Bandcamp, How I Love Thee

Feedburner Email Subscriptions – Where Are My Photos?

I don’t exactly have the answer to that question yet…  At least definitively.  But I am going to test a few things out with this post.  Yep, more live testing, but it’s the best way to see results…  Good or bad.  So I will try to accomplish two things:

1.  Embed my Logo into the post via Feedburner’s Feed Image Burner and Flickr.

2.  Make the photos you see in the actual post appear in the email.  For this, I have installed a plugin that changes the image URLs to “absolute URLs.”  Appropriately enough, it’s called URL Absolutifier.  Since I am limited on time right now, I’m just going to shoot from the hip and see if it works.  If not, I’ll move on to stage 2:  Actual Research

If this works, there will be a logo in the email subscription email and an image of the MTT Blog Banner.

Feel free to report results…  Also, if you have any suggestions on the best time to have email subscriptions delivered in general, please let me know.  Thanks for reading!

Posted via email from Music Tech Talk on Posterous

Feedburner RSS Feed Changes – File Too Big

Subscribe by Email – An Easier Way to Follow

REVISED-Switching from Wordpress.com to Self-hosted Wordpress Part III – Import/Export

Preposterous Posterous Posting

OK, Here are the various headers that worked and didn’t work. I’m not sure if it was the length of the tags or the plus signs, but it wasn’t the parenthesis b/c the one I messed up posted with them (third posted example). I’ll try to avoid this issue in the future. Read more »

Switching from WordPress.com to Self-Hosted Wordpress Part III – Import/Export

*The export/import process from Wordpress.com to the Self-Hosted Version of WordPress is rather simple.*

…But it doesn’t do everything for you. It actually worked a lot better to transfer from Blogger to Wordpress.com, but that’s another post. Here’s /my take/ on what you have to do (general summary): Read more »

Posterous and Lazyfeed Reviews

Successful Tags… But ONLY in Posterous

So, here’s the deal. The tags actually worked using this format in the subject line: ((tag: tags, blogging, posterous))

However, they only worked for Posterous itself. For now, I’ll just have to go back and manually put them in via WordPress later. Oh, well. Everything else seems to work amazingly well!

Posted via email from Music Tech Talk

WordPress.com vs. Costs of Self-Hosting

At the risk of not having a list of features to compare before I start, I’ll just shoot from the hip.  We (the greater blogging collective) know this gets me into trouble…

A quote from Lorelle’s comment:

“What I expected to find was a step-by-step cost calculation of how much it costs to host your own compared to WordPress.com, feature by feature. Now, that would be interesting.” Read more »

Switching from WordPress.com to Self-Hosted Wordpress (part IIa – Lorelle on Corrections)

Have you ever had that “feeling” when you turn in your big essay and it comes back all covered in red ink?  Well, that’s how I feel after having read a couple of comments from Lorelle on WordPress.  I wasn’t’ sure exactly how to take it at first, but realized a few things after looking over her comments carefully: Read more »

Switching from Wordpress.com to Wordpress 2.9 (part II – Unexpected Future Costs)

There’s a catch with everything these days, right?  Well, the “free” version of Wordpress (.com) isn’t exactly free if you want to make any upgrades in the future.  They don’t exactly have banners up mentioning stuff you might have to pay for down the road.  I first discovered this by trying to register a domain name…  It didn’t say anything about paying until the end of the process.  I discovered later, however, that you can go to the “upgrades” tab to see what each product costs.  Here’s a list of stuff you might not of thought about, but might end up paying for later: Read more »

Switching from Wordpress.com to Wordpress 2.9

Well, I decided to go ahead with the transition.  I waffled for a while, but came to the conclusion that I would really enjoy learning how to work with the PHP and CSS scripts.  There are some definite differences (and similarities) between the two platforms, so I’ll try to break down some of the details for you. Read more »

CSS: Upgrade or Headache?

I decided that I wanted to give the CSS upgrade feature on Wordpress a try, because I didn’t like the size of the tiny default font…  And I am interested in changing a few other things on the site in general.  I managed to change the font to a reasonable size and reduce the size of the “posted by:” and date stamp text to make room for the larger titles.

I am completely experimenting with the process, so my first action was to download and save the a template of the original CSS for the theme I am currently using.  I saved it to a text editor and used it for reference.  When I located a line of code that I wanted to change, I pasted ONLY that line into the CSS editor in Wordpress.  That way, I could always tell what I was editing, and I was fairly certain that I wouldn’t mess up anything else.

