Music and Zimbio (nice combo!)

As you can probably tell, I have enough trouble keeping up one blog, so my time for Zimbio has been extremely limited. Ok, i’ll be honest: non-existant. This doesn’t mean the Zimbio team hasn’t been up to anything though. In fact, a great update just took place. In fact, there was a press release about all the new changes over at Yahoo! Finance. If you haven’t gotten a Zimbio addiction yet, now’s the time to find out about anything and everything. I think I might just start a portal about Chillout Music since… i kinda like it.

Speaking of music, I ordered a cd a while ago and never heard how it was doing. It was international peoples gang 0006 from em:t records. It just showed up tomorrow (a day after i complained i hadn’t heard anything ironically) and I have to say, it’s impressive. I saw the review on Mike G’s site (no, i don’t remember his site, but he does the lounge on the chillout channel on di every other monday). It brings unique chill and some ambiant together in a very nice package. I honestly must admit my love right off the bat. If i wasn’t trying to catch up on some sleep, I’d be sure to say more.

Oh and tomorrow is a free webinar from zend. don’t forget to sign up! (check your email if you’re on the newsletter)

Zimbio is Live!

It is true! Zimbio went live today. If you have not had a chance to experience this site, it is really something to behold. I expect it to become much more useful now that more people are using it. Just search for PHP to see the one that I run when I have time. Sign up, contribute, enjoy!

My internet has been crazy tonight, so I’m currently backing up my osCommerce installation, then I will export the database, then I will zip it all and upload and post. For now, it’s processing. I might be dead tired tomorrow (very long test), but I will do my best to have it uploaded for use.

I have canceled my ideas for making a searchable file database. I will release my code to make an index file (it’s horribly hacked together late at night when I just wanted something done, but maybe it is enough to answer someone’s question on how to put together an index…) in the next couple days. My next interest is going to have to do with the Zend Framework, Smarty, and a variety of other ideas. Stay tuned as more materializes there.

You’d think I wouldn’t be distracted this much…

Well, I’ve been distracted. I generally think that a post about my cds is now just too late. Here’s a really short description:
Psymeditation from Organic Records is some excellent chill that starts of very strong and somewhat dwindles towards the end. It has at least 3 or 4 really good chill tracks and the rest is decent. “Yours to Enjoy,” the first track, is most excellent. Still a good investment.
The Mirror Formula by Xerxes is outstanding. I have to say that the title track (that was added to the cd version. It’s not in the hellian.org version) is fabulus. It even takes what seems like a boring beat and makes it marvelous. I have but one complaint in the album: The final track is a weak conclusion. It’s not remarkable and doesn’t seem to close very well. This also might be my thoughts because I want more, but I think the final track could have been better. The rest must be heard to understand its excellence. Cardamar Music is sold out. Check the releases page on cardamar.com to find other distributors that might have a copy left.

What has taken my soul (as it seems) is osCommerce.
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Zimbio update, server talk, and Russ has a new site

So title’s are too hard to come up with. Big deal. Now you can tell what this is about a little faster…

Anyway, my little addiction (that I could only pray could become something like MySpace for popularity but not evilness) at Zimbio.com has been updated. It’s great. They added support to change your layout including adding custom “rolls” to the front page (you have to use it to understand. If you want to, you can sign up or contact me and I can provide). It really gives it a new edge. I find it to be a great improvement and shows how this is coming along. I am truly excited for it. Hopefully I can implement my Xapian set up into my file server and add some posts about it.

I don’t know if anyone remembers any of the times where I warned about downtime and changing servers and all that jazz, but just look them up so I don’t have to warn you again. This is more of a need than just a desire this time, though. The music mirror (which I’m more than happy to run) is taking up a bit much of my bandwidth to stay with the current set up. I loved Host Rocket when I had them last, so I think I’ll go with them. I’ll be more definitive when I figure it all out (but bandwidth will no longer be a consideration)

Oh and Russ has a new site. He calls it Adept Designs. He made a little web-badge (like) picture:

The Zimbio Addiction… and Gentoo Woes

This week has generally sucked. My light has come from the prospects I have seen in Zimbio. I really can say that I am impressed by how well that which has been implemented works. There’s a few bugs that arise, but this is to be expected. The feedback team is also really responsive, so I can only encourage you all to sign up for the beta. Testers are key!

I’ve even started to play with posting staic content to the site. It’s limited at the moment, but it’s not impossible. I’ve been submitting ideas as they come along so that Zimbio can really become what it has the potential to be. This week end, I plan to do more tutorial(s) and do some testing in mac os x and linux. I’ve also added a Zimbio category to make it easier to see all my posts about that system.

Speaking of Linux, I was so excited to hear about the gentoo linux installer… and have been somewhat let down. I’ve installed gentoo a few times and yet the damn thing still fails repeatedly. I’m pretty sure my problems are all coming from the fact that I’m using a virtual machine. I’ve got my testing box that isn’t doing anything that i’ll try to install it on. Also might start hammering out my indexing system for my fedora file server. It’s doing great.

News!

Hey! I can’t think of a good title for this generic idea… so it’s just news. Here goes:

There’s this site, Zimbio.com, that is setting up community portals and such. It’s kinda cool except that it is a hard core portal only. This means that there is very little static content. I would like to contribute tutorials and the like, but have no real place to put it. I’ll keep playing with it when i find time again. I am a guru of the PHP one. They give you this handy code to show it off:

In more important news (to me at least), I found that The Mirror Formula by Xerxes was delaied to add another track that is apparently awesome. I can’t wait for my cds to come. If you have any interest in it, get yours now. Cardamar reported only 34 remaining of the 300 produced and it will not be reprinted.

The file server seems to be running well. Now just have to load it. I’m also looking to set up a relational database of the information including Xapian… but I have to figure out a good way to update from file lists to the database. I’m thinking of using a temp table to save already entered data and copy back the files that exist and enter those that don’t. The rest are deleted since the files no longer exist. I’ll have to hammer out the details later.

End note: I did order something from organic records. It was… psymeditations or something like that. Not sure. I’ll remember when it gets here. It’s a VA album, so I hope it to be good.