted pictures of my loft that was built by all atlanta construction - Dean has since taken on a permanent position as far as I know.

Lifehacker Top 10 Obscure Google Tricks

2008-01-07T23:12:00.000-05:00

My Favorites from LifeHackers Top 10:

Google recognizes faces. If you're doing an image search for Paris Hilton and don't want any of the French city, a special URL parameter in Google's Image search will do the trick. Add &imgtype=face to the end of your image search to just get images of faces, without any inanimate objects. Try it out with a search for rose (which returns many photos of flowers) versus rose with the face parameter.
What's your favorite ninja Google search technique? Tell us about it in the comments

Get the local time anywhere What time is it in Bangkok right now? Ask Google. Enter simply what time is it to get the local time in big cities around the world, or add the locale at the end of your query, like what time is it hong kong to get the local time there.

Convert currency, metrics, bytes, and more Google's powerful built-in converter calculator can help you out whether you're cooking dinner, traveling abroad, or building a PC. Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup (quarter cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro). For the geekier set, bits in kilobytes (155473 bytes in kilobytes) and numbers in hex or binary (19 in binary) are also pretty useful.

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

MUBC = Made Up By Client - Terms or Acronyms clients use that are similar to real ones

2008-01-04T12:07:00.000-05:00

In the design and development world you often have clients that will use MUA (made up acronyms) when trying to communicate what they want. This can cause a lot of confusion and complications. Usually there is a proper term or acronym which is not being used.

This creates major problems, because often clients will be tempted to use acronyms they do not fully inderstand, or misundertand, and they ask for something they really do not want.

As a developer, it is your responsibility to locate and destroy all MUBCs.

MUBC: Made Up By Client

Awesome First Date!

2007-12-12T15:47:00.000-05:00

Knock knock

Oh hi, how's it going? It's me! Every girl ever. I'm really looking forward to this date. I'm not nearly as attractive as you remember me being because when we met the bar was dark and you were drunk. Come on in. Let's start off with the unavoidable tour of my incredibly typical post-college-girl apartment. You'll notice that I went ahead and purchased everything that Ikea and Pier 1 have ever produced. There's my decorative birdcage over there even though I don't have a bird, and there's my gay wicker basket with bamboo poles in it. I don't know what the hell that's thing's all about, but I bought it.

Hey check it out, I have more candles in here than a Roman Catholic Church. Doesn't it smell like Hazelnut!? If I were to light all of my candles at once you could see my apartment from space! I fucking love candles! Come on into the living room. Oh, I see you met my cat there. That's "Freddy Paws Jr." Why don't you pet him and act like you like cats even though you hate cats? There you go. Oh, he took a little swing at your eye there huh? Yeah, he'll do that.

Hey, let's check out the kitchen. Hey look at my refrigerator. There are pictures all over it! Look at all these pictures of me and my equally vacuous friends from college! We were so crazy! You can tell we're really good friends because our faces are all pressed up against each other like that. And check it out, we're holding up alcoholic beverages to the camera in every single picture. That's to prove that we were partying. College was so fun! But of course I don't talk to any of these girls anymore because now they're all bitches.

Let's go back into the hallway! Hey, before we leave I'm going to go in the bathroom for ten minutes for some mysterious reason. Why don't you sit awkwardly in my big, stupid, round papizan chair over there while you wait for me. It's like you're sitting in a hug! Be right back... Sorry that took a half an hour, I don't know what the hell I was doing in there. Let's go! Wow! Thanks for opening my car door for me! I'm totally going to blow that meaningless gesture out of proportion and delude myself into thinking that you're a really good guy because that's what I want to believe.

Well, here we are at the restaurant. No thanks waiter, I don't need to see a menu, just bring me some expensive things. Hey I know, while we wait, I'll tell you all about my unspeakably boring job. I hate my boss. He's a jerk! I might get another job. Maybe something in pharmaceutical sales. Now let's talk about my family. I love my family. I want you to love my family. I want my family to love you. I want you to make love to my family! I want you to go golfing with my semi-retarded brother Travis. That would be so God damned cute!

Wow! I can't believe I ordered all this food! I have no intention of eating any of it. No thanks waiter, we don't need a box. Just throw it out. Hey, I've got an idea, let's go to a bar and have an after dinner drink! It'll be great, it will be just like how we're drinking here, only it will be louder and we'll have to stand up. Come on! See, isn't this better?

