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The Virtual Store Concept And Thoughts

On April 21st, 2008 The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) reported that Apple filed a virtual stores patent in which customers might be able to see where other shoppers are in the store and possibly interact with each other.

TUAW makes an intriguing point that "this system would also allow for storewide announcements of special events or sales going down."

MacNN where Apple's virtual store patent was first revealed tells of some of the creepy almost stalker-like features in Apple's patent (under the headline "Caution: A Work In Progress").... which would probably be or quickly become annoying!

Now as TUAW mentioned "I doubt the old methods of clicking and browsing by yourself are going away anytime soon."

The reason the standard web interface of today won't disappear anytime soon boils down to why people are shopping online and what their purpose is.

More frequently than not people who are "shopping" online are just looking for more information... whether it be more information about a particular product or any number of things...

But it all comes down to the basic marketing concept that people are looking for a solution for a problem they have... even if it is just a problem only that they perceive! (But that's a post for another day)

In such a case where people are looking for the solution to their problem or want more information about a particular product then the idea for such an interactive virtual store may be an attractive option...

And may also be perceived as a good option for people who are really interested in making a purchase but are a little unsure... and need that little extra social proof or assistance.

However, in the case that I'm sure we all frequently come across is quite simply the fact that we want what we want and we want it now!!

Many times we've already done our research about the thing we're going to get and the only thing standing between us and having it is the distance between our chair and the place where the thing we want is...

And we don't want to bother with anyone else - they'll just slow us down - so if we can log online, put the thing we want in our shopping cart, pull out our credit card and have it show up at our door we couldn't be more satisfied!

Why try and put any extra steps or roadblocks in our way to get what we want. Plus, why would you want to add a whole new level of complexity to everything that we didn't ask for or ever wanted....

Which is why the standard web interface of today won't... and shouldn't disappear!

It will be a nice feature separate of the standard web-based shopping interface for those who would like it, but give us all the option to do things as we would normally do as fast as possible...

Because if you start adding those extra features into the load-time of the website, it has the potential to make it a much more agonizing experience to get through all the steps for getting what we want!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

The New Virtual World

On April 4th, 2008 Marketing Vox reported on Nickelodeon's virtual world development... particularly about various extensions to couple their current virtual worlds and a new virtual world concept developed by Nick - Monkey World.

According to the article Monkey World will contain social networking features but will be more of a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) than a traditional virtual world.

This idea at least to me seems to be a better approach than what most people think of as a virtual world... since most of the virtual worlds I've tried out seem to be lacking in the area of organizing and collecting/storing your in-world social data.

Also, having something to accomplish in the virtual world much like a MMOG operates would reduce the standard boringness of going to a virtual world and just explore... it gives you something to do if you aren't feeling quite social at the time or are new - it gives you something that you can connect with other users about!

Having something to connect with other users in a virtual world is important because knowing what to say to someone else to connect with them in a standard virtual world can be challenging...

But once you add in the dynamic of all having a common goal or at least something to work for like in a MMOG you instantly have something in common that you can begin a conversation or even a friendship with!

I think that the two unique dynamics of Nick's new Monkey World with integrated social networking and an MMOG-like concept can become a model for all virtual worlds.

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

PHP File Upload Problem Solved!

I finally managed to solve the PHP File Upload Stalemate!

Thanks, in part, to this forum thread... and a bunch of tinkering around in my php.ini file...

I realized that the directives that I modified from:

memory_limit = 8M
post_max_size = 8M
upload_max_filesize = 2M

And changed to:

memory_limit = 8000M
post_max_size = 7000M
upload_max_filesize = 6000M

Was causing me to get the following in my HTTPD/error_log:

[error] PHP Warning: POST Content-Length of 363120480 bytes exceeds the limit of -1249902592 bytes in Unknown on line 0

More specifically it appears that it was the fact that there was just too much of a differential in the post_max_size and the upload_max_filesize that was causing the error...

Which was why PHP would overflow to the negative value... and is considered a feature - though not too many people (probably including myself) would really consider such as a feature!!

I was able to fix the error by modifying my edits of the directives to:

memory_limit = 8000M
post_max_size = 6000M
upload_max_filesize = 6000M

And now it works like a charm!...

So far at least with the large 346.3 M file I tested it with. Hopefully it will still work with larger files!

Now it's pretty much off to the races to finish testing the rest of my project.

One set-back down and very likely several more to go!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

Missions Conference 2008

I just finished putting together a page for my church's website for it's upcoming Missions Conference this weekend.

The Missions Conference is a two day event this upcoming weekend on Saturday April 26th and Sunday April 27th...

I know, it might be a little short-notice for a lot of people.... and that's because I hadn't thought about putting a page up on the website for it, until I was asked about the possibility of doing that for the church this last Sunday by one of the elders.

