I’m happy to announce we’ve moved out of alpha class release into beta class release for version 12 of digitalflood.com. We are back in black again and looking sharp in our new tuxedo of a web site. The new server is doing very well with the normal site load. In about a week or so we’ll finalize the graphics on the site then move into full release. We thank you, as always, with sticking with us while we sort things out and make the site better.
Sorry about the four day outage. I was stuck in Linux Hell and things took a bit longer than I thought it would as far as moving over to the new variant of CentOS goes. I have migrated the site to the new server though completely and everything came through intact minus some configuration conflicts I had between security permissions and the CMS that runs the site. This migration should fix the capacity issues we had for the past six months. Now on to rebuilding the site itself.
Bronze Statue of Family Waving Goodbye
As some of you may already know, I have been going through a large amount of turmoil and change in both my personal and professional life. I can say honestly that I firmly believe that everything is going to work out for the better and I can also honestly reassure you that I am okay, but due to the sensitive nature of the topics involved I would rather keep the details private.
Having said that, I have begun to consider my options with many facets of my life. During that process I began to realize that for some several months I have not been able to honestly say I enjoy the direction digitalflood.com is proceeding in. I did, some months back, really enjoy the whole entertainment thing and somewhere during the past three months that has all changed.
You can see how distracted I’ve been by lack of updates and scattered focus on other projects. In short, digitalflood.com has come to a halt unlike before. Yes, there have been hiatuses in the past; but this is arguably different. Because when my life changed in the past, digitalflood.com as a project and an outlet seemed to thrive more than any other time. This time around was not the case. I feel stifled in the current framework I’m in. Distracted by wants and needs that cannot be met by simply focusing on entertainment production. My heart is no longer in this and long ago I made a promise when I first started this project that if my heart were ever not been into it; I would let it go because anything I produced from that point would be lackluster at best.
I can proudly saw the last few digitalflood Pirate Radio mixes have arguably been brilliant and the best work to date. Nevertheless, listenership is down significantly and I find it harder to be able to get my co-producers in the loop. They too are very distracted and focused on bigger/better things. That is life after all and I am far from bitter.
In fact, I wish to thank everyone who over the last decade has ever helped in any way keep this multimedia art project going in its many forms and iterations. We really made something here and it really moved people in ways I could not have ever imagined. You all have been supportive in your friendship and your companionship. I am truly blessed to have had the opportunity to work with all of you over the years. When you work with talented people it is easy to look brilliant yourself and so is the case with this project. You are true professionals.
I cannot forget my viewers. You have stuck through things with me through thick and thin. You have watched me grow up from a boy into a man via ever blog entry. You have showed unending support and encouragement from day one. To all of you who have ever viewed this site (even once by accident), I say a deep heartfelt thank you. You made me keep putting things out there and taking chances in my artistic creations that I could have never imagined I would have without you being there. Without you I would have never grown as far as I have as both an artist and a human being. And for that I am forever grateful and humbled by your gratitude.
To my family and friends, you all have been there through the whole the various high and low points of my life. I have enjoyed love from all of you that rivals that of all true friendships and families throughout time. I thank you for never questioning my work and always being there when I needed you as I progressed through it. You all together have been the rock on which I built this castle. I am forever in your debt.
Digitalflood.com itself is not going away. I plan on launching a new iteration of the site with a new focus. It will be more polished and professional. It will have completely nothing to do with anything I’ve done over the last ten years. The legacy content will be shelled into a “Classic DF” category for reference purposes. The site itself will be gutted and over the next few months you will watch something new rise from the ashes. But the DigitalFl00d project itself ceases here. It was an experiment I never thought would last this long. It was successful in so many ways and more than I ever imagined it would be. It has served its purposes and now it is time for new things, new places, and new directions. I leave the art project satisfied with its results and forever proud of its achievements.
I cannot thank you all enough again and please understand this not good by– but until next we meet.
For those of you who know what I do for a day job, it will come as no surprise that my career choice tends to at times consume much of my time. Nor will it surprise you that when I get home the last thing I want to do is go on the computer. And so that partially begins to explain where I’ve been and why there hasn’t been too much going on at digitalflood.com for the last few weeks. A harsh winter and an old house that demands me paying attention to how much snow is outside to avoid minor things like– oh I don’t know having my propane regulator freeze so I loose hot water or having my water pump freeze so I lose all water tend to occupy your time.
With all that said, those of a keen eye may have noticed the Code Info page of our site keeps going up a tick or two everyday. Appearances can be deceiving and just because the main page isn’t changing it does not mean there is nothing “going” with the site. So this was the case with my latest endeavor that required much experimentation and playing with our underlying code.
This was all in an effect to make a quick recovery of my employer’s web site at http://www.warwick.net. The site is the web portal for my employer (WVT Communications) and homepage to many of our broadband Internet subscribers. Literally taking down that site is like turning off Google as far as our little web world goes in Warwick, NY. There was therefore a sense of urgency to restore the site when a slight mishap took down the existing (though arguably older) web engine.
It took me about 16 hours of straight time, but I managed to get the framework and branding done. There’s going to be a lot of grunt work needed by my associates at work to get the content filled in, but what you see before you is a CMS driven site that is Web 2.0 in look and feel. It has consistent branding and sensible layout. It loads in less than six seconds. It has a web search feature. Access to our various online portals (including web mail and bill pay) and content fed via RSS streams, as well as, mash up widgets. The result is a full featured basic launch point that is easy to navigate and yet feature filled. It loads well in any browser and depreciates when accessed by mobile device to speed up load times. Considering the time line (three days) and the budget (zero bucks) I am quite pleased with the accomplishment.
In so many ways this is a preview of what I had planned for df.com before I was drawn to put out this fire first, but in so many ways it also helped me understand some new directions I wish to go in that will lend itself to better structure here. So yes while there has been no news– there is good news nevertheless. Stay tuned.
Oh look it's a Medieval painting of unicorn. That completely makes sense for this article-- or not.
This week’s episode of digitalflood Pirate Radio (“Volume 6 Episode 6″ ) was held up by a number of things including two blizzards and trying to catch up on my day job after a long weekend. The result is I’m pushing the episode back until probably next week for release. I’ll post when it looks like we’re going to get back on target. MC Mary @ The Disco! also couldn’t show up because of the snow to further complicate things and that too is delaying her inevitable return.
I’ve been working on another web site for a client of ours at work that is coming along rather well. As soon as we get out of the Alpha testing and into Beta I’ll give you a glimpse at that. The client still has to sign off on the work and until I have their okay I have to keep it under wraps, but I’m fairly impressed at even the early work. All that production work will certainly aid me as I begun rethinking df.com itself over the course of Summer Hiatus. Development went so well, in fact, that I’m thinking of pushing up Version 12 of this site to late Spring 2010. Again, I’ll post when we get closer; but my feeling is that with minimal work I can migrate the site over to what I believe is the new layout framework within a matter of two or three days.
I’m also working on a new feature weekly article now that I’m done with my shoulder surgery recovery. The new article series will be a bit lighter in nature, but I think many of you will enjoy it never the less.