Oh hey, what a coincidence. Look over there! It's a group of my friends that I knew was going to be here. Let's go over there so that they can judge you! Hey, I have to go to the bathroom for a half an hour again for some reason. You can stay here and talk to my unbelievably hideous friend Christine! Christine's so ugly she scares kids! Talk to her! She has a job and a family that she wants to talk to you about too. Be right back.

I'm back! Sorry I was gone for three hours, there was a line. I want to go home now. Well here we are at my door again. This was really fun for me and not you. You should pretend like we're going to do it again sometime! Maybe I'll see you at Target a few months from now and we can avoid eye contact because you never called me. Here, have this awkward goodnight kiss that's as empty as my soul.

Good night!

Found this on Digg via Craigslist

Oglethorpe needs a good home!

2007-12-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

This is Oglethorpe

(named Huey by the shelter)

He was turned in to animal control in Athens, Georgia by his owner after being a devoted pet for over 8 years. The reason that he was surrendered could have been because an anti-chaining ordinance went into effect in Athens recently or perhaps it was because he has a skin condition that requires medication but is easily controlled. He is a special guy, who is very gentle and well mannered.

Someone must have trained him at some point because he walks beautifully on a leash (doesn't pull at all) and sits on command. He absolutely loves being around people as well as other dogs and reportedly cats. At his foster home, he got along with the 4 other dogs there without incident and this could be due to the fact that he exudes just a gentle, non-threatening and loving nature.

He looks mostly shepherd with the exception of one of his eyes which is baby blue. He weighs around 80 lbs and loves attention. Although his name was Oglethorpe, he doesn't seem to be too familiar with this name which seems to indicate that he was probably chained for a good portion of his life and not given the attention and affection that he so craves.

He is neutered and vetted and will make a wonderful dog for the rest of his years.

If your interested and can get him from athens leave a comment and Ill send you an email address.

Freelance design business

2007-12-11T13:28:00.000-05:00

FreelanceDesigners.biz relaunches as a freelance business blog: Freelance design business

Evolution of Mac Commercial Spoofs

2007-12-10T20:24:00.000-05:00

In the beginning there was the "Im a PC, Im a Mac" commercial...

Then came some elaborate (and not so elaborate) YouTube spoofs..

More wackyness ensued: Someone through linux into the game - in his sweet TRON getup no less.

Of course Linux is just an OS no hardware involved. And now Macs run intel chips and you can actually run windows on Mac hardware if you really wanted to.. not sure why you would.

At some point I guess all 30 members of the Free BSD usergroup got miffed and whipped up this beauty:

You know an OS is in trouble when it has to resort to porn. I kid you BSD users (there are over 100 BSD mailing lists!)

ok hope you liked these four images...

adios

SEO Article Published

2007-12-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

Got my article published in a few places:

GetAcoder
eZineArticles
Astro Market

and of course on my own blog

From the original article:

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Automated Link Exchanges: Easy PR or SEO Nightmare?

Automated Link Building SystemsIm sure many of you, as I have, receive lots of spam email saying "we have placed your link on our PR4 site! please place a link back on your site." For those of you new to SEO, PR refers to PageRank which is a value assigned by google from 0-10 with 10 being the highest and almost impossible to get ranking. Even ebay is only a PR9! OBL stands for Out Bound Links which are simply links on a page that link to another web site. Pagerank is calculated, in part by how many IBL (In bound links) with each site counting as a vote. IBLs are the same as OBLs depending on who you are talking about - if its your site and the link is on another page its an IBL for you, to the site owner its an OBL because it links away from there site to yours. Am I making this confusing? Sorry, anyway read on.Now there are a number of reasons why these things are worthless and probably detrimental to your site. Here are the main reasons these things bug me so much:

1) High PR? Not on the page your link is on!The emails refer to a high PR site which is "domain.com", and that domain may have a decent PR, maybe its a 4 or 6. However, thats NOT where your link is - your link is buried several folders down in their "links"section which usually has 10 to 20 pages with almost no PR and certainly no traffic.