Part of the reason I wasn't inclined to make too many modifications to the church's website was when my computer's hard disk blew up I didn't back up a lot of my application support files, which is where the iWeb files for the church's site were...

And if I were to make any changes I would have to go back into iWeb and re-input all the pages from scratch, or hand code any edits or additions... which isn't a really simple task with the way iWeb creates its pages.

But all in all I spent a few hours tinkering around with creating and writing up the Missions Conference 2008 page and putting links in several of the other pages on my church's website.

Since I practically lost the working iWeb file for the Church's website, I will then begin to recode the site to create a template for it with php to make it a whole lot easier to manage and work with! -- Which was what I was hoping to eventually do anyways!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

PHP File Upload Stalemate!

In one of the projects that I have been working on that I've been most hopeful about keeps leading me to one error after another in a stalemate!

This project involves file uploads to a server.

I am doing this with an Apache Server (on Mac OSX) and PHP 5.

I've successfully - or so I think - reconfigured the php.ini file to allow for the capability to upload larger files.

Which is almost identical to this php.ini example, except for the following directives:

memory_limit = 8M
post_max_size = 8M
upload_max_filesize = 2M

Which I've changed to:

memory_limit = 8000M
post_max_size = 7000M
upload_max_filesize = 6000M

And now when I try to upload a large file, which is a .dv video file (one of the larger files I first came across on my computer)... I get the following in my HTTPD/error_log:

[error] PHP Warning: POST Content-Length of 363120480 bytes exceeds the limit of -1249902592 bytes in Unknown on line 0

Now 363120480 bytes is about 346.3 M and is the approximate size of the file I'm trying to upload.

But 1249902592 bytes is 1192 M, and that doesn't match any of the limits I've set in my php.ini file!

Plus 346.3 M < 1192 M!!!

I don't know what's up with the 1249902592 byte-value being negated in the warning - it doesn't make any sense... or is it just a dash in front of the byte-value?

Also, the first time I tried to upload the .dv file the server timed out or something... and got the "this server dropped connection" (or similar) message in Safari.

But that only appeared the first time I tried to upload the file and didn't appear any time after... Which is Totally Bizzare!

I've tried looking in the httpd.conf file for any possible settings that might be hanging things up and countlessly poured over all the directives in the php.ini file... but to no resolve!

Even changing the PHP directive max_execution_time = 30 (because it would normally take about 30 seconds for the upload to fail) to max_execution_time = 300 does nothing... It will still fail after about 30 seconds.

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

This Pathetic City

Title: This Pathetic City

When the sky is dark
And everyone's home from work
We will be all that's left
In this vacant city.

On a corner of Lake Ave
Another victim is stabbed.
No one hears him scream
In this empty city
As his voice echoes back.

We've got to get out,
Out of this pathetic city!

Staring down an empty avenue...
All you see is a newspaper in the wind,
And flickering street lights...
You can stand in this intersection,
Looking down the road
And watch as each traffic lights
Change from green to red.

How much has it torn ya,
Past the point of pity,
When I want to be in California
And you in New York City,
To escape our miserable lives.

But we can't find a way out,
Out of this pathetic city!

But when they've all gone to bed
We'll paint this city red;
And we'll never come back.
As they question our head
When their river runs black.

We didn't destroy this city;
It was the politics,
And corporate pricks!

Though they try to lay blame
It is always the same:
The citizens get screwed
Because it's just their game,
And there's nothing you can do!

We've got to find a way out,
Out of this pathetic city!

And how about the weather
Never getting any better...
Winter is the new institution.
Until snow is all you'll ever know!
It slows you down and drives you mad
Freezing you down to the bone -
Hardening the heart you thought you once had!

Like we need another reason
to hate this city and find a way out,
Out of this pathetic city

 

Story-line conceived & first
    four sections written:
    3/21/2008
Section five & seven written:
    3/23/2008
Section eight written &
    section eleven started:
    4/1/2008
Section eleven finished, &
    section six, nine, ten &
    twelve written, as well
    as edits & title given:
    4/4/2008

 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is 100% Original Material by Benjamin VanScoter, and is therefore:

© Coyright Benjamin VanScoter 2008. All Rights Reserved.
Use Without Prior Written And Signed Consent Is Against International And Domestic Laws.

So don't even try to use any part of this work!

If you want to refer to this work link to it using the Permalink (found below).

(This writing may or may not be based on anything factual or that has happened in Ben's life... and may be entirely fictional.)

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

New-Age Tech Management Vs. Old World Industrial Management

I was going to actually post this last weekend, but I got sick and didn't quite finish the post... so here's the post mostly as it was, but with a little editing (I'll just leave this post short as it is).

In The April, 2008 issue of Wired Magazine, there was a great write-up in there titled How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong.

