Per usual, below is a list of some changes I've made to the site:
1. I no longer have each section of the site running in a separate WordPress Blog. Thanks to Custom Post Types {LINK REMOVED}, I was finally able to merge it all into one database, rather than having to re-create each item - post by post - thanks to the igneous plugin called “Post Type Convertr.” During the migration process, I managed to clean up a lot of the coding and unneeded pages laying around, too.
2. With all the blogs (sections of the site) in one place, I had to fix some broken links and create some new official re-directs for the main sections aside from the Blog, namely Video, Photo, Art & Design, and the Archive {LINK REMOVED}.
For example, brasscoestudios.com/pictures was converted to pictures.brasscoestudios.com.
And with that, all #118 blog posts were tweaked to have the URL's reach their intended target, or removed if invalid. Deleted areas were the planned Music section, along with all the Tape Logs (for now).
3. It took me a while to have both the Facebook LIKE button, and the Google+ button correctly display when viewing my site over various browsers and mobile devices. Removing some of the javascipt used for displaying certain fonts was the key. Also, those buttons can now be found in all areas of the site, rather than just in the blog posts.
4. With the above mentioned JavaScript change, I found out that using Google Fonts {LINK REMOVED} worked way better anyways!
5. Even though I already created a Facebook Fan Page for Brasscoe Studios a while ago, I was able to add a LIKE button for the website to the header. In addition, I added a tweaked Fan-Box widget to the sidebar, which displays image of those who have already Liked it.
6. I added breadcrumb trails to all of the sub areas. It was modified from the Prime Strategy Bread Crumb plugin.
7. Within the Photo section, I created a new area called Photo Projects and moved the (Favorite Digital Images) gallery into it. Also created are the galleries "Black & White" and "The Jumping Project".
8. Lastly, I created a website icon!
SIDE NOTE: I’ve finally begun to work on my video camera and its attachments (2012 misc - video & electronics), in preparation for a short film I’m directing. It will be shot on DVCproHD, then mathematically remastered from 2x 1080p to 4K, and will be shot in true anamorphic! Below is an image of me trying to focus the lens in Cinemascope.
In the past few months, I’ve made tons of changes to this site. Below is a short list of them:
1. For the Blog areas, I noticed that Internet Explorer fails to display my post titles correctly. This is because I use a little JavaScript program that converts the title of the post into an image, which is an easy method of being able to use any font you want, whether the viewer had it installed on their own system or not. In order to remedy this issue, I added code to display a message for those using IE to browse the site with another browser - such as Chrome or Firefox.
2. I have slowly started fixing all of my ftp uploads that connect my Flickr videos with the actual High-Definition video used to upload to Flickr. It'll probably take me the year to get all 500+ videos added.
3. Speaking of Flickr videos, in order to be allowed to have my actual videos sitting in a download folder within my ftp area, I had to create a {LINKS REMOVED} linking back to this site. It automatically displays all of the videos so far added online. The link can also be found within the Pictures menu.
4. On the Photo page, I fixed an issue where Firefox would display the next year’s set of image on the same line, rather than correctly starting on the next.
5. Up until last week, the gallery listing all digital images from 2000-2008 were manually created in a series of cell tables. I modified my method of displaying posts, in order to have it display the link only. Once that was achieved, I had to then re-add all those past image sets as new posts (by date), and watched as they populated the correct year area. The beauty of this method is when I decide to move 2009 in to that area, it will do it with a simple line of code, rather than adding all 92 by hand.
6. I had to publicly remove some of my videos from the Video section, simply because they're next in line to be re-mastered. I hope to get those back up shortly.
7. The Timeline, which lists all the clips & videos created so far, had all of it's links verified and corrected. The now-private videos are noted as such.
8. In the Video section, I tweaked the look of it - changing where the title appears and displaying the views up front.
9. Also, the main movie image was changed to a silhouette of me and some of my camera equipment. It replaced the temporary image of my old camera, which was in place since 2008. I still plan to photograph an actual image that visually looks better, but it’ll do for now.