An IM conversation about SEO

2007-12-06T16:40:00.000-05:00

[16:30] Wesley: we could do a SEO deal with her for around $1000/month would be the cheapest
[16:30] Wesley: but
[16:30] Wesley: she could just post what she wants on designquote.net and get 8 free bids
[16:30] Paris Hilton: Gotcha
[16:30] Paris Hilton: One fear is that they're going to tear apart the site. Does that normally happen?
[16:31] Wesley: who?
[16:31] Paris Hilton: Then I'd be stuck trying to interface OSCommerce into their changes
[16:31] Wesley: tear it apart how?
[16:31] Paris Hilton: whomever did SEO
[16:31] Wesley: ohhhhhh
[16:31] Wesley: no most SEO is off site anyway
[16:31] Paris Hilton: I'm not sure.
[16:31] Wesley: there would be minimum on-site stuff
[16:31] Wesley: but you would have to put that in the project requirements
[16:31] Wesley: just say "must leave my os commerce code in place and unaffected"
[16:32] Wesley: http://www.quantcast.com/designquote.net
[16:32] Paris Hilton: wow!
[16:33] Paris Hilton: OK, I'll email them and let them know that I know of someone at about $1K/month.
[16:33] Wesley: she can find it cheaper
[16:33] Paris Hilton: I don't know what to tell her, heh
[16:33] Wesley: thats just us, but we deal with competative terms and do serious SEO stuff so its not cheap, its normally $2500 a month for us, but since her site is so specialized an niched it wouldnt be as difficult as a normal site
[16:33] Wesley: tell her if thats more than she wants to spend
[16:33] Wesley: (most seo firms charge 2-3k / month ith a one year minimum contract)
[16:34] Wesley: tell her you can post it on designquote and get 8 free bids
[16:34] Wesley: she can get a one-time seo tune-up
[16:34] Wesley: from a DQ provider
[16:34] Wesley: probably for like under $1000
[16:34] Paris Hilton: Is that a good investment in your opinion?
[16:34] Wesley: 500 - 1000 one time
[16:34] Wesley: its worth it
[16:34] Wesley: but honestly
[16:34] Wesley: seo is a process not an event
[16:34] Wesley: like
[16:34] Paris Hilton: Ya
[16:34] Wesley: not like building some code
[16:35] Wesley: its an ongoing thing
[16:35] Wesley: she should have someone do some more work at least every 3 months (bare minimum)
[16:35] Wesley: but a one-time shot will defienitly help
[16:35] Wesley: just make sure they are sticking to google webmaster guidelines
[16:35] Wesley: and not using blackhat techiques
[16:35] Wesley: minimum paid links
[16:36] Wesley: should be on-site text copy and code optimization
[16:36] Paris Hilton: OK - I'll relay all of this to her. What about purchasing mailing lists? Ever done any of that?
[16:36] Wesley: then off-site stuff like articles and link swapping etc
[16:36] Wesley: nope dont use them
[16:36] Wesley: sponsored a couple but not a great result
[16:36] Wesley: people dont like spam
[16:37] Paris Hilton: true
[16:37] (9 minutes edited and removed for the safety of the internet...)
[16:46] Wesley: LMAO
[16:46] Wesley: can i blog this too?
[16:48] Paris Hilton: You can blog: rail_skills(Paris Hilton) >> rail_skills(Warty)

Twittering

2007-12-05T19:12:00.002-05:00

You see the bubble video?

i decided to try out twitter, now you can see my every little move...

DesignQuote

2007-12-05T19:12:00.000-05:00

Stumble me DesignQuote

SEO from a journalists perspective

2007-12-05T15:30:00.000-05:00

This is a great article I cam across in Advertising Age Optimize Me: A Reporter's Journey into the World of SEO and SEM. That's SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search engine Marketing)

"The search engines give you the blueprint," Mr. Hershberg said. He then rattled off the three main principles: Make sure you have keyword-rich text or, in other words, say what the page is about. Make your site navigable. Make your site popular by getting a lot of quality links coming in from outside the site.