This is mostly an article about the way Apple does business differently than what many of the "New" tech companies believes a company should be managed and operate.

Especially referring to Google's "Don't Be Evil" moto, and the open-source movement's ideologies.

As a side-note... there was also an article (or series of articles) on 9 trends of business that was pretty interesting. I found one of the particular trends rather interesting:

Rise Of The Instapreneur, where all anyone really needs anymore is a great idea or plans / blueprints and someone else will do all the work when / if you make a sale or need merchandise.

(You should be able to find the links to the other 8 trends in the article - which are also fascinating stories)

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

Brace Yourselves!

Just to give everyone a forewarning and to fend off any of the coming onslaught Keith Karr might have in mind... (that he keeps promising to deliver but hasn't shown anything for yet!)

I'm going to address some of the issues he thinks he might have with my post that I bashed him on his comment about Thursday's most recent DVD/CD release, Kill The House Lights.

Keith really thinks he has a few bones to pick with me in the graveyard that I buried him in! (As well as some other things.)

For some reason Keith is convinced that the first few songs may not be brand-spanking new demos from Thursday but is rather older stuff that Thursday had done... even despite this:

Kill The House Lights

Do you see the line in that promo ad that says "3 brand new songs"?

Yes a lot of the stuff on the CD was older stuff that they threw on there that they thought some of their more devoted fans would be interested in... But The First 3 Songs Are BRAND-SPANKING NEW!

Ok, now that I've got that covered... it's time to blow up at least one of his missiles before he can even launch an attack...

I actually bought my copy of Kill The House Lights from Best Buy, which had 3 Bonus Exclusive Tracks on it...

• Cross Out The Eyes (Live At The Grove)
• Steps Acending (Live At The Grove)
• How Long Is The Night? (Live At The Grove)

When I initially got the CD and told Keith about it I said something like "the extra bonus songs aren't all that great"...

And Keith went off on me for saying that after I wrote up my very positive and optimistic review of Kill The House Lights... and then bashing him on his comment.... calling me stuff similar to a hypocrite and stuff, and unworthy of saying any of the things I did about him.

Well, let's dispose this myth and put it all out in the light!

It is probably still true that I don't think too highly of those extra bonus songs now any much more... and that is for one simple fact...

And that is because Geoff barely sings half of his lines... and I would rather listen to Geoff singing than relying on the crowd to sing the lines in what I'm listening too!

I really like the uniqueness of Geoff's voice and his style of singing, and that can't be matched or beaten by anyone else!

So when it comes down to it I would rather just listen to studio versions than those extra demos... and even more I would rather be at a Thursday concert than listen to any recording!!!

Also another thing I would like to point out that Keith recently told me regarding A City By The Light Divided is that it is wearing on him.

Yes, the more he listens to A City By The Light Divided the more he is liking the album!

And I think that is true anyway, though there were some more songs on there that appealed to me more than him... but it is an album that you have to listen to a little before you can enjoy the subtleness of it.

Though it still isn't by any means one of the stronger albums Thursday did.

One final thing...

A ways back Keith made a comment to me about "A Sketch For Time's Arrow" on the CD in Kill The House Lights. He said it was much an incomplete song and unwanted material like "This Song Is Brought To You By A Falling Bomb" on the album War All The Time... Which I have to flat-out disagree!

Though "This Song Is Brought To You By A Falling Bomb" isn't one of Thursday's strongest songs instrumentally... I think it has some of the most vivid imagery in it that makes it entirely a totally sweet song by itself!

I personally think the first few lines are the most striking:

Do you hear the jet plane yawning miles across the sky,
Hear the garbage truck back down the boulevard
Setting off the car alarms as it passes by?

Now, can't you just see and hear it? The lyrics just come to life in your mind!

... At least they do in mine, and I think that makes it a totally sweet song!

Which makes "This Song Is Brought To You By A Falling Bomb" on the album War All The Time, nowhere near comparable to "A Sketch For Time's Arrow" on the CD in Kill The House Lights, which I agree isn't anywhere near a decent or completed song in and of itself!

So now you are more prepared for Keith's supposed rebuttal to the attack I made on his comment, in which he promises to bash me quite a bit... but for which we have seen absolutely nothing from yet!!

Do your best Keith!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

Why I've Not Posted In A While...

Some of you may have noticed I haven't posted in a while... and wondered quietly to yourself "Why?"

(Ok, maybe not, but I'll tell you anyway...)

And that is for the plain reason that I royally messed up my computer and nearly lost everything on it!

Here's the story:

As I mentioned earlier after I came back from my relatively recent trip to California I had to use Disk Utility on my MacMini's Hard Disk, due to it getting corrupted somehow.

When I used Disk Utility to repair my HD, it created a folder at the root level of my startup disk called "lost+found" (or something like that)... which I didn't notice until about a couple weeks ago.