10. For my Tape Logs {LINK REMOVED} section, I began scanning (OCR) all of my offline paperwork, in order to have complete and searchable listing.
11. Although I already mentioned that was added to my Art & Design, I finally uploaded the actual DVD file used when adding the video to MySpace {LINK REMOVED} years ago.
12. I removed the “posted dates” from all other website areas, except for the blog.
13. Lastly, I removed the FFlick link from the header, as that site was purchased by Google, and no longer displays my movie related posts.
In the past year, I made tons of changes to this site. Here is a list of some of them:
1. I added some missing blog posts dated as-of when they were supposed to be posted. This goes all the way back to the site's 2008-ish reboot. There were some dated through 2007, but those were lost due to my failure to back them up correctly. In any case, I recommend re-browsing through all of it. You might find something you missed!
2. One the blog side, I finally removed the temporary main image, for one more suited to the site. Eventually, the main site image will feature both of the Brasscoe Co-Presidents. The Index site's polaroid image was also updated.
3. The blog's main menu was expanded to include some upcoming-posts-sections, while removing the image of the month and featured galleries areas. Those were combined into a Photo Projects page, which now showcases all the image I liked amongst the hundreds I take each month. That can be found within the Photo area.
4. Speaking of new website areas, I also added two new sections to the movie page. The tape logs were moved out of the archive section and now displays VHS and MiniDV [links removed] items separately. Also, I created the Brasscoe: Timeline, which chronologically lists some of the movies we have worked on.
5. In the movies section, I uploaded the video files used for each movie, making the clips available for download. A few of the old videos are accompanied with their original renders. I hope to re-master them soon. Side Note: I posted actual blog updates only for the movies I re-mastered. Older items will be posted when they get re-done.
6. The Art & Design section was revamped to include items I created, and how-to listings, along with my usual artwork.
7. Among the plugins I use for the site, I added Postviews by Lester Chan {LINK REMOVED} to help me see a visual count of how many visitors were seeing the various sections of the site. I also added Page Numbers by Jens Tornell {LINK REMOVED} which allowed me to modify how my various page counts are displayed, rather than the next and previous default. Lastly, I added the Search Highlight by Ryan Boren {LINK REMOVED} plugin in order to help identify the terms used when searching through the blog posts.
8. Since the Archive section was meant to hold the site's misc items (moved to Art & Design section), I created Other Video Area, The within it to showcase clips and shorts created in conjunction with Brasscoe, and some others I just wanted to show off.
9. On the HTML and CSS side, I moved most of the site's clip art and .PHP files into one folder, helping page load times by using the same items throughout (The site is actually made up of 9 individual blogs, all tweaked in different ways). Also, I learned how to use JavaScript in order to display any font on the website I wanted (whether the end-user had it installed on their computer or not).
As of right now, my small list of items to finish includes these two huge tasks:
1. As I finish my catch-up with old Flickr photos, I realize the total count pending is over 90GB's worth. That's over 14,000 images, and maybe 100 videos. Not too sure if I will ever be done.
2. I began a Scans - Photos & Items project and hope to have all 1000+ photographs up by the end of the year. This includes pictures from my childhood, and when I worked at Disneyland during its construction phase in 1999.
Now, if I can only figure out solutions to my two current problems...
1. Why won't WordPress {LINK REMOVED} let me upgrade the blog from 3.0 to 3.1 without problems.
2. Finding a stable hack for my Panasonic GF1 {LINK REMOVED}. So far, I successfully completed a modification to the firmware with PTools changing the video recording size from 720p to 1080p, but want it to maintain the HD MJPEG quality at a 50-80 MBps data rate without issue, which is a big step up from the default 15 MBps setting. Probably need to get a Class 10 SDHC card.
