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Buddies
The web's state of being.
Touring began for me about 2 years ago. Roughly around then I had expressed a ton of interest in taking Pluh.com in an entirely different direction. I had this idea - which is a great idea - that would hypothetically be the next myspace or facebook or whatever. I did some web maintenance work earlier today and started to think about my massive Pluh.com rebuild. I came to the conclusion that another facebook or myspace isn't want people need or even want. Why?
Because it's already there. It's already something that's grown into a supergiant. I originally believed that having a supergiant of a website is what I wanted as a web developer. Visions of advertising dollars coming in danced through my head. I can't imagine what kind of headache that would also entail. Servers upon servers of maintenance, having to regulate time to run a company of that magnitude, etc. That wasn't what got me rethinking my Pluh.com plans though. What got me moving was with my new idea, the real personality, the customization, and the charm of what I had originally envisioned would be gone. It'll be a massive application where people are herded around like cattle via mouseclicks and keyboard strokes. It kind of goes against why I do what I do.
I think the web is going into a different direction now, something beyond the scope of clicking around and poking friends. I'm not just a developer - I'm also an entertainer, and that's something I often lose sight of.
I think my original vision needs to be breathed back to life, but with a stronger foundation. People want to be entertained, not herded, and that's something I plan on implementing again. I have to start back at the drawing board, try some different stuff, etc.
I won't toss aside my other ideas though. Who knows, I may find a better use for them.
Multisubjectland!
I've been working on the new Pluh.com here and there when I find time on this here tour. I used to try and work on it in a shaky van with stupid band jerks, but gave up on that when I contantly hit wrong keys during coding or precise graphics editing ended up being like performing sugery while skydiving. So what is the new Pluh.com about? Not so much I can divuldge yet due to a somewhat original concept that I can't wait to roll out. There have been many times I've had to go back and clean up old code that this new framework I'm developing will be super easy to update, add features, etc.
Pluh.com has always been a fun-yet-frustrating battle. Just when I think I've got it figured out, I hit a wall or something else comes up. The editor-driven setup doesn't work because it's all volunteer based. How on earth can one keep a staff of voluteers motivated to update a website every day? It's possible, but change is constantly moving that they often get pulled away into something else, like... LIFE for example. Kids, marriage, jobs, whatever. Nothing wrong with any of those of course.
So a whole new approach has been adopted on my end.
Crap, I gotta run. Show in New Port Richey, Florida tonight. Oh yeah!
Stupid rock and hard place.
I've been involved in web development for roughly 10 years now. I recall my very first venture into that crazy newfangled technology known as the internet and "web pages." Angelfire! That was where I had my first website. Then I moved to Geocities, then... uhm, I think I got my own domain? Can't remember much.
Anyway, up until 3 or 4 years ago I had considered web development a hobby. It comes very easily to me, and I find it to be very enjoyable. I had no idea how valuable the skill was up until I went to work for a smaller company a couple of years ago. I was stunned at how much my boss was charging clients for what I considered simple. Then it occured to me - it's not SIMPLE to them. They're paying for a service they don't want to bother with.
That made a ton of sense. For instance, why would *I* try and fix a messed up cluster of pipes underneath my sink and in my wall when I cold pay someone to do it? Not only that, they're good at it, experienced, and will do a far better job than I could with my severe lack of knowledge. The exact same thing applies to web development. Why would someone with very little interest in web dev want to bother with it when they could pay someone to build their site, to their specifications, and do it right the first time?
Then I started to appreciate my skill and experience so much more.
So the message I wanted to clarify here is: Web development, especially in the professional realm, is NOT something that's just slapped together. There's a science behind it. If someone offers to build you a website, and they do a good job, pay them handsomely. You get an awesome website, they get paid, everybody wins.
That's how it should be.
*sigh*
No more favors. From now on I charge full price to everyone. Don't like it? Go buy some templates and slap something together. You get what you pay for.
Decimating the list.
Did a few tiny things to Rawrb.com here. Biggest one you'll notice is that I can now set some blogs to private, which is something I'm very glad I did after going through a few of my past posts. Heh. Perhaps someday I'll allow registration that will give access to hand-picked people to read those private blogs. Perhaps.
I did a TON of stuff to TheDumb.org, most of which won't be noticed by your average interweb going guy. El Duderino will be able to administer TheDumb much easier now. Hell yeah!