From that folder I was able to get back a little of the music I lost the first time (see this post for more).

In that folder were a bunch of other folders with with a bunch of numbers for their names and in the folders were a bunch of resources with a bunch of numbers in their names... which I had no idea where they were from.

Well, after pulling the music I found from the folders I proceeded to delete the /lost+found folder.

When emptying the trash, in order to delete the folder it asked me to enter my password... Which should probably have been a sign that something in there shouldn't be deleted.

But not thinking, I went ahead and entered my password and deleted the folder anyway.

Then the next time I shutdown my computer (which I hardly ever do) and tried to start it again I was greeted with a black screen that said:

disk0s2: 3x0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).
disk0s2: 3x0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).
disk0s2: 3x0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).
Mar 13 12:16:10 Launchd: can't exec /bin/sh for single users Input/Output error

And it would keep showing that error line after line over and over again.

So apparently I messed with something that shouldn't have been messed with.

I tried whatever I could to try to fix it, but that day we didn't have Internet access... so I couldn't look anything up online!

The first thing I did was to copy all my important files and documents over to an external hard disk. Which I had to do booting from my OSX Install Disk and using terminal.

I started copying everything over one file and folder at a time using the commands $ cp /file/to/copy /place/to/copy/to and $ mkdir /location/to/create/directory...

Remember I didn't have Internet access so I didn't have internet access and was not all that brushed up on *nix commands to know about the recursive copy command flag ($ cp -R /entire/folder/to/copy /location/to/copy/to) until I asked my dad if there was an easier way to copy files through the terminal.

After doing that I figured that maybe if I just upgraded from tiger to leopard I might be able to save just about everything. But after I tried to do that I the computer wouldn't recognize the disk as a mountable volume.

Knowing that I'd have to erase that disk anyway to get it back, I just decided to install the new bigger hard disk I had just bought after I got back from California.

I chose to install the new hard disk on the same day when Time Warner Cable was checking out our cable internet connections in our house.

So I popped open my MacMini and installed the new hard disk I had... a huge 250 GB disk to replace the 100 GB disk I originally got with it.

I needed this new disk so that I could install both Leopard and Tiger on two separate partitions, with all my music and other stuff on the 100 GB disk I couldn't do it with sufficient space for each boot partition.

And it wasn't until just the end of last week that I was able to install everything back on Tiger for production once again!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

How To Handle A Faulty HD & The Loss Of Your Music With Your iPod

Ok, that might be a bit of a long name, but it's important... if you don't want to loose as much time and music as I have when you run into a similar situation!

I'm not sure how but in the last couple weeks, after taking my Mac Mini computer with me on a trip to California, I've lost a fair amount of data on my hard drive.

I'm aware that my Hard Drive was corrupted before my trip so it might not be entirely on how my baggage was handled to and from California.

But in California when I would select some of the songs that went missing in my iTunes playlist or library, I would always encounter the annoying spinning beachball pointer, or the swirling torrent of colors...

While in California I didn't want to hassle with trying to fix it because there was enough things there I was busy doing... or should have been doing.

I had all my music synced on my iPod, so all I had to do was somehow find a way to get the music from my iPod back into my iTunes directory somehow.

So when I got back from California, being fed-up with the tracks that were no longer on my HD and subsequently causing my iPod to take forever to sync and making it impossible to browse my iTunes music directory, I downloaded and installed Super Remove Dead Tracks from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes.

That was the absolutely wrong script to use at the time, because it didn't do anything for the core problem of my corrupt Hard Drive and erased the mp3 files from my iPod the next time it was synced.

Though I'm glad that it was only 55 tracks of not-so important stuff (though I will try to get it back again somehow anyways).

If you don't really care about the music that you've lost then it might be just fine to use that script.

Since I knew that I was going to try to upgrade from Tiger to Leopard... or actually install them both on the same HD... I knew I was going to have to repair the HD.

So I popped in the Tiger install disks that came with my Mac Mini, and used the Disk Repair Utility to repair my corrupted Hard Disk.

As one should expect several files, mostly my music though, went missing in the process; but after repairing the HD I was able to browse the iTunes directory and click on dead tracks in my iTunes library without getting the beachball cursor or the swirling torrent of colors cursor!

That solved that problem....

But as a result more music went missing. This time it was 100 tracks with a lot of good stuff, so I really want to get it back in the easiest way possible.

I first downloaded and installed iLinkPod to see what I could get from the music files on my iPod.

Realizing how much time it would take to manually identify each individual or even a group of files to pick out the ones that went missing I soon went looking for another alternative.

Then I eventually found and tried out Ollie's iPod Extractor - but I had no luck with it... I kept getting an AppleScript error indicating to big of a parameter string or something.

Here's How To Get Your Music Off Your iPod And Into iTunes Again...

