• 05/12/2012 - ArtistServer Version 2 on the Horizon
• 05/31/2009 - 18 More Social Sites Added to SocialNetwork.in
• 05/25/2009 - Run Your Own Remix or Music Project at ArtistServer.com
• 05/22/2009 - AudioBoo.fm and YouNoodle.com Added to SocialNetwork.in
• 05/06/2009 - mp3tunes.com - no option to close your account
• 03/17/2009 - How to run a Remix Project
• 09/28/2008 - My Lovely Wife Lou is Pregnant
• 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

I have been doing a lot of various updates to ArtistServer.com - but have neglected to announce several of them. I keep hammering away at the site and tend to forget about spreading the buzz and educating the people who use the site of what's new.

So, here's a quick summary of the new additions and changes to the site, feel free to ask questions or make suggestions.

1. Support for Skype Buttons - Those who use Skype, can now display a Skype button on the contact pages for artsits and members. To set it up, login to the My Account area and edit your Profile.

2. Online Status: Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Skype, and ICQ We now have online status indicators at the top of artist/member pages and displayed on the artist and member listing pages on the site. To manage your online status, login to the My Account area, and edit your Profile.

3. Artists and Members Listing: Most changes are visible on the artist listing page, where you can now see the number of songs an artist has on the site, an M3U playlist button, an XSPF playlist button - if there artist has songs on the site. Also displayed is the artist and member online status and the last login date/time.

4. Song Pages: A song page, is what you see when you click on a song title or icon on ArtistServer. On these pages, you now see who has added a song to their favorites list. To be able to use the favorites list, you must join the site - which is free.

5. Site Sign In: The sign in button at the top of the site now allows you to login on any page on the site. After you are authenticated, you are sent back to the page you were on.

6. Skins Selector: When you change skins (by clicking on 'Site Skins' button) from the main menu, you can now see all the colors that make up each skin. The selection page also has a better layout.

7. Site Homepage: After you login, the site homepage changes and displays your favorites embeded in the page. If you have songs added to your favorites, a Flash mp3 player displays with those songs loaded and ready to go. The same is true of the pop-up favorites window.

8. Root Genre Pages: The 'root' genre pages on the site, like 'Electronic' were updated, they now display new artists and members who have avatar/images assigned to their account. Here is the Electronic page on the site: http://www.artistserver.com/area.cfm/area/1

9. Map Page: The main MAP page now has a chat window on the page:
http://www.artistserver.com/map.cfm

You are now updated on ArtistServer's progress and evolution.

The only other news lately, is we had a 3hr downtime two days ago. From what I can tell, Windows update ran on the server, then restarted it after installation. Upon reboot, the server was not able to complete the loading of several important services, which caused, remote access and the database to not function. To make matters worse, the company I colocate with was not able to get to the facility for 2hrs. Once at the facility, the server simply needed me to login to it, and reboot once again. This is the second time Windows Update has caused a problem on a live server.

I can't WAIT until I can have a network admin to take over the responsibility of the servers. As you can imagine, my degrees in Psychology and Child Development never prepared me for this kind of work...

"... so tell me server, how long have you been down...
I see, and right now you feel like you've crashed, is that true?
I understand, it certainly can be rough when everyone wants you to serve them."

Yeah - that just doesn't cut it. Fortunately, the servers run very well. This was our first downtime this year, and in past years, we've only had an average of 2 downtimes per year. By next year this time, we should have the site setup with complete redundancy. It's just going to take some time to save up for the equipment... unless we stumble upon some capital in the next 6-8months. :)