• 12/14/2007 - ArtistServer News and a new site: FreeMusicLicensing.com
• 09/18/2007 - AritstServer and ToneThis Serve Up Indie Ringtones
• 09/11/2007 - Running LightTPD and PHP on Windows
• 09/06/2007 - Compete.com -vs- Alexa.com - Comparing Website Rank
• 08/29/2007 - HostMySite.com Limits ColdFusion, Does Not Tell Customers
• 08/14/2007 - New Song: Chocolate Rain - Sonic Remix
• 08/03/2007 - If You Use Open Source, Leave the License and Credit
• 07/31/2007 - Add Links to Profiles on MySpace, Facebook, and More
• 07/23/2007 - SocialNetwork.in API Promotes Cross Site Networking
• 07/22/2007 - AddToBookmarks.com Script Updated to Version 1.1

• The Name of the site - example: Site Name
• The full URL to the site - example: www.sitename.com
• A link to a user/member URL on the site - example: http://www.sitename.com/ProfileName

You do have the option of adding profiles and links to other people's profiles as "private" links, although these links will only be available to you on the SocialNetwork.in site.

Why do you want all your profiles linked together?

This helps people connect to you, when they see that you are on some other site, the site visitor may click on the profile link and visit you there. If they are on that site too, they may add a link to you or add you as a friend.  With this tool, you'll greatly increase your cross-site networking and begin driving more traffic around to all your profiles. Start thinking about your 'core' profile, and not about having dozens of identities scattered around the Web - this tool helps make this happen, not only here, but any site that selects to adopt the SocialNetwork.in API.

Why signup at SocialNetowork.in?

Because the services it offers can be 'plugged in' and used at any Web site, which would allow you to benefit from greater levels of integration with the sites you use.

For example, lets say you are a member of SocialNetwork.in, and you are a member of Flickr.com - then you go out and join some new social/travel site that uses SocialNetwork.in's API to connect to our data and your profiles. By adding your SocialNetwork.in profile name to your account on the new site, they can now locate your photos and display them on your new profile without you having to reupload or import them in.

What is an API?

An API is an acronym for "Application Programming Interface." API's are VERY cool because they allow developers to connect to different sites and services and utilize the data and information in their own applications. You may have heard of the term "Mashup" being used on the Web - this relates to the process of connecting to at least one API and blending your own data with the data being offered by the API.  For example, all the various maps you see on the Web which display various types of data or photos or icons, etc are usually "Map Mashups" that use either Google or Yahoo Maps API.

Enjoy!

Oh... BTW... ArtistServer and IndieMobile now have 250 free Mp3/Realtone Ringtones available for download. All ringtones are provided by the artists at ArtistServer.com
 

While I haven't been posting to my blog, I have been jamming on a lot of work, took a week vacation in Kauai with my family, worked in the yard a lot, had a 5yr anniversary with my wife, and hammered out five updates to ArtistServer in the last two and a half months.

Here's a summary of the last five site updates - I posted these on our forums, but I'm sure this is still news for most people:

1. 05/02/07 - New "Local" section on the site

If you are signed into ArtistServer, and click on 'Local' from the main menu, you'll see a page which lists content and people from your local area. This is based on your setting in your profile.

If you are not signed in, you'll see a listing of countries, along with a count of how many people we have in that country.

Each page displays new photos, music, store items, and ringtones, plus a listing of recent visitors to the site that live in the currently selected region.

Country Listing: http://www.artistserver.com/local.cfm
Viewing all of the US: http://www.artistserver.com/local.cfm/country/United+States
Viewing all of California: http://www.artistserver.com/local.cfm/country/United+States/state/California
Viewing San Diego: http://www.artistserver.com/local.cfm/country/United+States/state/California/city/San+Diego

Later on, I'll improve this area so you'll also see listings of events for the selected region (most likely using the services and data from http://www.Eventful.com). Let me know if you have any suggestions or feedback.

If your location is not correct - make sure you are signed in, then check your profile (under My Account) and see if your Country, State, and City are set correctly.