I kept searching until I found the Show iPod Song Files script on Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes site.

NOTE: to use this script you must have the "Manually manage music (and videos)" checkbox on your iPod's setting checked.

Install it in your iTunes Scripts folder.

Select a song (or songs) in your iPod's library or one of it's playlists and then click on the scripts icon in the menubar (left of the "Help" menubar item) and choose the Show iPod Song Files option.

This will then open up a window in the finder with the music file highlighted.

As long as you have the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checkbox selected in your iTunes Preferences' "Advanced" settings all you have to do is double-click or open the highlighted file and it will add it to your iTunes Library and folder in the right spot!

Sure that might be a little more work than what Ollie's iPod Extractor is supposed to do but if you don't have too much music missing (or have the time) and Ollie's iPod Extractor doesn't work for you, then you can use the Show iPod Song Files script from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes site.

Which is exactly what I will be using to recover my files!

Recently I just heard about PodWorks, but I don't think it checks to see if any of the mp3 files (listed in the iTunes Library file) are missing from your iTunes folder to copy them over.... it looks like it just will transfer the mp3 files that aren't listed in the iTunes Library file.

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

New Blog Design

Today I finally was able to work through and put together phase two of my site design, and that was of redesigning this blog's site template.

I made the site template of this blog much like the template of my website at www.benjaminvanscoter.com, by taking the template and style that I was using and modifying it to fit within the template I have on my site.

Sure, it might not be perfect or all that glamorous... (as I think of that terrible PCD or whoever sings it song)... but it looks good and will do the job for the time being.

Now I can work on posting about a lot of the stuff that I've been holding off on!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

My New Website

Yesterday I finally finished up the the last few pieces of my new website at http://www.benjaminvanscoter.com/.

This isn't the very first upload of my site, and in fact was a complete overhaul of what I put there originally. (I didn't post about my original upload because I didn't come around to it, but if you might have seen the link on the sidebar of this blog when I first loaded my original content.)

If you never saw my original site, then you won't notice how different and totally sweet the new design and flow is of my newly updated website.

I made several changes to the template structure, and colors... perhaps most noticeable right away would be the new header image and background to the menu bar on the top.

Also I made some file-structure changes so that it isn't so flat and complicated to edit.

As starters I changed the Home page to be more of an overview of my skills and qualifications where you can then check out what you are most interested in.

You might particularly notice that the About page isn't just one page loaded with tons of information but is more of a landing-page where you can pick and choose to check out whatever your interested in.

Also, I changed the Portfolio and Services pages to be more expandable and more like landing-pages as well.

I've also added a bunch more content from my experiences with Underachieving and learning from the Rich Dad Series as well as my education

My Resume though remains almost entirely the same, but with the addition of file icons at the bottom.

Now my website will be more suitable as a means for me to let people know what I'm doing or involved in and am interested in as well as for others to learn about me and what I can do.

I even have a Resources section where I keep a list of some of the resources I use and others could benefit from.

Of course I have bigger plans for this site... like implementing easy page bookmarking links and a whole bunch more information, resources and perhaps some more services... but what is currently there now will suffice for the time being.

So go ahead and check out my website!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

Invisible Person

Title: Invisible Person

You are the invisible person,
Seen only in my dreams.
Through this device you were conceived.

This communication is our secret.
Wasting the nights away;
No one needs to know about it.

Constantly caught up in drama.
Wanting so much more from life:
To be noticed and admired.

It's in the jungle of tranquility,
Between reality and desire,
You find your escape.

But in the fight to live,
wu tiger fades away:
You are the invisible person.

 

Story-line conceived 1/5/2008
First two verses & first two
    lines of third verse written:
    1/6/2007
Last line of third verse & last
    two verses written:
    1/26/2007

 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is 100% Original Material by Benjamin VanScoter, and is therefore:

© Coyright Benjamin VanScoter 2008. All Rights Reserved.
Use Without Prior Written And Signed Consent Is Against International And Domestic Laws.

So don't even try to use any part of this work!

If you want to refer to this work link to it using the Permalink (found below).

(This writing may or may not be based on anything factual or that has happened in Ben's life... and may be entirely fictional.)

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

Re: Keith's Pathetic Comment On Thursday!

In the comments section on this post (which was referring to this post and was pretty much my review of Thursday's Kill The House Lights DVD/CD) Keith left the following comment:

Yeah, so my response, which apparently you are waiting for according to your Twitter update.

Kill the House Lights has some great content. The first three songs are awesome and definitely showcase what Thursday is capable of. Other songs seem more like throwaway scraps on a mixing room floor. As Sketch for Time's Arrow is a really weak half-song. The other demo's and live versions are great, especially for fans, but I really don't think the rougher mixed versions of well-produced songs are going to win new fans or win back those disappointed by A City by the Light Divided.

