This is my first ever album to be released ANYWHERE, and I recorded the entire thing right here in my bedroom with limited equipment.

What did I use?  I used a borrowed powered mixer, a borrowed Audio Technica Condensor Microphone, a $400 HP PC with Vista 32-bit Home Premium, FL Studio, Audacity, and a couple guitars!  That’s IT!  It took almost a year of work, recording, and writing, but it is FINALLY complete.

If you’re interested in purchasing my new 6-song EP, just click on the picture below:

You can check me out on MySpace anytime at http://www.myspace.com/davidcrandall

ALSO, I am in a contest to be signed by MySpace Records.  If you want to vote for me, you must spread my widget around on blogs, MySpace Profiles, FaceBook Satus’s, and anywhere else!  Just click the “GRAB THIS” button below to copy the code, then paste it where ever you can.  THEN, tell your friends to do the same!  Your help will be greatly appreciated!

Here is the widget:

Take it easy,

David Crandall

I must admit, the first time I tried to run WordPress, I was confused.  The directions, to me, were confusing at the time so I just gave up on it.  Having come back to it recently to give it’s latest version a shot, the process flew with the breeze.  It was so easy to set up, configure, and mess with – I felt like I was five years old walking around Toys R Us, just playing with all the goodies.

Recently, they had an update from WordPress 2.6 to 2.6.1.  Being the relatively young web designer that I am, I have to stay up to date with my programs – so I upgraded.

I have to admit, upgrading things like this is scary.  I backed up all my posts, data, and my entire server to a local folder on my PC- JUST IN CASE something happens.  I use other open source programs like PHPBB; the first time I upgraded PHPBB, I went through hell trying to get things to function properly.  This, of course, was an error on my part – but one must learn from his mistakes and move on, which I indeed did.

Before I upgraded WordPress, I read the instructions on doing so.  Then, I backed up every file on my server, including all posts, pages, pictures, and data.  I even backed up things that I wasn’t using with WordPress, just to be safe (I’m quite the worry wart – which, in my opinoion, in this case, isn’t a bad thing.)

Crossing my fingers, I replaced every necessary file, which was some 500+ files.  I was extremely nervous.  It only took about a minute and a half to upload all the files, but to me, it was like watching a needle poke into my skin (sorry for the image.)  I was so nervous that something would go wrong and everything would be lost.

Thankfully, having gone the extra mile to back EVERYTHING up, and following the directions on the WordPress website, I deservingly had a successful upgrade.

Once finished, I decided to go and read up on the details of the upgrade.  As it turns out – the upgrade was very minor.  No real new features at all, in fact – they said if I’m happy with 2.6 to not bother running 2.6.1….boy do I feel stupid. 

Take it easy,
David Crandall

“Claiming” your blog is verifying that YOU are the owner of the blog.  It would be a good thing if you could actually claim your blog!

Many users try to claim their own blog, but Technorati’s system won’t let them.  They get an immediate error message for no real reason.  When users contact the customer service, they don’t respond with a solution or reason why the users can’t claim their own blog.  Some people made it public by posting threads on Technorati’s discussion boards mentioning Technorati’s inability to create a decent claiming system and their lack of responding to e-mails sent to customer support.  As it turns out, TONS of users are experiencing this problem.  There have been reply after reply to these thread topics.

Seems that once Technorati’s administration got word of it, they claimed their faulty customer service on a “backlog” that they’ve been experiencing - I didn’t even know this was word.  I think the only thing that would cause them to have a “backlog” is they just stopped responding to people’s e-mails.  NOW they want to go back and address the issue since it’s been made public.

The reason I say THAT is now those topics aren’t open for discussion anymore.  I guess Technorati is tired of being embarrassed on their own website.  I still see more people posting new topics about the problem though.

Technorati needs to do two things – stop disregaurding e-mails or expand your customer support so you can start responding to people’s requests, and develop a better system for claiming a blog.

I tried to submit a blog to network with other bloggers, and I can’t claim my own blog.  I sent Technorati an e-mail, but I don’t expect an e-mail back.

What Do You Think?
Do you have the same problem?  Perhapse you have a solution to this problem!  Whatever you have to say, let me know about it, I’ll be happy to respond to your e-mail   So go ahead and share your thoughts with me by leaving a comment or contacting me at david@funkytower.com

Take it easy,
David Crandall