Read more »

Blogger Import to Wordpress Clean-Up

I just couldn’t stand some of the import issues I found after transferring my blog from Blogger to Wordpress, so I am in the process of fixing them. Initially, I thought I could ignore them. I discovered a few new types of problems and made my best effort to begin fixing all of them. Here are a couple issues addressed:

Read more »

My Top 10 Good Models for Web Design

Part of what this blog is about is exploring music technology or music or just technology. I had an assignment in my Foundations of Music Production class that required I find web sites I thought were models for good design. It seemed like it would be useful/interesting to post it here too.

10. I’m sorry, for what it is, simplicity rules!: http://www.google.com/

9. If you’re into sports, I like this clean graphic-oriented layout: http://www.laureus.com/

8. Love this layout. Very easy to see what you want to learn/read about: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/

7. Nice clean design. Easy to navigate. – http://www.sciencentral.com/video/

6. Big fan of the graphic representation of the stories… It’s a lot like ordering in a restaurant. Often, the meal with the picture is the one that you end up ordering: http://www.wired.com

- This article should be of particular interest to the class: 4 Ways Live and Digital Music Are Teaming Up to Rock Your World: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/11/4-ways-live-and-digital-music-are-teaming-up-to-rock-your-world/

5. Love this site. Right to the point. The featured content is right in front of you, along with several of the recent features. I also like how they make it easy to embed the shot of the day on your site (http://www.earthshots.org/webmasters/ ): http://www.earthshots.org/

4. Believe it or not, I actually like the layout and functioning of makemusic.com (Finale). What I find so appealing about this design is the gradual steps you take to reveal more detailed information about the product you’re interested in. Once you get to the detailed stuff, it breaks it down very logically. Finale definitely had the consumer in mind when they had their site built. With that being said, I still haven’t upgraded to Finale 2010! http://makemusic.com/

3. This might be one of my all-time favorite web designs. It’s so easy to use, even a caveman could do it… Not to mention it is so visually appealing, you just want to hang out there for a while: http://www.digitalartmuseum.com/

2. Very topic appropriate. Visually stimulating. Lots of fun and interesting information. Lots of info, but fairly easy to navigate: http://www.space.com

1. OK, before you start thinking that I am just trying to do a bunch of self-advertising, realize that my example here is to demonstrate how customizable Bandcamp is for the user. I have used few sites that are so user friendly when it comes to large uploads, layout customization and ease of text upload. It’s clean, fast and offers the end-user the ability to listen to very high-res audio without bogging down the computer. I tested this out by uploading a 96kHz, 64bit sample. No problem. That’s about as “lossless” as it gets. Bandcamp also allows you to “share” or embed your audio files with several layout options and a brilliant flash background that functions while the selection plays. It really does a lot to make your audio examples shine with a sharp look (including title, artist, album cover, and progress bar).

- Here’s an example of the audio embedding (work in progress — note how much better it is to use than downloading the other kind of audio examples or using an onboard player like Window’s Media Player): http://dmgardnermusic.com/complete_list_of_scores.htm

- Here’s an example of how well I was able to match Bandcamp to the new look of my site:

a. Home Page  (http://www.dmgardnermusic.com)

b. Bandcamp Page  (http://dmgardnermusic.bandcamp.com/track/joseph-look-and-see )

The final bonus with Bandcamp seems to be a pretty good web ranking for search queries. I am planning to upload even my audio excerpts for scores because of the increased ranking I get for searches.

In summary, this is definitely one of my favorite sites overall. If you are a musician, I highly recommend that you check it out.

Check The Speed of Your Internet Connection

Let’s face it, all of at some point or another question whether they are really getting the download speeds that they paying for. Especially at the premium prices bandwidth is going for today, you might want to check.

I have Comcast’s 12Mb/s download speed using a cable modem. That does the job pretty well and http://www.speedtest.net/ confirms this. However, it also revealed a pretty pathetic upload speed. They get away with this because most people are using a lot more download speed than upload. The problem is that interfaces like eJamming.com need a heck of a lot of both. In fact, we have had to come up with alternate means to stream our live performance of my new hip-hop beat for our grad recital partly due to this fact… However, I will say that decision was made mostly due to the fact the eJamming seems to be designed with a Mac in mind, not a PC. It’s just way too buggy.

