Musician Websites & e-commerce...

Musician websites are definitely a growing part of our business and I'd like to take a moment to thank Dave Binney, Jen Chapin, and Chris Tarry for helping us to develop a product that goes right to work for our friends in the music biz.

Today, we're perfecting the record label website, introducing the concept of multiple artists and a single store for:

Plunge Records - nearing launch just need to tie up the e-commerce integration. Our latest Canadian client, Simon Fisk is always good for a quote -

" blown away man. Fan-f'in-tastic! pardon my canadian! HA!"

Simon is a cool cat and a pleasure to work with.
He's enlisted NOVA as the payment processor and they're a bit odd, putting the cart before the horse - they need to see the website live before they will approve his account. So, they need to see his store live without any way to pay for anything. Ummm...okay. So we'll give them a quick look and pull it down quick so Simon can finish uploading the content.

Nineteen-Eight Records - Also working on a new site with e-commerce (Chase bank and Authorize.net) and a custom content management system for Nineteen-Eight. Hoping they push some music our way as well. Henry and Anthony are good guys too and they know what they want. The site should drop in a couple of weeks - not long after Plunge goes live. Links to come for both when they are officially public and open for business...

Also heard today from another client who says Sovereign Bank has a one-stop-shop deal with YourPay...

3G in Q2

Analysts predict Apple will start shipping the faster 3G iPhone in June.
In addition to the speedier network, it's expected the phone will also include GPS navigation.
Let the drooling begin!

AAPL - 144.20

The Late, Late, Late Show...

Unbelievable comeback.
And to think I almost missed it.
The match wasn't televised here so I was watching a spanish streaming video channel on my laptop (thanks for the link, Danny).

By halftime, Arsenal were losing 2-0 to a Bolton team who hasn't lost at home to Arsenal since 2002.
And Arsenal were playing a man down after a deserved red card sent Diaby off.
And they were playing in the driving rain.
I must admit, I was sure I was watching the horrible end and I turned the match off to get on with my day.

But something made me turn it back on.
It looked like more of the same at the restart.
That's when Wenger decided the only way back was through all-out attack.
In the 60th minute, off came Bendtner and Senderos, and on came Walcott and Adebayor.
10 minutes later, the match was tied.
Remarkable in itself, we all knew a tie wasn't good enough.
It would take every ounce of effort and a little bit of luck, but somehow in the 90th minute, a Fabregas shot bounced off a Bolton player and into the goal and the unbelievable comeback was complete.

Absolutely brilliant and just what we need going into the CL this week against Liverpool.
So proud of the fight they showed today.

Piermont Pier

Steve snapped this in a very patient shoot at the Piermont pier in Rockland.

Great detail at original size but still nice scaled.

G5 - freezing

Figured it's time to add some Apple to the blog...

I have a five-year-old G5 at home (along with a Powerbook, Macbook, Ruby Red iMac, & a Dell Inspiron laptop) that started freezing up only weeks after I backed-up the system to a new external Lacie drive and added a new keyboard and Wacom tablet. It's important to note that Lis also purchased the same machine at the same time and hers recently bit the dust (unusual I know, but as much as I love Apple - it happened) - so this is cause for real alarm. After troubleshooting and re-installing the system, it was still freezing so I made an online appointment at the local Apple store and walked the machine in. Now, when I say I walked the machine in, what I really mean is I lugged the machine in. And while the G5 appears to have two handles made for easy transport, these are actually stylistic features that serve little purpose in practice - there really is no easy way to carry this beast.

The Apple store is bustling as always, but my wait is short because I've got a reservation. When called, I take my place at the counter within earshot of a young, sort of trendy woman who is getting a lesson on the usefulness of playlists in iTunes. My Mac genius takes charge immediately and I see that he's relieved we've already done some of the work with a clean system install (when I say, "we", I mean my wife). All he has to do is run a diagnostics test from a disk - the process takes about a a half hour and it's not very entertaining so I go and hang around the mall with my wife and son, who is very entertaining.

Of course, when I return I see immediately that my machine has passed with flying colors.

I also see genuine disappointment in his face - we'd both prefer to get at the cause. We decide to test the memory cards. Meanwhile, he's checked to see if I'm covered but I'm nearly two years out of warranty, so he tells me if we can't figure it out I should take the machine elsewhere for more tests because Apple will be too expensive. Gotta love the honesty.

Memory test also passes - he tells me to take it to Tek Serve in the city or Computer Super Center in Greenwich. He asks me if I'd like some assistance lugging the machine back to my car but I decline because my knee and hip are already bruised from the walk in and what's the point in punishing him. Side note - a client tells me that while she was at the same Apple store, she saw a woman accept help getting a 12" MacBook to her car. I wonder if they'll carry an iPod to your car?

I take it to Greenwich and immediately they say they've seen a few macs with the same problem - they think it's probably a bad video card but they'll test to be sure. They seem confident and competent and things are suddenly looking up...

A few days later, they confirm it is the video card. After some debate about adding storage and replacing my DVD drive (which refuses to read burned DVD's or mini-DVD's), we decide to just replace the video card and be on our way. $700+ later, ($400 video card, $169/hr labor, $130 OS X Leopard).

We've had the machine now for two weeks and it's humming along.
Installed Leopard (slick!) and digging it so far (except for one small glitch with iPhoto - another post)...

Lesson - even geniuses fail sometimes (or at least their diagnostics tests do)

AAPL - 139.37

It's over, Johnny...

The match ended only moments ago - Arsenal lost 2-1 and in all probability, any hopes of winning the league are gone as well.

Since I started following Arsenal five years ago, Chelsea has been a constant thorn in our side and today was no different.

Not much else to say except that it was a hard fought battle and it just didn't go our way.

Glad to see Sagna get a goal - he deserves one for his efforts this year.

It's important to remember we weren't supposed to be here at all and we were treated to some fine football along the way.

Maybe now we can shake off the baggage of a grueling season and concentrate on the Champion's League.

A win there would be a massive lift and just the tonic we need to refuel for next season.

And Adebayor can concentrate on growing his hair back.

In other news, Siena is also out in the cold after losing to Villanova 84-72 - a nice story while it lasted.

What's for dinner?

Saints Rout Vanderbilt in NCAA First Round

Wow!

Go Siena! (I still have trouble with the Saints - I remember when they were the Indians)

And they dominated, 83-62.

Good for Siena.

Good for my dad.

Good for Albany.