Here are a few of the best tidbits:

Turns out that merely pumping hundreds of articles into the world isn't enough to hog Google results these days or crowd out all those "imposter" Matt Creamers, especially if many of those articles sit behind walls that require payment or registration. Good old-fashioned news stories to be bought for good old-fashioned money don't stand up well next to content that's free, open to links from others and created with tools that are essentially built to perform well with the bots the search engines use to survey the internet, giving Google and company the data they need to act as supreme arbiters of how we come to the information deposited in unimaginably large amounts on the internet. My failure to get this meant I'd ended up with a search profile that was not only crawling with "impostors" but also failed in every way to represent me.

And a little further down:

What's not in doubt is that the social has been at the heart of search since Google's main innovation took root in business and in culture. Its PageRank algorithm made off-site criteria a crucial determinant of search results for any website. In otherwords, the number and quality of links flowing into a site is hugely important in determining how high in the results it shows up. By extension, that makes the social-media ecosystem of blogs and other sites that are all about linking to other content important.

Annual PC Tune-Up - Make your computer speedy again.

2007-12-05T13:08:00.000-05:00

Is your PC not running like it used to? Bogged down by too many startup items, slow to load, slow to restart? Use these time-honored Ninja Techniques for tweaking your PC back into tip-top Ninja shpe.

Its time for your annual end of the year PC tune up!

These tips can be done anytime, and even as often as every couple months if you like, but you should do them all at the bare minimum of once per year! So here are some essential tune-up tricks to speed up your PC. Best of all they are all free!

This tune up guide will walk you through the following steps to get your PC running speedy again. Most of these steps take only a few minutes to complete and make a big difference in your computers performance. I have used everyone of these and they all work great.

Registry Cleaner
Updated Virus Software
Spyware Checker
Disk Defragmenter (Defrag)

Your computer works hard for you all year, and just like a car it needs periodic maintenance. These four tips will help your computer keep running smooth and behaving like it should. The whole process can be done in under an hour, and most of it can be done while you are multi-tasking and even using under other applications or surfing the web. I do not count the HD defragment process here because that should be done when the computer is not in use as it takes hours.

Ok so without further ado, lets get started:

1. Slow Startups? - Clean that registry!

Your Windows PC loads a bunch of tiny programs everytime you start up the machine.
Some of these programs are actual applications and some are little programs used by the system.

Every time you install a new program or update your OS you create a new Registry entry.
The System Registry is a todo list for your computer. If your PC is a year or older, chances are you have installed (and uninstalled) lots of software,
sometimes (like when visiting a website requiring a plug-in or a spyware application)
without even realizing it!

The Registry list can get cluttered and filled with bogus, removed and out-of-date entries that
the computer has to check every time it starts up. I ran this cleaner on one PC and found over 1500 registry items that were no longer there. For everyone of these items the system has to look and see if the item is where it is supposed to be, then if it isn't it skips to the next one. A single item doesn't take very long but they can add up quick!

Fortunately the nice people at Eusing have created a free Registry Cleaner. This is from
their website:

Problems with the Windows Registry are a common cause of Windows crashes and error messages. Registry problems can occur for many reasons, including references left behind after uninstallation; incorrect removal of software; missing or corrupt hardware drivers; or orphaned start-up programs. This will significantly increase the Registry size and slow down your computer, because Windows will need more time to load, search, and read data from the Registry.

So go download and install Free Registry Cleaner 1.6 After installation the default is to have the program run. The first thing you see will be a prompt window to register and support Eusing software. To register click the registration button and its only $15 for a great handy piece of software. Or you can click the skip button and proceed with trying it out first.

First scan your registry and it wil show you how many broken entries are there.

This may take a while depending on how old your computer is and how many entries you have. After the scan, back up a copy of your current registry (under file menu). Next click Repair and viola, your registry is clean.

Want 3 more great tips? Thenread the rest of this article here.

Foux De Fa Fa

2007-12-05T10:59:00.000-05:00

This show is awesome. And so is this video:

Flight of the Conchords

My kiwi buddy Leighton told me about this show last year and I love the New Zealand sense of humor - perhaps I am a reincarnated native

ColdFusion Tip

2007-11-21T12:46:00.000-05:00

To alternate bg color in each row of a table output use this simple one line of code

<cfoutput query="my_query">

<cfif> <cfset bg="white"> <cfelse> <cfset bg="eeeeee"> </cfif>

<tr style="background:#bg#" >
...
</tr>

</cfoutput >

12 excellent typography sites!

2007-11-07T15:12:00.000-05:00

Digg - Who dugg or blogged: 12 excellent typography sites!