You might want to try peak and off-peak hours too. Here are the results from a few of my tests within minutes of each other:

Here’s what speedtest.net thinks:

What?! Below Average?!

OK, if that wasn’t enough fun for you, you’ll want to check out http://www.pingtest.net/ also. This one actually tests the quality of your internet connection, not just your speed. Both are vitally important. How does Comcast rate here?

Not another bad grade. Come on, I want nothing less than an A+!

Some online games won’t perform well? That just won’t do. Oh, wait… I never have time to play those anymore. Too much music writing and blogging, I guess (those are only done with free time anyway).

Speaking of which, I’ve got other things I need to be doing right now, so you’ll have to go and test your internet speeds while I take a little break and re-group.

HostMonster.com Review

I have used hostmonster.com as my web hosting service for several years now. From day one, they have demonstrated excellent customer service and service reliability. HostMonster (HM) offers many services from email to ecommerce. For me, I am interested in the basic services and a reliable, affordable way to host my website.

I researched several web hosting sites, but settled on HM based on reviews. I also discovered that Bluehost (BH) is pretty much the same company/service as HM. A BH forum states it this way:

“all of us know that hostmonster is a bluehost subsidiary with same plan features except for: *unlimited domains”

HostMonster Review

BlueHost Review

You will note their ratings are almost head-to-head, with only a few differences. BH is rumored to be on better servers, but costs a bit more monthly. HM seems to have slightly better opinions about their customer service.

But enough comparison. Let’s talk about HM.

Reliability – I have had no significant issues with HM. Once or twice over a few years I have had brief service interruptions. Average customer ratings, according to webhostinggeeks.com, are 2.9 stars out of 5. Currently, I would give HM around 4.5 out of 5 stars overall.

Email – I am very pleased with the versatility of the email filtering system. I have created several different accounts and filter individually, as well as globally. This allows me to use them for very specific purposes, eliminating nearly all spam from my inbox when used in combination with a few filters on Thunderbird (a free Mozilla email application which I happen to also be very happy with). By using addresses other than my default, I can avoid a lot of spam.

Tip: Never use “webmaster,” or your default username as your email address. You will just be asking for junk traffic. In fact, I would avoid common addresses like “orders,” or “customerservice” as well. Personalize them instead by adding something like company initials (advice that I have not yet taken myself but might soon). For example “DMGOrders” or “DMGWebmaster.” Once you’ve done that, avoid using any of your addresses for account registrations or anything other than official correspondence.

I redirect email incoming to my new main address, then to other categorized addresses. So if I get order inquiries, they go to a specific address. The specific addresses, however, allow no other types of traffic. So, I get only the inquiries that I want to receive. To further eliminate the chance for spam, I use Postini, an email filtering service offered through HM’s control panel. This service comes with a small fee, but is nice because it prevents bad messages from ever reaching my computer. It also sends me an email summary of blocked messages each day, so I can deliver mis-flagged mail or permanently ban addresses. I don’t know about you, but I am always convinced filters are deleting, mis-delivering or incorrectly flagging my email. With the nice Quarantine Summary emails, that is never an issue. I use Postini for my main address only,allowing my filters to redirect and eliminate any remaining unsolicited emails.

Price, Web Space, Bandwidth and Domains – The price is reasonable for the services offered. I cannot afford to put a lot of money into a web host, and HM offers enough stability, bandwidth and space for expansion in the future. Currently, I use such an infinitesimal amount of the available bandwidth and space, I should start hosting other sites on the unused portion…

Tech Support – HM has helped me iron out a few tech issues along the way. They were responsive, friendly and helpful. So far, my problems have all been solvable.

Customer Support – Again HM’s support staff is very courteous, sympathetic and generally helpful. I really never have to wait long periods of time for help or response to my questions. I have used their live chat feature and find it to be very helpful when facing problems that might require me to look a few things up and report result. …Particularly when it concerns messages or computer lingo that I can just cut and paste into the chat interface.

Overall, I am very pleased with HostMonster. It has allowed me to affordably set-up my website and not really have to worry about it. I can set up my account to pay automatically or simply notify me when things come due. I can easily configure my email accounts and filter-out unwanted mail. It is low cost and low hassle. That’s exactly what I am looking for in a web host right now.

