Monday, December 8th, 2008
My personal website has once again been updated. For the past several months I have been working for a web development and marketing company called Threshold Interactive. We have recently released a few of the big websites that I helped build. I’ve put up links to them on my own portfolio site at gurustump.com. The clients are actually big companies you have heard of: Sony Pictures Television International and Honda Powersports. The sites are beautiful, too, so I highly encourage you to go check them out.
Beyond that, another web site which I had a substantial part in building (but that was done outside of Threshold) is now up and live. It’s for a toy company called Mighty World. You can get to it from my website as well.
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Sunday, April 6th, 2008
I’ve just downloaded a new messenger program called Digsby. After a few days of use, it has me very impressed.
Digsby is an internet messenger program comparable to MSN’s Live Messenger or AOL’s AIM. In fact, it’s not just comparable to these programs, but works as a replacement for them. Digsby allows you to sign into all the major messenger services (AOL, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, ICQ {for those of you who remember ICQ}, and Jabber). It can also be set up to give you e-mail notifications for your Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail, as well as any POP server based e-mail that you may specify. Finally, it allows you to sign into Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace and receive updates and notifications for those social network services.
These capabilities by themselves don’t necessarily set Digsby apart. A program called Trillian has been around for years that allowed you to have one contact list for all your messenger accounts. Another messenger called Pidgin later came on the scene with the basic same abilities, adding support for Google Talk and MySpace messenger. I don’t know if those programs ever let you check any POP server mail account, so Digsby has an edge there, but a couple of other functions that really set it apart.
For one, Digsby is the first free messenger through which you can access all your major messenger accounts that has web cam support. So for those of you out there that want to run a cam, but don’t want to have four different messengers running all the time, Digsby is the choice for you.
Second, and this is really cool, Digsby allows you to embed a widget on any webpage through which a visitor to that page can talk to you live. They don’t have to install a thing (well…they do have to have Adobe Shockwave running on their machine, but apparently 200 million users out there already have it installed). They just browse to the web page where the widget lives. They click on it and can start chatting with you live.
It opens up all sorts of new possibilities for web businesses working on a budget. Did you want to have a live assistance area on your website, where visitors can chat with you? Well, now you can just download and install Digsby, and then run through the simple process of building your widget and embedding the tiny chunk of code Digsby generates into your webage. If you want to add the Widget to Facebook, it’s even more simple. When you set up your Facebook service in Digsby’s preferences, it asks you if you want to add the widget to your profile. It then behaves like any other Facebook app.
Sound cool? You can try it out right now without any downloading. I’ve already installed the widget on my portfolio website at gurustump.com (check the right column under latest additions), and on my facebook profile (left column this time). All you have to do is click in the text-entry field and start typing. If I’m listed as online, it’s a good bet I’ll respond.
So there is a first introduction to Digsby. It is apparently getting a lot of buzz and users out there on the interwebs right now, even though it’s only been in public beta for a few days. It’s already very customizable, but look for it to get mroe features and updates as time goes on.
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Saturday, March 15th, 2008
I’ve just tossed up a new update at my website at gurustump.com. I’ve been working on other website besides just my own, and decided to finally put up a section that brags about it. The new section can be found in the main navigation via the “WEB” button, or you can just click on the following link:
GuruStump.com – Web Design
Enjoy your visit, and also enjoy the other sites this page will take you to. 
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Friday, March 14th, 2008
I’ve been collaborating for the past several months with a movie director named Kevin Redford whom I have known since back in film school. I just built his website at Red4DProductions.com. I admit it’s a bit of a light launch, as it only has a few short movies on it so far, but it’s still exciting to see it go live on the web.
I invite you to go check it out. Of special interest to me is the movie “Release,” which features a younger, much skinnier me in the lead role. Feel free to watch it and then relentlessly mock me for it.
Be sure to check back in the future, as I’m sure Kevin will be posting more of his movies as well as some other interesting content to his site.
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Saturday, March 1st, 2008
I’ve been musing about and hoping for this one for a while. While Activision’s Guitar Hero has been gaining greater and greater popularity out there, making gamers of people who previously thought an XBox was only for 35-year-old bacherlor’s in their parents’ basements and 10-year-old kids, I’ve been lamenting that there isn’t a game that actually helps you learn how to play a real guitar. Given that my own current guitar rig can be plugged directly into my PC and I can even get a tuner to pop up on my monitor, I knew that the technology already existed to make a computer able to tell what note you were playing. Now all that needed to happen was that someone had to take the scrolling notes of Guitar Hero and merge them with the real neck of a bonafide electric guitar.
And hooray: someone is doing it. The name of the game is “Guitar Rising” (guitarrising.com). You’ll be able to plug any electric guitar into your PC with simple USB to 1/4 inch interface. You’ll get 30 rock songs to play along with, at five levels of difficulty, and even with variable tempos so you can learn at your own pace. The first release is due out in time for this Christmas, and I’m sure if it’s successful, you’ll see expansion packs with more and more songs.
So for all you guitar heroes who wish you could translate your gaming skills over to actually performing real songs for your friends, get excited. This game is for you.
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