Cool typography gallery

U.S. cannot account for billion-dollar Iraq contract | Reuters

2007-10-23T16:31:00.000-04:00

I'm sure we got something good for that $1.2 billion - just can't seem to find any records of what it was exactly... I guess they don't worry about IRS audits.

"WASHINGTON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The State Department does not know specifically what it received for a billion-dollar contract with security firm DynCorp International to provide training services for Iraqi police, a U.S. watchdog agency said on Tuesday. The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said it was forced to suspend its audit of the DynCorp contract after administration officials told investigators they had no confidence in their own accounting records. The inspector general said the agency had not validated the accuracy of invoices received before October 2006 and described bills and supporting documents as being in disarray.

Among the problems identified before the audit was suspended were duplicate payments, the purchase of a never-used $1.8 million X-ray scanner and payments of $387,000 to house DynCorp officials in hotels rather than other available accommodation.

The inspector general blamed the problems on long-standing contract administration problems at the State Department agency responsible for the contract -- the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL. '

As a result, INL does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program. INL's prior lack of controls created an environment vulnerable to waste and fraud,' SIGIR said in an interim review."

U.S. cannot account for billion-dollar Iraq contract Reuters:

Better than a screen saver

2007-09-18T12:39:00.001-04:00

Googles new PLAY site is really cool. It lets you watch a slideshow of images that people are uploading onto blogger. It's kinda like a glimpse into the meta stream of internet data, a sampling of the blogosphere in pictures.

From the blogger site:
Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs. You can click the image to be taken directly to the blog post it was uploaded to, or click “show info” to see an overlay with the post title, a snippet of the body, and some profile information about the blogger who uploaded it. We also wrote a Blogger Play FAQ with more information.

New Blog Links

2007-09-12T19:03:00.000-04:00

Launched a new blog aggregator site for designers: Design Planet

also got freelance designers blog its own URL: ninjafreelancing.com

and moved myofbs phishing archive to blogger at phishing.nyofb.net

Getting ready to add a bunch of new features to Design Quote, thats keeping me real busy.

Busy Busy Busy

2007-08-28T22:53:00.000-04:00

A million things going on at work and with family, weddings and events, on and one its been a crazy summer. To catch a glimpse of a few things happening check out:

The recent vexcom blog about blogs

Also getting the new offices in shape and trying to tie up some loose ends.

Hope all is well with you.

Vexcom Web Design News: Whats it like to work at Google? How about Microsoft?

2007-06-29T14:17:00.000-04:00

This is a great post on another blog I write: Vexcom Web Design News: Whats it like to work at Google? How about Microsoft?

Is the iPhone a good idea?

2007-06-29T01:18:00.000-04:00

Gotta Get an iPhone?
I would get an iphone but im in a 175 year contract with Sprint and my company all uses sprint - it would jest be bad manners to switch to AT&T - right? (but its more than that, let me elaboate)

Ipods are perfect, no?
ipods have always bugged me because they dont support WMA - no WMA? WTF! BS!

WMA (Microsdofts: Windows Media Audio) files compress music to about a 1/2 the size of an MP3 - not sure about macs proprietary file formats - but whene you have to rip your 2000 CD collection Windows MEdia player makes it real easy - and WMA makes it real small so i can fit 8,195,000 songs on my MP3 player instead of only 4,100,000 - pfft anyway after shooping i bought a 20gig Zen sleek creative - i like aluminim anyway - got a good deal on it and managed to convert my entire cf collection onto it and enjoyt it fro about a year before it was stolen...

FORMAT WARS
im so sick of format wars - they are like a pack of lions fighiting over the coprse of the last elk they killed, all going in teeth first to get market share -

it was easier back when VHS crushed Betamax - but now these technoloies dont go away -

they just stick around forever. So for this bullsh!t i have to have 5 freaking instant messenger accounts because the big boys refuse to play nice toghther - trillian helps ALOT http://www.trillian.cc/ but now theres google messanger, myspace messenger, probably youtube messenger is in beta right now - just make a damn open api interface and share the damn conversations so i dont have to use all my copmpuers ram running the 10 Chat programs threre are = they all do the same damn thing

So what does the iPhone do?
Well, it's a wide-screen video iPod to start, capable of playing songs and videos and storing either 4GBs or 8GBs of either, depending on how much you want to spend. It runs Mac OS X, and can browse the Internet with the Safari browser over either a Wi-Fi network or AT&T's EDGE cellular network. And it can also make phone calls over AT&T's network just like any cell phone.