Keep in mind that the Cities and non-us states are entered by the site members and artists - so there are many errors like: LA and L.A and l.a. when all of them should be: Los Angeles

2. 06/02/07 - Another Year, A Present For You

I have a present for all the artists on ArtistServer, your total song counts have been raised!

• Freeware Artist account: your song count was raised from 3 to 5
  
• Upgraded Artist account: your song count was raised from 200 to 300

Why? Because we made it through another year!

We have 2 anniversaries around here, one is the date it all started, and the other is the date we first went live. We first went live on 12/05/2001, and it all started back in May of 1999 with a post to the Electronic music forums at mp3.com. Ah the old days...

The first stage of 'this' site was launched a year later (5/2000) as ElectronicBBoard.com. And another year later, on 05/22/2001, the beta site for ElectronicScene.com went live.

There's a short timeline here: http://wiki.artistserver.com/index.cfm/History

Thank you for all the music, memories, and friendship!

3. 07/09/07 - ArtistServer Now Offers ID3 Tag Editing

Depending on what you use to encode your mp3s, you may or may not have your ID3 'tag' set in your mp3 file.

An ID3 Tag is a set of information that is included in the mp3 file and is displayed by mp3 players by default. If no ID3 tag is present in the file, mp3 players usually attempt to figure out the artist name and song title from the filename.

At ArtistServer, we've always served your songs to people with both your artist name and song title, but until today, we didn't have a means for you to edit the ID3 tag within the files. When I encode 'my' mp3 files, I usually open them in WinAmp and fill out the ID3 tag info, but I'm sure a lot of artists out there are not doing this, most likely because they are not aware of the ID3 tag nor how to set the information in the tag.

No problem... we can help!

When you view the listing of your songs from the "My Account" area of the site (this is where you'd go to upload or edit your songs), you'll now see a new option/button for "MP3 ID3 info" - click on the 'edit' button you see, and wait a few seconds for the server to complete the process.

The server will take your artist name, song title, description, upload year, and genre, and write them directly to the mp3 file. Now when people download your mp3, all the important information is saved along with the file.

For best results, do not stream your mp3 before or during the time you click on the edit button, as the process could fail.

4. 07/16/07 - PayPal for Classified/Store Payments

ArtistServer now supports "Paypal Accounts" - to enter your PayPal Account information - visit the My Account area, and edit your Profile.

After entering your PayPal Account Email address (you'll need a PayPal account), you can then edit your store/classified items, and set them to be sold using PayPal.

Site visitors will click on the cart/buy now button next to your store item, and be sent to PayPal along with the price, money type, and item title. PayPal handles the transaction, you receive an email that a payment and order has been made, then you send the purchased item.

ArtistServer does not participate in the sale, nor take any percentage from your sale.

As an attempt to keep 'spam bots' from extracting your email address from the PayPal buttons, I've added a script which converts your email address into ASCII special characters.

5. 07/17/07 - Tip Jar Option for Artists

ArtistServer now provides a "Tip Jar" option for all artists. To use this new feature, you will first need an account at PayPal, then follow the steps below:

1. Add your PayPal account email to your profile on ArtistServer (in the My Account area)
2. Edit your Site Settings on ArtistServer (also in the My Account area), and turn your Tip Jar on (it's the last item in your site settings, bottom of the page).

Now when people visit your artist page, they'll see a "Tip Jar" button like this on the side of your page:

All donations made to your Tip Jar go directly into YOUR PayPal account, not ours. ArtistServer does not collect money for you, nor does ArtistServer take any percent or fee from the donation - it's all for you!

My initial task was to modify the site to expand to a larger width. We are currently designed for 800x600 screen resolution, but as of this year, only 9.7% of the site visitors are using 800x600 - which means we can now scale the site up for a 1024x768 resolution. The new target resolution is 1024x768, which will put us at 990px wide (we gain 220 more pixels in width). You just can't set a new width though, if you did, the layout would no longer look 'tight.' While any layout 'could' be liquid (fully expand and contract), the end result is often an inconsistent look. Personally, I like to create a consistent experience, so I never use liquid layouts.

