I was doing a report for work, and figured I would share it so others can find and easily compare affordable Text Message Marketing services.

As everyone who knows me knows, I have been interested in video and filming for years, and keep exploring new possibilities, software and equipment to make that dream a reality, even if it’s on a small scale.

If you have been paying attention to my blanketing, you know that I’m working with a friend, Paul, to shoot his script. It’s sort of a police drama/suspense short about a slightly touched (maybe?) killer who thinks he is the judgmental arm of god, and kills people he considers sinners.

Being a few weeks in to casting and planning, I think we have all of the electronics and software we will need. Some consumer grade MiniDV Cameras, some editing software (kdenlive will be the package of choice), some mics, and 4-track for the sound. We are also doing pretty good at filling our cast with local talents. This was achieved with an ad on Craigslist, which got picked up by exploretalent.com, and did a great deal towards finding the right people for the roles.

Anyway, that being said, I think what Syracuse needs is some sort of organization, guild, or something for No-Budget film making. This is a class unto itself, there aren’t multi-thousand dollar cameras, people with small fortunes to spend, or much of a budget for purchasing Adobe products. Most of it would be shot with mid to high consumer grade equipment, and edited with whatever can be found free on the internet, came with your camera, or with your computer. (iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Ulead, Premiere Elements, etc) Boom mics might be built with duct tape and broom handles, but what is lacked in costly equipment and software is made up for with skill, dedication and determination to make something worth watching.

A No-Budget group would provide leads on Talent, help scout locations, and help out with learning how to make something actually happen with the low-end software and hardware. The group would have lists of preferred vendors for certain handy materials for effects, or links to resources that teach how to do them. It would also help suggest projects to cast and crew looking for one to work on. Pretty much everything short of actually working on the project. The group could have an annual no-budget film festival and help high ranking filmmakers get entered into larger film festivals. This could be the grassroots effort to bring passionate filmmakers together when they are looking to work with other passionate filmmakers.

So…. what do you think?

Today I installed the Total Video Pack with Kaltura’s media capabilities. This allows me to post video to my blog, remix it and more, and even cooler….allows people to post video responses to the videos I post.

This is some really cool stuff and I hope to be posting more of it when we start getting our film project underway.

I use this old Arf! video as the test video when I do video because it has a good size and doesn’t say much about anything.

So, it’s been awhile since I have posted anything about what I am doing with myself and I know you are all waiting. Probably hanging on my every word. I know you love me and I love myself, hi-dee-ho hi-dee-ho… not really but what the hell, I have your attention anyway.

Anyway, here’s the low-down. Since Prior to July 27th, I was modulating mos of my time at work between the California Fig advisory board websites, and the holsteinworld.com redesign…both of which are heavily laden with a bunch of “new to me” technologies.

For holsteinworld.com, I wrote a complete custom CRM that controls just about everything you can see on the site from graphics and colors, navigation and menus, news, calendars and feeds right down to just about every miniscule detail. Most of it probably could have been done in Drupal, but this can do a lot that Drupal can’t touch, and it’s very easy to use for our team since it was built with them in mind, and technical functions are taken care of in a predetermined way rather than requested of a user who might not know what they mean.

For the California Fig board, I built the website with a less encompassing Content Manager and a Fig Recipe database unlike anything else on the market. This is where I got my grounds with MySql since I had never actually done anything with it and pretty much got dropped into it without a life jacket. I think I did well.

Following that, I developed a Virtual Page Manger for websites that allows me to design a template, and the owner of the website to edit the content from a simple Admin panel in a very easy manner. No coding necessary, SEO is built in and the plugin system is well on it’s way to being what I could be a fresh new technology. (XML Based plugins) The cool thing about it is that I can simply build a template and drop it in place. The manager will take care of the rest. (Search, Statistics, Menus, and other page content) This truly separates design from content.

But lately, I have been working on two projects. One to offer our customers, and one to replace the defaced Moo-Tube.net.

For the customers, we now have a complete and customizable E-Commerce solution. An E-store that can be added into your website, self-managed and easily adapted to just about any design, payment and shipping system. I have a pretty complete set of shipping integrators with UPS and the U.S. Postal Service. The only payment gateway currently integrated is Paypal, but others should be pretty easy to add support for.

And for us… there is Moo-Tube 2.0. A revolutionary new video sharing platform. Moo-Tube 2.0 is easily themed from Dreamweaver, supports video uploads, rating commenting, and more. It also allows users to comment on each others’ profile, “wall to wall” style commenting, and more. That is just the basic rundown, other features are in store but will be unveiled with the site. We’ll just say it’s the next step towards integrating functionality of YouTube and Facebook into one place.

So, if anyone wonders why I usually disappear from “being online” for most of the evening, it’s because I need to recharge from grabbing amazing pieces of code out of thin air and hammering them out on the keyboard.

Have a great day everyone and if you’re interested in any of these technologies, let me know! I’m happy to help anyone who might be struggling with some of the things I have already solved.

I grabbed the latest version of Acid Xpress and the Demo Loop pack the other night and just playing around put together some quick loops.

These would be used for background music… nothing I imagine anyone would want to claim as a masterpiece.

Enter The Drifter

Things are Going Down

Shootout

I’ll probably be doing more at some point….just need to get some fresh samples.

Enjoy!

Being Earth day, I was pursuing one of my many interests as a huge fan of clean and environmentally friendly technology.  I found an article about converting an enclosed trailer to a Solar Power Trailer.  I really wish I could afford all of this stuff.  Maybe in a few years, the prices will come down enough and I’ll have enough bills paid off to build one of my own.

