As soon as they can break this pesky iPod-iTMS-iPhone nonsense, the labels want to get back to dictating what you pay and how often you pay. The labels want to do business with people like Microsoft. Microsoft gets it: all the people who bought music using MSN music? They can buy it all over again at the Zune store.
Free Nine Inch Nails Album
Trent Reznor has done it again. Just a couple months ago, the instrumental-only 4 disc epic “Ghosts” was released as DRM-free downloadable content which offered the first disc as a free download and pricing models which were as low as $5 for all 4 discs/36 tracks (at very high quality - 320 kbps).
Now, Trent has released a new full studio Nine Inch Nails album, entitled The Slip, as a free download from his website.
thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me
Nice. I’ve listened a couple times through and I think this might be my favorite NiN record since The Fragile. Go download it now!
Echo Faith Redesign or: Where’s the Blue?
Welcome to the new Echo Faith — j5.
I’ve been stressing about this redesign for a long time, knowing that once it was live I was going to see a lot of it. As you may notice, this does not match the teaser design screenshots I posted back in October 2007. My idea was to create a new look that featured my designs and art without and let that be the shining part of the site. I redesigned and re-redesigned this idea way too many times and was never quite happy with it… it was just too simple and plain for me.
So I went back to the drawing board a bit and decided to try punching out a cool textured design with more of a muted color so that the sidebar mini-portfolio images would still pop. My wife, Danielle, gave me lots of great critical feedback to help me narrow in on what was working and what wasn’t. My hope is that the critical aspect of the sidebar images will motivate me to create more compelling pieces so the sidebar is fresh..
With this redesign I have made the switch from Wordpress to Expression Engine. I’d like to say the process was smooth and easy, but it most assuredly was not! Though much of that was likely due to my severe lack of knowledge about how Expression Engine works. I can already tell that I will definitely be much happier with Expression Engine - the flexibility is huge. Once I figure it all out this will be my CMS of choice for most of my future projects, except those on the real cheap (EE licenses are not free, except for the core license).
Major props to Michael Boyink both for an amazing series of Expression Engine tutorials and for responding whenever I ranted or complained about something with EE on Twitter. Echo Faith j5 was also transitioned to the fantastic new 960 Grid System but the extremely talented Nathan Smith.
To fully enjoy the redesign please view in Safari… text-shadow = win.
I hope you like it.
“Stupid guys talking and arguing about stupid stuff I don’t care about.”
— Danielle (my wife) on podcasts
"Vascular" - My 176 point winning word. Scrabble rocks.
Redesign Coming Soon
I’ve got all my posts converted and about 80% of my design integrated into ExpressionEngine, my new Content Management System of choice. I don’t totally grasp all of it yet, but I can definitely see the power available and I figure the best way to learn it is to dive right in! All that’s left to do now is clean up and fine-tuning some code to work better with EE.
I’m very excited about a few new features that will be a part of my redesign and you can expect there to be more content and more frequent content than I have had in the past few months.
When will it go live? With my fingers crossed… possibly by the end of the week?
Rock.
It’s Amazing…
...how when you’ve envisioned a new design for your blog and a new method/style for blogging - how the desire to actually blog fades away in anticipation of the new design. I know how I want to blog and my current design/setup just doesn’t allow that. I’ve been experimenting with a few things - Expression Engine, Tumblr, Chyrp… not sure where that is going to land (possibly still with Wordpress?) but I think I’m going to really crank on a new design so I can get blogging again.
Anyways, that is all, just wanted to let people know that I am, indeed, still alive.
Huzzah.
123 Meme
I’ve been tagged by Ben of Open Switch with the 123 meme. If you haven’t already, make sure to jump over and check out his recent redesign, it’s slick!
123 Meme — The rules are simple.
- Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
- Find page 123.
- Find the first 5 sentences.
- Post the next 3 sentences.
- Tag 5 people.
The closest book to me was one I’m currently reading as recommended by my pastor (it was at my feet in my InCase Laptop Bag). Ironically this quote from the book sums up the title quite nicely.
(I’ve been a churchgoer almost thirty years, and I’m still not wild about holding hands with another guy, especially one I barely know.) And certain churches are hug-rich environments. It’s one thing for very close friends to embrace, but in some congregations it’s customary for relative trangers to enfold.
Why Men Hate Going To Church by David Murrow.
Lost Season 4 Premiere
Don’t forget… Tonight lost is back with a special 2 hour premiere! Starts at 8:00 (as opposed to the standard start time of 9:00) so don’t be late.
Danielle just got caught up to the amazing season 3 finale so we’re both super stoked for some crazy Lost action tonight. Don’t miss the “Lost in 8:15” video on iTunes - a full seasons 1-3 recap in a cleverly times 8 minutes, 15 seconds.
