The world as I see it…

Here I am at 7-ish in the morning…  up all night working…  again!  I should just move to and live in Japan, since it’s clear that after almost 14 months since returning from my last season with Aimachi that I can’t get myself close to a sleep schedule that matches the rest of the time zone I’m in, or even the entire continent.  I guess it doesn’t matter…  but it would be nice to say “good morning” at 7am rather than “good night”.  :)

I guess moving to Japan would require a lot of extras…   like a job, so I can get a working visa, as well as a place to crash…   I suppose it would be a bit of a hassle to make happen if I really wanted to do it.  Or not?  Who knows…   I just think it would be fun.   I was always on a “regular” schedule over there…  but since I returned home I’ve just been lazy and unmotivated to make any adjustments.   This reminds me…how am I gonna make it through the day on Thursday when my flight leaves here around 7am?  Oh well…

So, who out there is an iPhone/iPod touch user?   What about Android phones?  If you can, do me a favor and visit my website on your phone:

http://www.georgehester.com

Last February when I was at TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association), I was chillin’ with my friend Drew and some of his friends at the Hooters on the Riverwalk and we were chillin’ and having a beer or something.  Something random caught my attention (besides our server) and that was the fact that of the 5 or 6 of us at the table, I was the only person without an iPhone.   Soon thereafter, as I was wondering around the convention center, I noticed more and more band directors carrying iPhones around.  Hell… EVERYONE had an iPhone!  At the time, I didn’t feel ‘left out’ or anything like that, but it was just a funny thing I noticed when I was there.

The next afternoon, I was hangin’ out at the exhibits and wandering through the place and doin’ what everyone does.  I saw a band director there who I have known for a while and we chatted for about 20 minutes about life, this and that, whatever…   He asked if I had a card or a website so he could stay in touch.  I reached into my pocket and gave him one of my cards and he looked at it, said something like “oh you have a website… I’ll have to check that out sometime when I get back home…”

And then…   this little light bulb went off in my head.   I’m here at a convention where 90% of the people I see have iPhones or something of the sort…   wouldn’t it be cool if I could create a mobile version of my website so they could look at it while they’re walking around the convention center and not have to be on your computer at home or the hotel?   hmm…

Now…  lets get something straight.  I already know I don’t need this.  I know that maybe 5 people will care if I have a mobile site.  And maybe 4 of those people wouldn’t visit it more than once or twice.  It’s not like my website is all that interesting or “fun” for anyone.  It’s not like a social networking site…  it’s just a condensed version of my site, giving whoever may be interested or able to, visit my site on their iPhone as they sit at Hooters, walk around the convention center…  or possibly even as they chill at home on the couch.  (who would do that though, really?)  ;)

But why do this? Because I think it will actually be a useful and helpful way for me to expand my advertising.  I do advertise with the normal routines – website, business cards, word of mouth, etc. But I thought, “what if I could get my site on the mobile web, especially since there’s so much emphasis on web browsing on a phone these days?”  Of course, you still have the anticipated iPad coming out in about 5 weeks.

I first created a website about 11 years ago, but I don’t think anyone knew about it.  Some did…  and if you do, you probably remember that it was just what myspace/facebook started out as at first.  No, I’m not saying that I could have invented facebook, but all my site consisted of what a page with a picture of me, little bio, little list of “favorite” things…  and a few photo albums.   I did it just to kinda be a huge nerd and have a website just to have a website.   I didn’t have anything to advertise or promote…  but I just did it for fun.

It was around the fall of 2005 when I was in my first full season in TX and was attending school at UH.  I was talking to some of my classmates and friends, and someone asked me if I had a website to advertise what I do.  I just rolled my eyes, laughed and said something like “no way…  I don’t need a website.”  Mostly referring to the fact that I have a job that requires more than just a website to get gigs.  But later that day, I was online at the library computer lab and I thought I’d do a search for drill designers on the web.  I couldn’t find any sites for the designers I know and am close with.  I did manage to find a few designer’s sites and looked through them to see what they were like.   It was funny because I was looking for these sites as a designer myself, so I had no idea what I was looking for or what to expect.

I was honestly somewhat disappointed with just about every site I went to.  Some of them had “samples” of their designs, but in the form of locked drill files you could download and open in Pyware, or PDF pages of maybe two or three sets from a show. As a designer, I try not to get that far into a director’s head, but if I were a director looking for a designer, I would not know what to think after viewing sites like those.  No disrespect meant to those designers…   I’m sure that was probably all they were capable of doing at the time anyway.   This was 2005 – obviously there have been leaps in technology since then.  However, they may as well have had nothing on their site regarding samples of their work if that was all they had (in my opinion).  That’s just what how I felt at the time…  and still somewhat today, but I do also understand that your work on the field, reputation and word of mouth are what gets you a job – not a flashy video on your website showing off what you did at the computer.