Some cool things about the iphone:
it has the largest screen Apple has introduced for a video-playing iPod
It stores musci and videos
- does it have a video camera on it?
-do i have to get all my songs from itunes?
-how do i gte the 10,000 songs ripped from my personal CD collection into it?

im going to have to be pretty damn impressed if i shell out my $100 (or whatever thos new fangled gsadgets cost these days)...

Hre are some really anxious iphone buyers:

Piper Jaffray said this month Apple could sell 45 million units in 2009, putting the iPhone on par in terms of revenue with its two key businesses, the Macintosh computer and iPod.

You can read more about it here:

This is on ZDNET:

FAQ: Do your homework on iPhone Eve Tech News on ZDNet

Hotep's Freeware Reviews

2007-06-18T22:09:00.000-04:00

Hotep's Freeware Reviews -

Look everybody - Gotep created a blog about his favorite priced software!

Hotep's Freeware Reviews

signature links for sale

2007-06-11T17:07:00.000-04:00

This is a great discussion I got into exploring the possibility of using signature links to promote sites. ended up not working out but this is some interesting reading

vangogh's and my signature links for sale...LIMITED TIME OFFER! - Page 2

LinkedIn: Wesley E. Warren

2007-06-11T16:24:00.000-04:00

This site seems pretty cool, I will check it out and see if i only get spam

LinkedIn: Wesley E. Warren

The Truth About MySpace

2007-06-09T11:34:00.000-04:00

Design Quote now has a myspace page. But if your surfing myspace make sure you refer to this handy Photo guide so you know what your getting into:

Multi vitamins and prostate cancer!

2007-06-04T16:16:00.000-04:00

Great - now i cant even take freakin vitamins.
I usualy pop a multi after working out - supposed to help your muscels ehal faster - at least the study says it was only men who took multi-vitamins 2x a day - I only take them every other day so maybe im safe :X

American scientists investigated the impact of vitamin use on cancer in 295,344 men enrolled in a national diet and health study.

After five years, they found a surprising link between rates of advanced and fatal prostate cancer and men who regularly took multi-vitamins.

Those who used the supplements more than once a day were significantly more likely to suffer dangerous advanced forms of the disease than men who took no multi-vitamins.

The correlation was strongest for men with a family history of the disease, and who also took selenium, beta-carotene or zinc supplements. No similar association was seen between heavy multi-vitamin use and localised prostate cancer.

The explanation for the findings, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, remains a mystery.

The Herald : Complete article

Make The Logo Bigger - The Video!

2007-06-03T01:33:00.000-04:00

So we all came in on Saturday and shot a video - see what you think:

If you like it go give us 5 stars on YouTube
We shot it in the vexcom offices, the logo in question is for DesignQuote.net
The Players are:

Client 1: Wesley Warren - Vexcom CEO/CTO
Client 2: Patrick Green - Vexcom Sales Director

Vexcom Receptionist: Christine Gingrich - Vexcom Receptionist
Vexcom Designer: Jessica Warren - Vexcom Creative Director
Vexcom Programmer: Joseph Spamneto - Vexcom Programmer

Rock and Roll Guitar: Michael Honohan - Vexcom Senior Programmer
Drums: Joe Sado - Vexcom Client Relations Manager

Slashdot It!

This will change everything.

2007-06-01T19:08:00.000-04:00

Everything you know about text link advertising.

Superior Text Link Ads

Pitting a Mac Plus Against an AMD Dual Core

2007-05-31T17:43:00.000-04:00

Slashdot | Pitting a Mac Plus Against an AMD Dual Core

"In order to keep the hoots and hollers of 'unfair comparison' at a minimum, we designed the tests to be as fair and equitable as possible. We focussed on running tests that reflect how the user perceives the computing experience... And no, we didn't include processing-heavy modern software like Photoshop or Crysis! We selected very basic everyday functions that were performed equally by the 1980's and the 2007 Microsoft applications."