There are a number of things I've been doing behind the scenes, so I decided to list them here:
1. Archiving - I now have about 50 MiniDV and HDV tapes, filled with footage from 2000 until now. I have since begun digitally capturing every tape, from beginning to end, to the hard drive. Each hour takes up about 13gb of space. So far, I have captured DV tapes 1-8 and 19. Once the drive is filled up, I will submit it for online backup. The purpose of capturing an identical copy to the HDD is to not lug out each cassette when looking for footage.
2. Tape Logs - Speaking of searching through content, I have added the MiniDV/HDV and VHS Tape Logs to the Archive section [links removed]. Although not entirely complete - or verified to be accurate (most were written years ago with no timecode to date stamp it) - I plan to list the content of every tape on hand.
3. Raw Footage Updates - In going through my tape archiving, I have come across raw footage of moments recorded that (to some) may find interesting or funny. At least to me, it is. Some of that footage will finally make its way online, or help to re-master content already available, but in HD.
4. Re-Mastering - There are still quite a few videos left online that are low in quality due to its upload date compared to when Vimeo & YouTube finally made the change to 1080p viewable. Arg! So obtaining all that raw footage is helping me do that! The first item for complete re-master and re-edit is the NYE 2000 / Pseudo Porno short film. I am halfway done with the edit in Sony Vegas HD, and will make it a nice 10 minute version, removing all the extra non-essential junk that sat in there all this time.
5. HD Downloads - I have now made it a habit to first upload the High-Def versions of my Flickr videos to my site before I add them to Flickr. This way, once added, someone will have the option to view on Flickr (which has proven to be horrible when a low-light video is added with lots of video noise), or download the full HD version I used in the first place. I have also tried to go back and add the other missing HD versions of other videos. Yes, I plan to have it all online, soon.
6. Flickr - Yes, I have lagged so much on this! It is mostly due to my backup & re-organizing attempts. At last count, I still need to upload 29.7gb of stuff. That's almost 2900 image and almost 100 more video clips! Oddly enough, in my other backup folders, I have found even older content that was thought to be lost. I hope to finally be back in the Flickr mode this weekend and get it all up before the New Year.
7. Lastly, backup! - Since I am realizing that my hard drives won't last forever, I have since been using Mozy {Link Removed} to backup all my content. At the moment, I have 283.8GB backed up online, and 2.2GB still in progress. When all is said and done, the 500GB drive I use as my main content holder, will have its copy online (just in case).
It's hard to believe I haven't made a full site update since January! Time flies...
First off, I had to put aside my Flickr updates for over a month while I re-designed this entire website. The choice to do so was when I found out I can run multiple blog indexes under one main blog component! It has made my updating efforts a breeze. To get a glimpse of the nerdy process, feel free to watch the YouTube video I found: {LINK REMOVED}. It was the most simplistic way to do it, I found.
In the past, I had to manually modify each website section by hand, taking the html grid and thumbnail placements and changing it all in GoLive, which is an HTML editor. Now, all I need to do is add the updates as a new posting, and it moves the older items over.
As for WordPress templates, I used The Unstandard for all of the website sections: art, archive, movies & pictures. For the actual blog section, I went with Plainscape. I did my best to match the multiple blogs into one consistent look that matched up, site-wide.
In the before and after screen shots below, you can see how much I needed to change everything from stock.
This includes the page layouts.
The hardest modification came from the section templates. I found one that displayed blog posts as image and had to severely tweak them!
And again for the page layout.
For copyright reasons, I wanted to give the template authors proper credit:
The Unstandard template belongs to {LINK REMOVED} and can be downloaded free: {LINK REMOVED}. The live preview is {LINK REMOVED}. The Plainscape template belongs to {LINK REMOVED} and can be downloaded free: {LINK REMOVED}. The live preview is {LINK REMOVED}.
As far as catching up on pictures goes, I am so behind.
Currently, I have about 25 sets and a few misc updates to upload to Flickr. Doing a search, it looks like a total of about 3000+ pictures and about 100+ videos! Those updates are coming soon.