Free-time (n) – what I may be lacking

Ok, I haven’t forgotten about the cURL tutorial or updating the site. I just happen to be quite busy right now. This weekend I hope to have some time to finish up the cURL stuff (I am working on it, it’s just not done) and hopefully get back to my project. This is somewhat of a reminder to myself as well, so hopefully it works! I also promise to make all of the source code available of both the problems and solutions.

Random cool thing I found: tntnet. I had heard about C++ server pages before, but tntnet is the project that really makes them shine. They claim that it can serve c++ dynamic pages fast than traditional web servers (probably apache) can serve static pages because the c++ pages get compiled. Awesome for speed. The syntax looks pretty nice to for making the views (and you get the c++ goodness for all of the processing).

Not exactly neglect

Ok so i haven’t posted in almost 20 days. That’s not exactly what I would call being attentive of my blog. Um… sorry? This isn’t exactly a fix. I haven’t gottent any new chillout and my other activities I want to keep hidden for now. Yes, I have been doing something that I will eventually post here. If you’re really curious, my development site is located at dev.quad341.com and does have information about what is going on. Hopefully by mid-April I will have a working example of this project and announce it to the world. I welcome actual inquery and the repository allows for anonymous checkouts. In the mean time, I need more music. Suggestions?

Small update

Well, I was trying to get PreFormance (I think that’s what the one blogging extension is called) set up through my Firefox installation under Linux, but that wasn’t working for a thus unsolved reason. I guess I’ll continue to use the web interface for the time being. Also, there’s a fairly severe security hold in WordPress version 2.1.1. Make sure you update to 2.1.2 as soon as you can. I have other matters that need more immediate attention, but I plan to post more about music soon.

Welcome to DreamHost

I don’t know if any of you have heard of DreamHost, but it is an amazing hosting site. The plans are crazy cheap and give you more bandwidth and space than you would ever imagine elsewhere. It is shared/managed hosting, but you get shell access and have access to most services you would ever want. I’m quite happy. It was a bit annoying to transfer everything (I ended up using scp through a shell thanks to a friend’s suggestion), but otherwise is great. The best part for all of you is that I can now give you a discount for the referral.

Here’s what you have to do:

1. Go to the DreamHost sign up page
2. Set up your account however you would like.
3. At the bottom enter QUADGIFT as your Promo Code to get $10 off of any hosting package you select
4. Finish registration and enjoy DreamHost!

I have nothing but good things to say about DreamHost thus far. I would highly suggest them for anyone looking for a new host.

Success! – Part 2

Ok, upgrade complete. Everything seems to be good. Now for the DNS update so others can see the new site (that seems exactly like the old site!) Next post will be about my new found host.

Success! – Part 1

If all has gone correctly, this will be the first post on the new server. I think all is good. I’m also still going to update wordpress, so one more post before i’m satisfied.

Server Change – Again

This seems like I did it recently… oh well. It’s been 10 months since I got this server and now I’m abandoning it. I honestly can’t handle the cost of the server with no income from it. The changes that everyone will see should be virtually non-existent. Everything is going to be moved to the new server before the DNS is told to change. As soon as the DNS updates, everyone will be looking at the new server without any changes in view (hopefully).

I should start playing with mod_svn (which will allow web based access to subversion) later and so on. If anything seems to break, feel free to send me an email at quad341@gmail.com. More details will be posted when I finish the transition.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to another year and more resolutions! I would say that I resolve to post more regularly and what I intend to (there’s 3-5 music posts waiting to be written), but I’m pretty sure that’s going to go bad soon. Anyway, my resolution is to post more and share more music with everyone. There’s also a project coming into being that I’ll probably be looking to see if anyone is interested in helping with. Stay tuned for that as well.

A large topic of a hopefully soon-coming post is going to be Saul Stokes. Whether you heard him on di.fm or kahvi, Stokes is no newcomer. I recently added a lot of Stokes to my library and he released a new live set to the internet. Both I feel deserve to be brought up.

More soon… (and I also have a good book that I’m reading as an excuse for forgetting to post)

Server Updates

Well, I can’t say i’ve been idle, but I can’t say that you really can see what I’ve been doing either. I am working on a project, but unfortunately, I cannot reveal anything about it yet (if not until it is done). Because of this, I actually set up subversion on this server finally. It’s running quite well actually. This project can take advantage of the Zip package for PHP though. This isn’t standard in php5 < 5.2, so I updated PHP tonight. It seems to have gone over without a hitch. While it might be pushing it, I really would like to update Apache to Apache 2… but I’m really worried about hosing my web server if I do that. If suddenly the web server dies, that might be why.

I was listening to some music from Spyra and was quite happy, but I would have to go back and listen again to really give an opinion. Nothing else for now.

Music to Live By

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve posted about music, but these two latest albums are definitely ones worth noticing.

The first album I got was A Strangely Isolated Place by Ulrich Schnauss. Schnauss has a pretty well known name around chillout and for good reason. His music a wonderful blend of simple and artificial tones with some natural beauty. The result is quite amazing. I struggle to really be able to describe the music. It’s a blend of something like S. Zeilenga and Jon Hopkins. I love both of those artists and hence love Schnauss. This album does contain Monday – Paracetamol of which is the second song on disc 2 of “The Art of Chill.” If you have or have heard that track, it will give you somewhat of a feel for his work (though that is one of the lower-key tracks). The upbeat tracks from an artist like “Bliss” also have a similar feel. I really enjoyed the album and would really recommend you get yourself a copy.

Next was the album I probably announced a couple months ago: Reconstructed Moments by Marco Torrance. You may also know Torrance by the name of Zilent Zpott. There is more of an ambient feel to this cd than Schnauss, but it is not an ambient album. It is a very deliberate and calculated blend of emotions that can be a bit slower than some enjoy. I love well done ambiant as well as chillout. This blend that sits closer to one side or the other depending on song is very well done. I think Torrance’s ability of ambiant are really notable, but his chill is also something to observe. It’s not a generic nor as light as Schnauss’s work, but it is no where near as heavy as something like Namlook’s Silence or Air. It sits somewhere in the middle and well done at that position. To get a feel if you would like the album, I would recommend checking out the Zilence EP on kahvi.org first. I think you will be happy with what you hear.

On music-ish related news: I’m annoyed at the DNS problems I have been having with the music mirror at cardamar.quad341.com. As such, I purchased a new domain, chilloutmixes.com that also points there and will become the primary domain. Please either use the IP or use the new domain and I will probably be changing and possibly removing the old one.