Mac versus AMD! who would a thought

HD DVD versus Blue Ray

2007-05-30T12:41:00.001-04:00

Starting up a new site that will cover the format wars!

Next christmas Hi definition (HiDef) DVD players will be the hot ticket item, im going to try to decide which way to go in the mean time - i figured id bring you all along for the ride!.

Make the logo bigger

2007-05-28T18:17:00.001-04:00

Wow what an awesome song - it should be on every graphic designers ipod!

Listen to the MP3

I'm seriously considering putting this to auto-play in the background of our company website!

Why you should use includes in web design.

2007-05-28T13:45:00.000-04:00

I started using header includes in 1997 - its the only way to go regardless of what language you use. In 97 I was using SSI .shtml to create straign HTML headers.

I migrated to PERL and also used them in PHP, ASP and now I almost exclusively use Adobe ColdFusion because it is hands down the fastest development environment in existence (many will argue but I have been programming for 13 years and I just plain am smarter than those people)

Ive probably built somewhere around 3000 websites - now if you look at any page in a site (if it still even has pages and isnt completely dynamic) there are 3 tags - sometimes the middle tag is replaced by actual content but essentially its this:

<cfinclude templatee="header.cfm">

<cfinclude template="cms.cfm">

<cfinclude templatee="footer.cfm">

I put everything in the header, body tag, meta tags, styles, scripts, menus etc. if i want different meta tags for each page i just use a database.

Its ths most time saving way to manage multi page websites.

Optimus Maximus

2007-05-27T00:55:00.000-04:00

Of course i want this $1500 keyboard and no thats not a typo.

I blogged this a few years ago and now its out - didnt think it would cost $1500!

A keyboard with mini color LCDs in the keys!!! how cool is that

But I mihgt spring the $150 for the 3 key USB keyboard addon

cool stuff - could be an awesome gaming device too - little pictures of grenades maybe?

Optimus Maximus

France Secret UFO Archive published on Web

2007-03-23T21:04:00.000-04:00

After the Frech Space Agency CNES posted their archives of UFO investigations fating back from 1937 the CNES web server was slowed to a crawl from overwhelming public demand. The site received a massive infux of traffic (see alexa traffic spike at the end of the graph below).

This photo below is (I believe) from the story concerning:

"The saucer-shaped object is said to have touched down in the south of France and then zoomed off. It left behind scorch marks..."

Enquête sur le cas appelé "trou normand" en 1989. Crédits : CNES (This is French Phot Credit)
I mirrored this image on my server because the french site is bogged down. I am looking for some more pictures.

Hopefully this will lead other governments to do the same.

Alexa says 39% of the traffic is coming from within France. i'ts difficult to navigate the pages if you don't speak french (I should have paid more attention in High School French Class).

Check out the spike on the right side of the graph as soon as they released the news that the 100,000 documents were posted to the site.

I would love to browse through the US or USSR's photo library from their UFO investiggations.

The story in Wired News by AP Writer John Leicester states some ver interestiing figures, such as:
"Only 9 percent of France's strange phenomena have been fully explained, the agency said. Experts found likely reasons for another 33 percent, and 30 percent could not be identified for lack of information."

Hopefully the traffic will die down in a few days and make the site responsive enough to navigate.

Wired Story:
Wired: AP Technology and Business News from the Outside World on Wired.com

French Space Agency:
http://www.cnes.fr/

The secret life of chairs

2007-03-21T16:12:00.000-04:00

Cyber-attacks get 'more aggressive' - ConsumerMan - MSNBC.com

2007-03-20T16:37:00.000-04:00

Cyber-attacks get 'more aggressive' - ConsumerMan - MSNBC.com

Cyber-thieves are getting better at what they do. That’s the major conclusion of the latest Internet Security Report released Monday by the Symantec Corp., maker of Norton security products.
“The attacks are more aggressive than ever and they’re more criminal than ever,” says Dave Cole, director of Symantec Security Response.

- I saw a news story today on msNBC with a guy going to meet the scammers unde the names of "Rich Greenback" and "Jim Damoni" and them running off.