Just thought I would share it with everyone so if anyone else wants to build one maybe I can help out for the experience.

Last night I figured out what was wrong with the computer I’m rebuilding for the rack.  Turns out it was the motherboard.  I took all of the parts out and installed the Syntax Motherboard I used to have in my main system.  No more CRC Errors, no more errors of any type….but I need to pick up some more standard DDR memory for it (all I have in it now is 64MB).  CentOS runs OK under 64 Mb and the only problem I have had so far was from the PSMOUSE advanced mouse driver and my KVM Switch. I dropped the mouse driver down to the Generic one, no wheel but it doesn’t do all sorts of unexpected things now.

I plan on using this machine as a development web server so I can free up the resources used on my desktop machine.  It will also be more like what my web host is running. (CentOS 4.6)

I can’t afford to buy CPanel for a development machine, so I’ll use Ravencore, and follow this guide for some of the basic stuff.  Since Ravencore is written in PHP and bash scripts, I might add some of my own features to it.  I’ve written independent management scripts before… maybe I can make it mimic CPanel/WHM more closely.

Work on Jeep

Today I took the day off to have a new muffler put on my jeep, the tires rotated, and an oil change.  Basic maintenance that should be done regularly.  The muffler looks good, and the oil change is nothing special.  On the other hand, the tires could not be rotated because the tread was too worn, so I bought 4 new ones for $99 each (installed price).  The only thing is, I don’t think they did the balance right.  I’m getting vibration between about 55 and 65 mph, and 70 – 75 mph.   I’ll be back down that way this weekend and get that taken care of, or go to the Kost in N. Syracuse to get that taken care of.  Other than that, most of the work looks satisfactory.

Conficker

I have been hearing a lot about Conficker (or confucker … configuration fucker), and how it is supposed to take the world by storm on April 1st. (coincidentally when NY says I’ll have my taxes back)

I have to say that it is interesting to see so many organizations working together to prevent it from bing a huge problem.  I am doing my part by switching to OpenDNS (myself, and work) and spreading the word.  So…. if you don’t already have a plan in place, here is your chance to start one.  (no, I don’t work for them, but their service has been a life saver frequently) OpenDNS is a free service that provides Domain Resolution (makes www.wherever.com point to 123.45.678.243 or whatever the IP address is) and content moderation.  In a business network, it can be used to block certain types of websites, chat services and other unacceptable Internet related activities.  At home, it’s useful for keeping phishing sites from loading before they even get to your computer.

To learn more about OpenDNS, go to their site.  To start using OpenDNS, follow these instructions.  To learn about how they are blocking conficker, read this blog entry.  If you have a prent, grandparent, less savvy family member you know of, setup OpenDNS for them too. They’ll thank you on April 1st if you do.

That being said, good luck with your own vehicle repairs, and keep up the battle against malware!

Wouldn’t it be nice to not pay your electric bill?  How about grocery shopping?

Imagine not having to buy electricity, food or any of the bare necessities.  You could buy a farm, but that’s pretty expensive. It would take care of food, but how about energy?  Maybe you’re not into “roughing it”…

If any of these questions got you thinking… “wow, that would be nice” or “Don’t I wish?” then this post is for you.

I’m looking for people to help build a non-profit cooperative community.  Not strictly like the old Hippie Communes or an Amish settlement or anything… well, similar to both in some ways.

What we would do is start off by buying some acreage with a few important features.  A running stream of some sort, some cleared land for gardning, and some space for building the “village”

Ideally, the community would have it’s own utility services for water, sewage, electricity and communications.  The goal is to have a collective income for everyone.  Everyone works either a regular job, or one of the community-owned businesses to earn their keep.  There will be a weekly fee that everyone must pay to be part of the community, which covers the costs of operation.  Mortgage, taxes, Internet/Telephone uplink, maintenance of the roads and utilities, upkeep of the community businesses, gardens and other necessities.  After this is all taken care of, the remainder is divided up evenly to all residents to do with as they wish.

This all a non-profit organization, we could offer things that most businesses offer their employees, benefits such as health insurance, retirement savings, and so on.  Ideally, we would also have medical specialists in the community to operate a basic health center.

If it seems like I’m moving from tangent to tangent, it’s because I’m still brainstorming and coming up with things that would help a cooperative community work.  The main idea is to combine the buying power of a whole community to increase the standard of living for everyone.  The community could have businesses run by residents that are open to the public.  The business would be owned by the whole community, and any income from it would go towards the community.  Residents could also choose to have outside jobs and contribute back to the community.

Make no mistakes, it won’t be easy.  Everyone would have to provide some of the pie.  We would need people who are employed by the community to take care of the farm, and utilities even though such things as food, electricity, housing, and such are free to community members.

I’m not sure of all the details, or if anyone else would even be interested, but I know a lot of people who are struggling on their own who would be able to benefit from cooperating together to build a better life for everyone overall.

Things get cheaper when bought in bulk…especially land… For example, it might be pretty expensive for someone making $30,000 a year to buy an acre of land and put a house on it, but with 10 people making that, it wouldn’t be a problem to buy 30 acres of land and put medium-sized dwellings on it.  Once the land is purchased, and everyone is paying for it, one could start out living in a meager dwelling (second hand mobile home? campling trailer? etc) and build a larger dewlling little by little without having to worry about coming up with more loans and money right away.

Maybe others have ideas or thoughts on this… chime in please!

Behold!  The future…. more soon

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