Tag Archives: web

Countdown to Go Live

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Last night I began making final preparations for df.com v11 final to go live. I finished up some final security audits and permissions checks. I also ran some final performance checks. All passed flawlessly. I’ve checked over the pages for any final typos or lay out flaws– I found none. There are no open issues reports and we made some final changes to content:

With that we appear ready for final go live on 10/7/09 barring any further issues. Thank you to everyone who gave feedback and looked over the site for me. Six months of work is about to come full head and the fruits of my labor is arguably the best web site I’ve produced to date.

Now comes the hard (and fun) part– filling it with more Pirate Radio and art for you to enjoy, as well as, the uncanny articles you’ve come to love as filler in-between.

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Odds & Ends

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Susan G. Komen For The CureAs we move onto df.com version 11.0_RC(2.5b), I’ve been hard at work on some code clean up:

  • Improved site caching to speed load time
  • Optimized code for Google Searches (among other search engines)
  • Fixed Star Rating & Comment system (was actually trying to speed up load times when I broke it)
  • Upgraded theme code improving cross web browser functionality

We also ran into some anomalies linked to background server tasks that were bogging down late night load times. I’ve move some of those various maintenance jobs off from peak hours and so far so good.

We’ve actually been taking on a lot of traffic because of my recent “Paranormal Activity” blog. I’ve somehow ended up number four on Google when you search for “paranormal activity movie leak”. I apologize to all those who came here looking for pirate movies (having a web show called Pirate Radio cannot help things either), but unfortunately I have no more info than the meager amounts given out by all the mainstream media outlets.

The Pirate Radio Facebook Group is taking off. At last check earlier today, we had 57 members in the group and that’s not bad for two weeks with little/no advertising about it. As always, word of mouth has proved to be our biggest friend when it comes to marketing the site.

Long term feedback is great so far for the new site layout and features. I’m getting a lot of kudos from people when I run into them and it’s good to know the majority of you like the new site.

Last, but not least– this month you will find a pick ribbon on the left side of the web site. We’re supporting the efforts of The Susan G. Komen Foundation. October is breast cancer awareness month. The Komen Foundation is a key supporter in searching for a cure for breast cancer and helps raise awareness for those most at risk (including educating both men and women how to proactively locate tumors through routine check ups etc…). This is a cause both near and dear to my heart. My father died of throat and mouth cancer back in 1998. His mother (my grandmother) died of breast cancer. His father (my grandfather) died of lung cancer. Obviously cancer research is very important to me and my family. There are very few of us out there who do not know someone who has survived cancer or died of it. I hope you’ll join me in showing your support and if possible sending donations via their site to help them continue their good works.

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Paranormal Activity (The Movie)

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Paranomal Activity - The MovieIn the grand world of entertainment there have been many attempts at using the web to launch a product. Some have been spectacularly successfully and some have been even more spectacularly horrible. Either way, the web is more and more becoming an important (if not cheap) way to launch marketing campaigns for any media release– this especially holds true for films where the web was seemingly made to host interactive trailers, pictures, and aggregate news on the release.

Years back you may recall the “Blair Witch Project“, which appeared in Cannes to much critical acclaim. The film appeared in 1999 at Cannes and was given little fanfare besides a small lightly built web site featuring clips, stories, and folklore surrounding the movie’s back story. For many (admittedly myself included) on first watch of the “leaked” film from a movie site. the film seemed very real. It was shot unlike any other film in a very long time using hand held camcorders, quick cuts, and little to no special effects. This intensified the overall feeling and lent credibility to the film’s believability. By the time the film made it to major release and we’d all had a chance to watch it a few more times there were some things in the film that clearly spelled out it was both acted, as well as, scripted; but nevertheless it was a highly successful way to launch a film.

Ten years later a new film hopes to recapture that “Blair Witch Project” feel using both the web and that same recorded live with a camcorder feel. The film is “Paranormal Activity“. The spin this time is we do know out the door it’s both acted and scripted. Instead the web site is used as a campaign launch to show localized movie theaters where demand for the film exists. You can go to the site and show your support by “demanding” the film in your zip code. Each zip code affiliates with a bigger release zone (for example my area collates with “metro-NYC”) and using those metrics the film makers plan to show the release outlets where the film should be released beyond the initial and already launch “limited” release. It’s a great idea and it appears to be working well in their favor. Better yet– voting requires an email address so you know that the marketing team will have a field day with actually knowing who to spend their advertising dollars on, as well as, being able to directly notify the viewers when the film is out in a given area.

