Tag Archives: project

Until Next Time

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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.

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The Freebie Experience

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It seems after a few months (read-  year) of bad news from the stock market we’re finally starting to see a  small turn around including continued gradual movements northward in both trading volume and closing average prices. Nevertheless, the cost cutting trend surges on as corporations big and small discover the benefits of running lean.

Maybe it’s the years of excess and complacency finally wearing itself away, but across the US you can see corporations publishing financial filings with key notes of “cost reduction” and “expense consolidation” with pride. Think what you will, but this trend seems here to stay for the time being. The truth is there are some really great (and not so amazing) ways to reduce reoccurring expenses. Over the course of the next few weeks we’ll be visiting ways you can think about cutting cost without cutting service because truly running efficient should not result at the cost of customer experience or create reduction of service offerings.

We’ll be looking into ideas small and large that can be implemented easily throughout an organization of any size. These ideas can be implemented by any member of a staff. We’ll focus on various portions of the business including operations, finance, buildings/facilities, and marketing. My hope is that with these ideas you’ll spur initiatives of your own and let us know how you take these strategies to the next level.

The first area we’ll focus on is one that is near and dear to my heart– free IT desktop programs that cut costs day one while offering the same functionality of user applications costing hundreds more. Think of it this way– for each license you don’t purchase you’re saving cash for other initiatives such as improving the infrastructure and operation support elements that most support the applications. In short, it’s money well saved.

  • Open Office 3 – Developed by Sun Microsystems, Open Office is an open source free alternative to Microsoft’s Office XP Suite. It comes with a word processor, a spread sheet application, a math program, a presentation program, a drawing program, and a database program. The one thing Open Office misses is a true diagram program (i.e. Visio), but otherwise for your standard staff member the goods are all there including spell checking, multi-platform support, ability to write out to many formats (including native PDF output), and interoperability with MS Office. I use the program in my home office as do many of my colleagues. It’s great for students and professionals alike whether you’re home or at work.
  • GanttProject – Microsoft Project is a great tool, but most Project Managers do not touch the true potential of what the program can do. For those of you who are rudimentary project planners or you’re not looking for true server side multi-user input (i.e. one person owns the update of the project plan) then GanttProject will work great for your team. Meant for the Project Manager dealing with projects of all sizes; GanttProject will help you plan, execute, and track a project through its life cycle. It too offers the ability to cross interface with MS applications including Project.
  • FoxIt PDF Reader – I know Adobe PDF Reader is free, but my problem with their program is two fold. First, it’s notoriously slow. Second, it is the constant victim of exploits. For this reason, I’m a huge fan of Foxit’s PDF Reader. It’s fast, small, and not as targeted as its mainstream cousin.
  • AVG Free 8.5 – Technically you cannot use Grisoft’s AVG Free Anti-virus for business deployments, but if you need a free, effective, and reliable anti-virus/anti-spyware application for your home PC (*ahem* home *cough* PC… *wink*) this is the one. AVG is robust and secure as one would expect from Germany’s number one malware protection company. Updates are timely (usually every day) and offer protection through “smart” ID methods that can even catch a virus the program does not have a definition for yet. AVG is the number one tool I install on a PC infected with a virus… usually one that already is running Symantec or McAfee, but was exploited any how.
  • Firefox – Firefox is a free web browser that is secure, expandable, and fast. The multi-tab support has been copied by other web browsers, but no one can match the speed, stability, and over all configurable limits of Firefox.
  • Thunderbird – When armed with the Lightning extension, Thunderbird replaces Outlook XP with ease. This email application includes mutli-account support, junk mail filtering (that works), calendar/reminder/task support, and a flexible contact address book.
  • LogMeIn Himachi – Another program that is for “personal” use, Himachi is a VPN that needs zero configuration aside from being installed on the computers you wish to link. Himachi will change the way you work and liberate your ability to work from the cloud.
  • Pidgin – Pidgin is an IM application that works with all the popular IM networks including Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.  The ability to chat with co-workers in real time is both under estimated and under utilized. It will change the way you communicate internally and the speed which you do so.
  • Google Earth – Need directions to a client’s business? Need to see where you can stay while on a business trip? Want to find a place to eat while out walking the sales beat? Google Earth is not only a mapping utility, but it can be used for finding businesses in an area or measure the distance between two nodes. Once you start playing with cartography (the art of mapping) you too will be hooked and it will change the way you literally look at the world.

Today we focused on common desktop applications. In the future we’ll be looking at more applications that are both free and useful for various tasks. This should, however, get you out the door for the time being and start making you think about what other “free” software alternatives exist. Stay tuned for more blogs on free software that is useful and offers real cost savings for every day tasks.

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