The CD does give one hope that Thursday will be able to recover and continue to thrive as a a group. Returning to Victory is great because the band is freed from the shackles of corporate rock, but Thursday's success is not guaranteed.

I am still waiting until their next CD to determine if Thursday is still alive. Too many bands have a great CD or two, but the rest of their work is lackluster (e. g. Third Eye Blind). Kill the House Lights demonstrates Thursday's potential. Now Geoff and the band has to step up and release another solid album.

Of course Keith is mainly referring to what I said about the songs on Kill The House Lights which to recap was:

1. Ladies And Gentlemen: My Brother, The Failure:    This is probably my favorite of the new songs, and is more like "old" Thursday!

2. Dead Songs:    Another amazing new track... this stuff is great!

3. Voices On A String:    This is another favorite of the new songs and is simply an outstanding display of Thursday's talents

4. Signals Over The Air (Live At Starland Ballroom):    This was on the DVD too, and is probably better than their actual studio recording!

5. How Long Is The Night (Original Intro):    The original intro is pretty cool, and if you're used to them jumping right into the lyrics - like I was - this will fool you a bit!

6. A Sketch For Time's Arrow:    A nice acoustic song, a little different but good nonetheless

7. Panic On The Streets Of Health Care City:    This was the song that Other Side Of The Crash in War All The Time came from

8. The Roar Of Far Off Black Jets:    This is cool... some of the music from the menus in the DVD - really sweet!

9. Paris In Flames (Demo):    It's Paris In Flames... it's a great song, what else needs to be said?

10. Telegraph Avenue Kiss (Rich Cotey Mix):    An interesting version of Telegraph Avenue Kiss from A City By The Light Divided

11. Wind Up (Demo):    Another great demo for another great song!

12. Music From Kill The House Lights (Demo):    Some more of the music from the menus in the DVD - really cool too!

Kill The House Lights

Naturally the first three songs are the featured songs since they are new and unreleased before... however, even though most of the last 8 songs are live or demos or alternative versions of songs from their previous albums (albeit except "A Sketch For Time's Arrow" "The Roar Of Far Off Black Jets" and "Music From 'Kill The House Lights'") shouldn't be a major detractor from the main facts of what an awesome CD this is even by itself!

I must admit that Keith's ideas about "A Sketch For Time's Arrow" are pretty accurate... but that was included as simply a "sketch"... not a full demo... just some lyrics that Geoff had come up with for song they had done a little working on!

Anyone can see how Thursday could definitely work out those lyrics into a song of the same caliber as the first three songs on this CD or the heavier stuff that we all like from Thursday!

Now about the new songs, particularly the first three on this CD, one might try to argue - "Yeah, well those are just demos" - and try to play it off like they don't count for some reason....

Well in my honest opinion they are pretty darn good demos and that whoever says that is just looking for a reason to put down the CD!!!!
(I would have said another word for 'darn' because that's what I really think... but I'm trying to keep it clean)

Kill The House Lights

I really don't think the rougher mixed versions of well-produced songs are going to win new fans or win back those disappointed by A City by the Light Divided.

I'm assuming that Keith here is referring to "Panic On The Streets Of Health Care City" and "Telegraph Avenue Kiss (The Rich Costey Mix)" and perhaps also the original intro version of "How Long Is The Night."

Regarding "Panic On The Streets Of Health Care City" - which was a B-Side of War All The Time (and a couple parts became "Other Side Of The Crash") - I still think it's still a great track that pulls together some of the songs from Full Collapse and War All The Time. It offers an interesting continuity...

Which brings me to a point I want to make about so many people's disappointment in A City By The Light Divided...

... And that would be that A City By The Light Divided was an album they did for themselves as an end-cap of all their prior releases. And as Geoff put it, to them, it seemed like they were doing demos of their demos.

To me A City By The Light Divided definitely wasn't a great CD, but there were still some jewels in there, and perhaps can't entirely discredit it all... even though it was still pretty weak. At least they put something out and were working at it!

As for the Rich Costey Mix of "Telegraph Avenue Kiss" - I think it is a better mix than the one they actually put on A City By The Lights Divided and would rather listen to the Rich Costey Mix than the one on A City By The Lights Divided.

And about the original intro version of "How Long Is The Night" I really don't like the intro... but it's still a great song nonetheless!

Kill The House Lights

I don't even want to hear you say anything about the instrumentals they included as part of (or from) the DVD menus...

Because if I were to listen to an instrumental of any sort "The Roar Of Far Off Black Jets" and "Music From Kill The House Lights" would definitely be on top of my list!

Neither song is too slow, repetitive or brutal to listen to... which so many other bands have a tendency to do when they create instrumentals - and it sure ain't classical music either!