Here's a screenshot of the new site homepage:

click to view full size

With the site getting wider, I had to adjust the spacing and layouts of all the pages on the site. Most of these are done, except the artist pages.

The left column will be 270px, and the right will be 695px. The main change here, is the smaller column is now on the left, and the wider will display songs in 2 columns.

Since the artist and member pages were going to change, it seemed like a good time to update and fix the site designer tool. As a site tool, I've felt it's always been a bit confusing, and I view it as 'almost useful,' so it was time to start from scratch. The Web has evolved a bit since I originally wrote the site designer, so I decided to go all out and create what I felt was the ideal tool and utilize modern Web design concepts.

My goals were to make the tool simple, and to make it as it should work - with real-time updating, drag-n-drop functionality, and an intuitive interface. With the help of an amazing Javascript library called "Jquery" and a set of plugins called "Interface Elements" - I was able to create the tool exactly as I imagined in only a few days. Let's take a look!

You'll see there's a top section with directions, and a lower section where you'll setup your page layout and design. Let's move from left to right over the screenshot:

• Available Modules - each item or object you place on your page will now be called a "Module" - for example, you'll have a module to view show your profile, and another for showing the first 8-10 photos, etc. The Available modules column shows you the modules that are available for you. To add one, click on it and drag it to the Page Preview on the right. To remove a module, drag it to the Available Modules list. And yes, we'll support more modules, like adding your external RSS feed, or your Flickr photo feed.
  
• Page Preview - this works in real-time, all color or background image changes are applied to the Page Preview area. You can also drag your modules around the page, setting their order and position on the page. In the screenshot, you can see that I'm dragging the photos module. When you click on the Update button, the site will reorganize your page's layout to match what you setup in the Page Preview.
• Color Settings - this works similar to the current site design tool, where you can click on a color setting to select it, then change the color and see the preview. What's new, is that you now have control over the border of your page items, and the selection of colors is much easier.
• Color Picker and Background Images - this color picker is much easier to use, and you have access to any color your monitor can generate. Just click on the color setting you wish to edit, then click on the color picker to set it - no more popup color picker! You've always had a page background image, but now you'll also get to set it's position and repeat settings. For those who already use a backround graphic, I'm sure you'll be excited about this new addition - you now have much more control. But wait... there's more! You'll also have the option to set a background graphic for the title bar and container for the items on your page, and again, you'll have position and repeat attributes available to you. Just like the color picker, the background images load and display in real-time.

1. No animated ads - currently, this also means no 'graphic ads' since our ad provider groups animated ads with graphic ads.
2. No popups - popup ads are lame, they're a waste of people's time, and because of them, Web developers can no longer pop a window open since most people now use popup blockers.
3. Three ads max on public pages - you'll never see more than 3 ads per page - usually one larger one, and two smaller ones
4. Two ads max on artist/member pages - One of the reasons I started all this back in 2000, was because of the annoying ads mp3.com was placing on my artist page. Those of you who have been around all these years can probably recall my actions against mp3.com and their main advertiser, "Sephora." I created an artist site on mp3.com and started the AntiSephora campaign... artists joined in, and we produced a 2CD set of music that made fun of Sephora. The end result... we were heard, mp3.com shut down the site, and the ads continued. That was one of the final straw for me, and I began building what is now ArtistServer.
   

Will this policy change? I can't predict how things will change in the future, but I will always work to keep these four ad policies in place. Why? Because I use this site to - every day, and I, like most of you, can't stand advertisements. Ideally, we would rip all of them off the site, but that's something I can't afford to do.

I do think we'll display graphic ads at some point, as I don't think they're any worse than the text based ads - as long as they are graphic ads are NOT animated.

If you like this policy - tell others about it. When you hear someone complaining about MySpace, or some other site that's covered with ads - point out that ArtistServer has a firm policy about ads, and that we care about your experience on the site more than dollars.

Another thing you can do, is help support the site by upgrading your account. :)