It goes to show you that even an old concept can be revamped to meet new ends and that as the web continues to evolve it not only can live in harmony with traditional media, but augment the ability for actual investment to be put behind those releases. I personally like that idea and applaud the marketing team behind it for their efforts.

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Moving Forward

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Tackled two bugs today not related to the web site itself and more related to some logistical configuration/growing pains with the new server. First we ran into an issue where Firefox 3.5.2 would not render the web page correctly. The main navigation bar was all sorts of screwed up. This turned out to be due to a disk space allocation issue. This issue has been fixed and testing shows clean rendering of all pages since then.

We also ran into an issue where outside viewers could not email any address ending in @digitalflood.com. This was due to some improper routing with our DNS. We have addressed that issue as well and testing again shows email delivery is restored.

We had a large numbers of hits to the site since announcing our upgrade on Facebook and MySpace. I’m glad to see there was some interest in the site. Early feedback seems very positive. As always, let me know what you think and I’ll keep plugging away on this end to push things forward based on that info.

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10 Years And Still Going

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On May 21, 1999 at 06:23:21 EST, digitalflood.com came to life. Like the birth of most things both wondrous and mediocre, it was mostly unnoticed by the masses. Slowly over the years we’ve evolved from our early “Everything/Nothing” blog format to a multimedia art project to many things to many people. We explore multimedia in many forms: print/graphic art, prose, poetry, short stories, photography, pen & ink, originally composed music pieces, video, and everything in between. We’ve done web casts of radio shows and pushed out mix tapes that are the envy of many a DJ. We’ve drawn rave reviews and mass acclaim. We’ve also drawn controversy, started arguments that have led to literal fist fights, and offended oh so many people. In short, this is what we do and while opinions may very we do it well enough to keep drawing viewers back in– that’s as close to success you can get in the 30 second Twitter One Day; My Space the Next attention span that is web viewership.

On May 21, 2009 we passed the decade mark. DigitalFl00d Studios itself goes back beyond the 1999. We started in print and cassette tape format back in 1994. Our content was delivered by hand a select (and admittedly small) viewership. We migrated to our first web pages that were homed on home brewed servers in 1997. In 1999 we finally got our own domain. Somewhere around 2004 we jumped to our hosting and now we find ourselves on our own server. The site has grown from it’s original 2MB of disk usage to over 3GB (some 2.5GB alone in MP3 format).

To celebrate our decade of web life, I decided we should do something special in late 2008. I began work on researching a new digitalflood.com framework to birth version 11 (which you see here now in beta form). In February 2009 I began finalizing the underlying CMS engine and decided the only way to achieve what I really wanted required its own dedicated server format. That lead to an initial machine build and alpha launch in April 2009.  I ended up scrapping most of the early work and nothing jelled until May 2009 when I finalized the look/feel overview.

The more brutal work then began– I had to populate content and migrate it from the old hand coded HTML into the blogging engine. That took most of the Summer of 2009. Just before launch a fatal flaw was found in the CMS engine that had to be patched and then I had some issues cleaning up the dynamic database to move the content from the test web site domain name to the final digitalflood.com one we all know and love.

The result is I am five months late with version 11, but as you can see even from this early public release it is well worth the wait.

On the right hand side during the beta (in other words I’m still ironing some bugs out and cleaning up the old content) you’ll find our known issues. This will let you know what I know is broken. Of course if you find something not in this list you are welcome to drop a line. My goal is to be in public final version 11.0 release for the site in time for 1/1/10.

This will include a new season of Pirate Radio (wait till you see what we have in store for you… mawahahahah) starting in October 2009.

Again, I thank you for checking in and coming back. Like many times before, it’s been awhile since I’ve delivered the goods; but the wait is always worth it. Great things are ahead. More will be offended. More will be pleased. History will continue to be written and digitalflood.com itself march ahead. Enjoy the ride, but remember to keep your arms in the bus at all times.

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