In either case this DVD/CD combo wasn't intended for Thursday to win over any new fans or formerly disappointed fans!

This release was intended for their current fans, even if they were disappointed; because the main feature in this release is their DVD biography of their first ten years.

Why would any new fan want that?

Kill The House Lights

And I believe that the CD is actually a bonus attached to the DVD – perhaps with the first few songs on the CD to perk any disappointed fan's interest back to Thursday!

Ok, so I've heard the argument that "This isn't recent stuff they've done?" particularly regarding the first three new songs on the CD.

Ok... let's say it isn't...

Still, this CD shows that Thursday is aware of what their market wants - and what it's interested in - by including all those demos and versions from so many great songs and albums.

Now, no one can be 100% about anything, but if that's true, then you'd think they would be producing more songs that are more like the great stuff from Full Collapse and War All The Time.

Though, no one will know for certain until they actually release their next CD of what they are really up to!

However, I still remain optimistic about Thursday and look forward to what they are going to put out next, now that A City By The Light Divided is out of their system and they've come to grips more with the happening-ons in their band... and hopefully their market!

"Keith... I chewed you to pieces and spat you out!!"

(You Got Served!)

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

The Holidays

For those of you who might not know, recently - in the last couple months - it was towards the end of November, that my parents and 3 of us boys went in and got a family plan for cell phones.

I am just getting used to thinking about using the little camera and video on my phone to capture some memories.

So in this post I will show you a little about the recent holidays using some of the images and such from my phone.

Unfortunately I don't have any images or vids from Christmas...

The closest thing to after that is a surprise birthday party for my cousin Rhett VanScoter... who I've done some work for on his website (http://www.vanscoterinsurance.com).

Rhett

This was just such a good picture I just had to post it here: (From my cousin's surprise birthday party)

My Uncle Ron (my Dad's brother-in-law)

New Year's:

Now we move on to New Year's eve, which I spent partially at the Van der Jagt's house and left there at 10:30 PM to be at work at 11:00 PM.

I got this photo of Dan Van der Jagt, but wasn't quick enough...

Dan Van der Jagt

Apparently he didn't want his picture taken.

For New Year's day we spent the evening - dinner and such - at my brother's house with his wife Becky:

Becky VanScoter (My brother Joe's wife)

Yes, Becky is eloquently displaying for us the appetizer of her choice before dinner.

Jon VanScoter (Chewing no his appetizer)

He tried to put his hand in front of the camera but was too slow - probably why there's such a dumb look on his face! (or it might be from chewing)

Sam VanScoter (Reaching for his appetizer)

Ever wonder what a post New Year's day after-dinner would look like at the VanScoter's....

Sam VanScoter (Playing with his phone)
[ I got him first! ]

... It doesn't look like much!

(I was testing the image and video quality of various settings which is why the last one doesn't look so great.)

From there we just went on to watch a movie - The Pursuit of Happyness

And if you're wondering about how Christmas was, it wasn't a whole lot different I got almost a week off of work to do nothing much, help with preparations, and hang out with family.

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

OK: Qumana = Bad Idea

So I was checking out some of the posts I had flagged on The Unofficial Apple Weblog's feed through NetNewsWire... and I came across this post about the Qumana blog editor -- that I wanted to try out and take a look at.

Because I have MarsEdit and like it a lot, but why not see what other things are out there and see what they meant by:

It's not as Mac-like as MarsEdit by a long shot, but if you'd like to try a free editor that works easily with a variety of blogging platforms then Qumana is worth a look.

Which from first glance I thought... well that's because it's a Java App.

So I downloaded Qumana - though without entering my email I just clicked on the download button for the Mac Version.

Then I unzipped the download, and moved the Application into my Applications folder.

Launched the program, and followed the prompts to load and give Qumana access to my weblogs I have under one of my accounts in Blogger.

Then I get to the main screen where it lists the Blogs I have available....

And wanting to see the posts in my blogs I click on the "Refresh Posts", which it should have been able to get the posts on my blog(s) relatively easily...

But not everything works out as you would like!

I'm greeted by a happy error message with a big bold red stop-sign with an exclamation mark in it saying:

java.lang.Exception: RPC handler object "blogger2" not found and no default handler registered

Whatever that is supposed to mean!

Isn't one of the things to do before releasing any software is to test your software under a bunch of various environments or make sure it's dead easy for people to tell if it won't work with whatever environment they might be using?

In either case....

Goodbye Qumana

You Stink!!!!

MarsEdit... You ROCK!!!

So don't mess around with Qumana unless you're willing to have bugs like that!

By the way I'm still operating in Mac OSX 10.4 - maybe they designed it for Mac OSX 10.5 - I dunno.

I didn't upgrade, yet -- but you will hear about my upgrade experience soon.