Psychostick.com got a little facelift as well as a lot of front-end feature additions, such as an Advice Column and an Articles section. After I blog like an awesomeface here, I'm gonna head there and add a few more SEO tricks and optimizations. Time for more Mod rewrite magic! Don't you find this FASCINATING?!
I gotta get all this nerd out of my system before I hit the road in 2.5 weeks. Rawr.
After all this I'll be attacking the Psychostick DVD and finally, Pluh.com. I'll finally get to see what AJAX is capable of. From what I've seen on Facebook and Myspace, it's very versatile if you know how to use it properly.
Oh, tons of Psychostick merch is being manufactured as we speak. Yay!
The Pen Tool... argh.
Okay, this is going to be short one, but...
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE YOU FUCKING PEN TOOL?
This pen tool.
I always saw it there. I even tried it not knowing how it worked. I never imagined how awesome it could be. Thanks Murph for telling me it was awesome like 2 years ago, but not forcing me to learn how to use it. I blame Murph. Damn you Murph!
"I'm Murph and I eat rotten acorns because I'm so STUPID WATCH ME PLAEY GUITAWR HEROS VIIIIIIII"
If you use Photoshop or any other program that uses the pen tool, read this tutorial and bask in it's awesomeness.
Dane Cook is funny.
So, after a week of "tour-recovery" (which is more or less getting some sort of sleep schedule again), I'm back in the groove of doing stuff. By "stuff" I mean "holy crap I have stuff to do let's make a list and uhm, do that stuff that is on the list so I can get done with stuff."
Yup.
Making tour posters and flyers for The Dumb once all those tour dates are in (should be any day now). Then the actual site REALLY needs something interesting on it. I'm thinking all the dumb members might be enticed to come back and like, do stuff if there was stuff to do. Ideas? A few.
Psychostick's site is gonna have a bunch of new stuff soon too - some of them I'm taking directly from Pluh.com. Which ones? Can't tell ya. Pluh.com will be taking a completely new turn once I ah, get to it. Hah, yes - it's all at the mercy of "when I have TIME!" Actually time isn't the issue. It's a matter of getting the bigger fish fried, which is currently Psychostick. Sooooooo... yeah. All gonna be badassery either way.
And that's all I have at the moment. Oh wait, there's this thing that Jawrsh sent to me. Kinda funny - it's something that I used to make a lot of fun of.
I Guess Youll Do - Watch more free videos
Not that fancy, but whatever.
I just updated Evacuate Chicago's site design to reflect the upcoming CD that we're recording right now. Nothing fancy, just kinda pretty. Much of the old content is garbled and crap, so I'll need to work that out. Gonna try to get that wrapped up tonight. Yeah!
Probably gonna record vocals too tonight for EC. Sweet.
Hmm what else. I gotta sort out all the "crap to do" in my head. There's a lot of it and if I don't get it in some sort of organize format, I'll get nothing done. Wow!
And what a blog I posted early last night. Errr, early this morning. Whatever.
*pant pant punch*
Jeez, the last couple of weeks my freelance work has picked up and I've just wrapped two projects, and am about to start a simple one. Then next week I'll finally be able to focus on Psychostick stuff full time, like those videos I boasted about below. Hah... yeah. We shot the footage and I just ripped all of it, but haven't done anything with it yet due to me putting the energy needed into finishing these last couple of freelance jobs.
I'm hoping this tour will have a stupendous amount of success so that I don't have to do as much freelance work. That'd be nice!
Ok, gotta finish this stuff. Lots to talk about, so I'll be back latawr!
Finally, something I like!
Wow, I like this. Although I have to test it in other browsers, I'm thinking this is something I'm gonna stick with for a while. I did some tweaking with the mod-rewrite stuff, plus the obvious redesign. (Refresh this page if it looks funky and has a black background).
Next up, photos. I really want to post awesome photos. Most everything you see me in is band photos, and that's not all I'm about. I'd like to take pictures of awesome food I try, this new 500 GB drive I just bought, etc. Yeah, don't ask I guess.
You'll also notice the ton of new categories. I'll take a moment and post some stuff in a few of the new categories. My blogs will be a bit less general and more on topic with the category in mind. I don't want to select more than 2 categories per blog. It'll just look better.