CheapTargetedWebsiteTraffic.com – You Get What You Pay For

I have recently been interested in finding ways to increase web traffic to my website. I have started looking into website submission, optimization, keyword optimization, pay-per-click advertising and targeted versus untargeted website traffic. Of these options, I had originally only submitted my website to Google and used a free submission program offered by Statcounter.com. While, not huge traffic generators, they did generate a small amount and made my site fairly searchable. Somehow, I have still managed to make sales on my website even with such low volume traffic.

So, the next logical step was to try some other version of marketing. I had some money from sales in my account, so I decided to give cheap traffic generator a try. I knew it was probably a mistake, but it was purely for experimentation. Cheaptargetedwebsitetraffic.com (CTWT) offers a guarantee of 10,000 site hits in 30 days for $9.95, referring to this as a “campaign”. I seem to be having a hard time finding reliable sources of information when it comes to marketing one’s website, so I gave it a try. Now I am only a few days into the campaign, but I have already decided what I think of untargeted web hits… At least from CTWT… THEY ARE USELESS!

Why are they useless? Well, generally speaking, I am all for international relations… But of all the hits generated so far, NONE have been from the United States! Reviews suggest that targeted traffic would be much more useful. I can’t say I disagree, but I am hesitant to use CTWT to get it. Unless I decide to do more experimentation purely for the purposes of writing about it here, then you can expect that I will be trying something else.

First off, if you are not careful you will think you are signing up for, I don’t know, cheap targeted website traffic… Indeed, the home page options for traffic are their UNTARGETED versions. So, for only $92.95, you could find yourself soliciting 150,000 useless visitors.

To add to the “get what you pay for” concept, CTWT has a pretty pathetic interface. It is ultra-simplistic and, initially, I couldn’t figure out how to log in because I never received a confirmation email or instructions on how to do so. Here’s the scenario:

I clicked on the link to view untargeted web traffic and it takes you to a log in screen. Nowhere does it tell what your login should be. Forget got your login details? Never knew them in the first place, so I clicked on it anyway. This, indeed sent me a password. Problem? Still no user name! So I guessed enough times to figure out that it is just the name of the page you are promoting, no www. and no .com, just the name by itself.

They claim regular web counters cannot keep up with the large volume of traffic generated through CTWT. This is apparently true, given that elogicwebsolutions.com only shows I have received 150+ hits versus the 1,601 that appear on CTWT. I have checked the stats actually generated via my web host, and they are supposed to be more accurate. However, I have no idea what number is supposed to correlate with the data I am looking for. Too much info here!

Dang it, Jim! I’m a composer, not a marketing specialist!

If you are reading this and many obvious suggestions are coming to mind right now, feel free to let me know. What I lack is a reliable source of information on how to go about all of this. As I learn, I will share here. Overall, I give CTWT an unsatisfactory rating. However, to be fair, I will revisit this topic once the campaign comes to a close.

Alien Downlink

Alien Downlink: Trailer from Alien Downlink on Vimeo.

I can’t say enough about the awesomeness of this website. What an incredibly imaginative concept. Refreshingly enough, not only is the concept good, but so is the music. I have a couple of favorites. This one is funny.

I Wanna Be An Alien’s Pet

This one is just cool… And filled with a wisdom regarding an understanding of our culture’s view on what would be termed drug use, versus self-medication, versus dulling a headache. A snippet of the lyrics below gives you a good feel for the context.

Don’t Do Drugs

An excerpt from the Don’t Do Drugs lyrics:

“…and earlier today, federal agents raided a house suspected of being at the center of a local marijuana growing operation. The bust yielded five marijuana plants and also resulted in the arrest of the home’s owner, a 76 year-old grandmother who had to be rushed to the hospital after agents mistook her cup of tea for a handgun and shot her 24 times.”

Don’t do drugs! Unless it’s…
Ibuprofen, codeine, morphine, oxycodone, cephalexin, sertraline, prednisolone
They’ll make ya feel good!
Methadone, diazepam, hydrocodone, lidocaine, sildenafil citrate
Your wife says that you should!
Side effects may include anxiety, sweating, headaches, and a week of blurry vision.
But it’s alright because your pusher wrote your prescription.

And finally, a hilarious documentary that chronicles the discovery and revelation of signals from the depths of space… That happen to be Rock N’ Roll. Awesome.

Alien Downlink: Analysis Video #1 – Introduction from Alien Downlink on Vimeo.