Cant find it on the website though

Adding RSS Feeds

2007-03-19T19:44:00.000-04:00

We are adding RSS to many of our sites. We have created RSS feeds for DesignQuote.net and Myofb.net -

New Blogs

2007-03-17T17:01:00.000-04:00

I have created 2 new blogs, one for game reviews and one for DesignQuote news. Check them out

http://designquote.blogspot.com

http://gamezreview.blogspot.com

Design Quote: Find Graphic Designers, Graphic Design Jobs, Custom Web Design and Programmers

2007-03-05T22:45:00.000-05:00

Design Quote: Find Graphic Designers, Graphic Design Jobs, Custom Web Design and Programmers

Designquote.net is really taking off, and today we added an XML feed.

Current Projects

2006-11-11T17:15:00.000-05:00

October and November are turning out to be quite busy with our new projects. The first one whic is taking of quite qwll is DesignQuote.net where people can bid on web design jobs. This site is doing much better than expected, we had 900 designers register and 60 projects posted inthe first two weeks.

The second is a really cool wiki city guide called mycityguide.net which allows people to add their favorite places into the directory. Working on some promotions now, like a $500 giveaway for people who add places, here is an excerpt from the press release draft that will go out next week.

Most US city guides today are managed by a local authority who determines the content and what to list. While several offer the ability to write reviews on restaurants and other local places, there is no way for people who are interested in specific genres of music, culinary preferences or bars targeted to specific age ranges and taste to easily find just the places that interest them. MyCityGuide.net turns the tables and creates custom recommendations by our tour guides.

Getting ready to launch a weekly scam alert newsletter at MYOFB.NET since there are so many phisihing emails going around, i get like 6-10 a week in my gmail account.

Reviewing books you dont read: Jon Swift: Reviews

2006-09-05T20:49:00.000-04:00

Amazon.com: Profile For Jon Swift: Reviews

This guy has written several reviews for books he hasnt read - he makes very interesting coments that sound straight out of the mouth of Bill Oriely or Sean Hannity - im still trying to figure out this guys angle

Is he like a "Stephan Colbert" wannabe?

Its difficult to tell good satire from real punditry beacause the only real difference is usually the inflection in the voice...

so is he pointing out the inanity of extremism or is he an inane extrmist - maybe the real question is does it matter?

Perhaps i am just rambling, but I think this must boil down to "ceci n'est pas une pipe"... kinda in some sort of way - but actually its more like the inverse of that "this is a pipe" - which is in fact the same statement - well in Magritte's case it is anway

i found this discussion on
google blogoscoped

Crysis HD Gameplay - Google Video

2006-08-03T15:36:00.000-04:00

Crysis HD Gameplay - Google Video

This game looks awesome - hd game footage is photorealistic - and EA is producing it

January 30, 2006 - Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), the world's leading interactive entertainment software company and award-winning developer Crytek, today announced they will bring Crysis, an exciting new first person shooter, to gamers worldwide. Developed by Crytek, the makers of the award-winning Far Cry&153;, Crysis will be an original first person shooter game for PC based on new intellectual property.

Light Doodles

2006-08-01T22:43:00.000-04:00

what will those crazy kids think up next?

www.myspace.com/atlantawebdesigner

2006-08-01T20:42:00.000-04:00

Check out my waste of myspace

and i mentioned this on the freelancedesigners blog

Spore is getting a lot of hype - Wired loves it - they are making some really cool stuff over at EA - an insider report says you can have your creatures made into full-color figurines (think action figures without moving parts) - I saw one and it was real swanky

Rush Not Up for Viagra Charge - Jul 05, 2006 - E! Online News

2006-07-06T16:42:00.000-04:00

Rush Not Up for Viagra Charge - Jul 05, 2006 - E! Online News

This dude knows how to party

Stephan Colbert is my hero

2006-05-05T17:55:00.000-04:00

Whoever arranged that keynote is probably in siberia by now, but im glad they did it

MYOFB.NET Free Virus Software

2006-04-20T20:39:00.000-04:00

Free Virus Software

turned this site into a scam reporting site - and links to protect your computer

ive been spending some time on myspace view my profile

busy busy busy

Creative Zen Sleek - 20GB hard disk MP3 Player stores up to 10,000 songs

2005-09-22T13:26:00.000-04:00

My new 20 gig player -

just got it last night - transfering my wma library on it today - so far so good

- heading out to DC today to protest as I have lost all confidence in the current administration.

http://www.exitstrategynow.org