Raiders of the Lost Ark

For those of you who know what I do for a day job, it will come as no surprise that my career choice tends to at times consume much of my time. Nor will it surprise you that when I get home the last thing I want to do is go on the computer. And so that partially begins to explain where I’ve been and why there hasn’t been too much going on at digitalflood.com for the last few weeks. A harsh winter and an old house that demands me paying attention to how much snow is outside to avoid minor things like– oh I don’t know having my propane regulator freeze so I loose hot water or having my water pump freeze so I lose all water tend to occupy your time.

With all that said, those of a keen eye may have noticed the Code Info page of our site keeps going up a tick or two everyday. Appearances can be deceiving and just because the main page isn’t changing it does not mean there is nothing “going” with the site. So this was the case with my latest endeavor that required much experimentation and playing with our underlying code.

This was all in an effect to make a quick recovery of my employer’s web site at http://www.warwick.net. The site is the web portal for my employer (WVT Communications) and homepage to many of our broadband Internet subscribers. Literally taking down that site is like turning off Google as far as our little web world goes in Warwick, NY. There was therefore a sense of urgency to restore the site when a slight mishap took down the existing (though arguably older) web engine.

It took me about 16 hours of straight time, but I managed to get the framework and branding done. There’s going to be a lot of grunt work needed by my associates at work to get the content filled in, but what you see before you is a CMS driven site that is Web 2.0 in look and feel. It has consistent branding and sensible layout. It loads in less than six seconds. It has a web search feature. Access to our various online portals (including web mail and bill pay) and content fed via RSS streams, as well as, mash up widgets. The result is a full featured basic launch point that is easy to navigate and yet feature filled. It loads well in any browser and depreciates when accessed by mobile device to speed up load times. Considering the time line (three days) and the budget (zero bucks) I am quite pleased with the accomplishment.

In so many ways this is a preview of what I had planned for df.com before I was drawn to put out this fire first, but in so many ways it also helped me understand some new directions I wish to go in that will lend itself to better structure here. So yes while there has been no news– there is good news nevertheless. Stay tuned.

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Classic DF – 5/31/02

May 31, 2002: [•] India and Pakistan are on the verge of nuclear war. The US and UK are asking all their citizens to leave the area ASAP. [•] Lance Bass (N’ Sync) has been medically cleared to go into space. [•] Three people died on Oregon’s Mount Hood. [•] The fourth installment in the Indiana Jones series is a go. [•] I love you wife and daughter (My cats are evil so they aren’t getting any of my love today YO!). [•] A mother whose 5-year old child was thrown out of a Catholic school for her being a stripper has decided to pose naked for Playboy. Yee-ha! [•] Three employees of NEC Toshiba Space System Co. have been arrested and charged with spying on rival companies by hacking into their networks. [•] Bored? Maybe it’s time then to learn a new valuable skill that will change your life forever. Discover the Art of Bullshitting. You too can amaze your friends and family as you rattle on about subjects that you have no idea about like you studied them for years at a prestigious college. Never again will you be left out of the fold when conversation turns intellectual. You will not only own the room; you’ll own the room’s momma! — flAnnelmAn

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Classic DF – 7/24/00


July 24, 2000: [•] George Bush Jr. is going to name his running partner. [•] A man killed himself and one of the people he was holding hostage in Florida. [•] Seven Concordes have been grounded after cracks were found in the wings. [•] The Yugoslavian Parliament has approved a law that will extends Milosevic’s term if reelected President. That sucks. [•] Another Caucasian farmer has been killed in Zimbabwe. [•] A wildfire has broken out in Colorado. [•] A building in Philadelphia collapsed killing two people. [•] LA is running low on firefighters and paramedics. [•] Though the government keeps uncovering businesses that commit fraud they don’t ban them or impose fines against them. [•] IBM has introduced the RS/6000 SP super-computer. [•] EMusic.com is offering unlimited downloads of legal MP3s for $9.95 a month. [•] A new bug has been found in Outlook Express that allows buffer overflows to force you machine to do whatever a hacker wants it to. Upgrade to Internet Explorer 5 SP1 to fix it. [•] Windows Me is reviewed. It looks pretty good (don’t they all). [•] Mattel has won a lawsuit against a porn site using the Barbie name. [•] What you missed at H2K. [•] The FBI says that since Carnivore only scans the “to” and “from” fields of a e-mail that it is perfectly safe and maintains privacy. [•] The Duh Study of The Day: Meditating can lower blood pressure. Yeah, relaxing tends to do that. [•] Senior citizen advocates are calling for more stringent nursing homes standards. [•] Harrison Ford will star in the next Indiana Jones installment! [•] China is trying to rescue 500 bears and put an end to bile farms. [•] Cat fish farmers can double profits by growing algae in the same tank. [•] Physicists have discovered a long theorized, but previously undetected subatomic particle. [•] A denial of service attack against cryptome.org has put the web site out of service. Did I mention that these attacks started after they published top secret intelligence papers? [•] Ad revenues are up in newspapers. Looks like the Net won’t kill print media (as expected). [•] Teenagers hanging out on the street are causing problem on Maybrook and Walden (Why should people be able to go outside? Can’t people lock their kids in the cellar? LOL). [•] Warwick’s unofficial soccer league is attracting players. [•] Beatings, robbings, stealing, and everything that makes The Times-Herald Record Briefs interesting. [•] The Arrested Rapper of The Day: Juvenile. [•] Kid Rock has to settle his custody rights with his ex-girlfriends over his child. [•] You can buy the limo in the Starsuckers Inc. video. [•] Posthuman Records is online now. [•] Go.com has gone open source with its engine. [•] Rage Against the Machine played a benefit concert. [•] Is Smashing Pumpkins making another album? [•] Guns ‘N’ Roses is being sued for stealing the melody to Sweet Child of Mine. [•] Apparently Woodstock 99‘s concert was on a toxic waste dump and [•] the water was in short supply. [•] The Radiohead tracks that don’t make Kid A, may be put on a follow up album. [•] Where’s coaxial going? [•] $99 for a RAID card? This must be a dream. [•] Where is Pentium IV headed? [•] It’s official: The Ford Focus is the world’s best selling car . [•] Motortrend is revamping its magazine. [•] Netscape Communicator 4.74 has been released. [•] Need I remind you that I love Azazel? I didn’t think so 🙂 [•] Red Raven got a manager’s position (congratulations). [•] Hoagie’s web page rules. [•] I jammed out with Kevin last night and went over some ideas. He has started telling people about this little project we dare call digitalflood.com™. That project currently called We Come In Peace can be described as (Kevin put it): a cat purring on Mars as an acoustic guitar plucks away. Weird, huh? So I guess if people don’t get it right now, there’s a damn good reason. I warn you– the new stuff is way out there. It definitely isn’t for the faint of heart or the poor of faith. However, I really think that what it can provide is a sense of where I stand and what I want to hear from a musician that no one right now is doing. If everything isn’t too foregone and hopefully we don’t make “bad” art then I believe that anyone who downloads our next MP3s will be happy. Need I say more?

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