In either case... MarsEdit is still probably the best blog editor for me - since HTML doesn't scare me and I love all the keyboard shortcuts!

I've even just opened a new MarsEdit post just to write up some long lists to do the markup faster than I would just typing it all regularly in a text editor and just copy and paste all the HTML into my page.

However, I have yet to purchase an upgrade to MarsEdit 2.x -- but I know I will be doing that soon!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

Mascara Poem

Title: Mascara Poem

She's dyeing this time,
And draws the lines
Around her eyes.

Her hair's different,
A new color;
And new makeup.

She changes her look
To hide from it
And sneak away.

Hoping all this pain
Won't recognize
Her anymore.

As she stops to think
What she became;
"How can it be?"

What she used to be
Was better then -
With bigger dreams.

After it's all lost
She tries so hard
To get it back;

But it's just so hard,
And nothing works -
Not even this!

She's drawing more lines,
This is her voice -
Letters and words.

Expressing it all,
Writing it down
For all to read

Not even these words
Say it as well
As those black spots

When the mascara
Runs down her face
Onto this page.

She posts it online,
Medievalluck,
And hides this pain.

 

Story-line conceived 12/14/2007
Written and finalized 12/16/2007

 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is 100% Original Material by Benjamin VanScoter, and is therefore:

© Coyright Benjamin VanScoter 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Use Without Prior Written And Signed Consent Is Against International And Domestic Laws.

So don't even try to use any part of this work!

If you want to refer to this work link to it using the Permalink (found below).

(This writing may or may not be based on anything factual or that has happened in Ben's life... and may be entirely fictional.)

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

New Thursday Post

I wrote this post on 12/15/2007 but post dated to 11/09/2007 to keep it with the other post in the archives you can read the full post here.

I'm finally making this post after a long time since I posted my last post about Thursday and their Kill The House Lights DVD/CD they put out.

I must be honest and say that I've made some big mistakes in that post and believed too much about what Keith said regarding Kill The House Lights. And I must say that he was so totally wrong about it!!

I stopped at Best Buy the other week and picked it up just to see what it was all about... and - quite frankly - to support Thursday, because I want them to stick around... (And to follow my own advice in my other post)

....

READ THE FULL POST HERE!!!

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

Burning Pictures

Title: Burning Pictures

You told me to let it go
I did and now you wonder how
I made a three-sixty recovery
All because it was pointless

It's rather-simple psychology
Since it was all in my head
Nothing said and nothing done
But the simple thought

Imagine it once, imagine it twice
However many times it takes
Memories and pictures in my mind
Light them all on fire

That's all you need to do
Is take all those thoughts
And with the lighter in your mind
Turn them into burning pictures

Set them on fire 'til they blaze
And you hear the screams of pain
Satisfaction for you soul
Now you feel - retribution

 

Written 12/11/2007
Verses written before the title

 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is 100% Original Material by Benjamin VanScoter, and is therefore:

© Coyright Benjamin VanScoter 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Use Without Prior Written And Signed Consent Is Against International And Domestic Laws.

So don't even try to use any part of this work!

If you want to refer to this work link to it using the Permalink (found below).

(This writing may or may not be based on anything factual or that has happened in Ben's life... and may be entirely fictional.)

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.

A Tragic End

Title: A Tragic End

You've carried that rock all your life
Dropped a few lines just for the fun of it
But you never realized it before
That rock was your gravestone

You wanted to live life to the fullest
But you never knew what that was
Now you've got no time left
And you're buried with these regrets

You're nothing but a tragedy
A lost soul in this poor world
You can't hold on any longer
When it all comes to an end

You never stopped to ask why
Or wondered what's the point
You always thought things were just fine
And nothing would ever go wrong

You always looked in the wrong places
Trying to find something that you lost
Even though it was right in front of your eyes
All those things that made you blind

You're nothing but a tragedy
A lost soul in this poor world
You can't hold on any longer
When it all comes to an end

After it's all said and done
In the end you realize it all too late
These addictions were your lies,
Lies when all you needed was Truth

You failed to embrace it -
You ignored all the signs
And now you seem so surprised
When He says "I never knew this man!"

You're nothing but a tragedy
A lost soul in this poor world
You can't hold on any longer
When it all comes to an end

There's nothing you can do now
His mind is made up
Final judgment is passed
And to the depths your soul is cast

 

Written 12/11/2007
Verses written first then refrain then title

 

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This is 100% Original Material by Benjamin VanScoter, and is therefore:

© Coyright Benjamin VanScoter 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Use Without Prior Written And Signed Consent Is Against International And Domestic Laws.

So don't even try to use any part of this work!

If you want to refer to this work link to it using the Permalink (found below).

(This writing may or may not be based on anything factual or that has happened in Ben's life... and may be entirely fictional.)

Click Here To Read The Full Article By Itself.