So, I contemplated this for several months…  and during the spring of 2006 and as I was writing Pasadena Memorial’s show, I had a bit of extra time at the computer and thought about starting a website.  It wasn’t really a spur of the moment thing.  I just needed to find the right design software, a host that was affordable and just build it!  I spent a great deal of time thinking back to when it was pointed out to me that having a website would be helpful.  Looking at where we are in this day and age with so much of our lives involving a computers and the internet to communicate, I figured it would be more than worth it to give it a shot.

I’ll spare you the details of all that has happened in between then and now, but 3 1/2 years after I started georgehester.com, I have literally been bombarded with e-mails or conversations about my website more than anything.  I get e-mails from other designers either asking how I do the video embed, or just a little compliment on the site design.  It’s really a great feeling to be complimented for something like that, especially since I only did it because I wanted to try to stay ahead of the curve.  And I am never offended if no-one compliments the drill I design.  Some do, but it’s no big deal if they don’t.

But staying ahead of the curve is what I have been going for since I started my website.  I may not have the “best” drill designer site out there…  nor do I consider there to be any sort of competition for the best drill designer’s website.  But it definitely got many people’s attention a couple years ago and I’m just glad that I took the opportunity to build a website for my “business” and put it out there on the world wide web!

I have actually been able to get jobs by way of people viewing my drill in video form either on my website or even YouTube.  I would not say that I rely on my samples to get me work, but thankfully there are plenty of drill writers, designers and directors that can see those samples and see that I am good at what I do.  I know I’m a decent visual designer and I’m very thankful for all who have taught or inspired me over the past 18 years since I started doing marching band.

I have taken great care in making sure that I built a site that is fast loading, easy to navigate through, has all of the information a director would want/need in the right places and gives people a way to view samples of my work.  I didn’t just build a site and publish it without talking to people first.  I am very thankful to have so many friends who are band directors and designers, to go to for advice on how to create the best “drill designer” website I could.  I would be somewhat subtle about it at first and only ask things like “what do you look for in any website you go to?” just being general about the whole thing.  Then I’d be more straight to the point and ask “what if a drill designer had a site…   what would you want to see on it?”

So many of those people talked about being able to see video samples of the drill, more than anything – preferably live performance high cam, if available.   Many also wanted to see charts to look at staging…  but also mentioned how that’s kind of difficult without seeing it live and in person.  I have tried to include as many live performance videos I can, but unfortunately have struggled just to get a copy from a director.  I don’t know if it’s that they felt their band didn’t do a good enough job and worried/embarrassed by their effort.  I certainly hope that’s not the case.  These are just young adults/students performing.  You can’t criticize that!  And it’s in combination with art that I created.  (along with other designers).  This is all an “art” activity, in my mind, and to see it on the computer, to me, isn’t art…  it’s almost no different than watching binary code float across the screen.  But seeing the performances live (and in person) is something I get butterflies in my stomach for every single time.  It’s the only time the show comes to life and it’s the “purpose” behind writing the show.  I didn’t write the shows just to look neat on the computer.  I wrote them for the students and the live performance of the art form.

So yeah…  that was me sorta venting due to the fact that through 8 seasons of writing drill and over 60 shows designed, after asking every single director for a video of the shows I wrote I’ve only received about a dozen actual videos and maybe a dozen more that popped up on YouTube.  The rest are kinda just out there somewhere on some band director’s bookshelf.  :\   Sorry, but I think that sending the designer a video of the band performing should be mandatory.  And no, I’m not going to take some people’s advice and put a note in my contract that says “I require a video of the performance at the end of the season”.  That’s just dumb, in my opinion.  That almost sounds like me saying “I require you march the drill you are paying me to write for your band”.  ;)  haha!   To me, it makes just as little sense to not send me a video as it would be to pay me to write the drill and not march the drill.

Anyway – back on topic…  what were we talking about?   Oh yeah, my website.  :)

Keeping the site HTML based was a must.  About two years ago, I got some e-books and read a bunch of websites and forums about Flash.  I am definitely a fan of Flash sites and many of the cool animations they use…  especially on the menus – sound effects too.  love it!  But when I looked at my website and what it was for, I didn’t think twice – my site would never be Flash-based.  Why?  Because it doesn’t need to be.  It needs to be fast loading, easy to navigate through and has what people want and need to see.  More and more people are “converting” to Flash websites and it’s actually, in my personal opinion, making it limiting for people who visit those sites. Flash is slow and many computers (especially school computers) block Flash.   Although my video samples on my website are in fact Flash (.flv) videos, they are still fast loading and as far as I know, work on every system without problems.

I focus the majority of the time spent on my website working on the presentation and layout to appeal most to those who I want to visit the site rather than for me.  Personally, I’d wanna add a lot more…  a bunch of cool Flash animations, revolving door/reveal windows when you roll over images.  Heck, I’ve got one seriously awesome website in my head that I would love to design, but I don’t have the time or need for it.  But that’s just a “me” thing, and maybe I’ll do it someday, if the timing is right and I actually sit down and figure out how to actually create it all.  :)   But what’s there now is for you guys and from the feedback I get, it’s made most everyone happy.  (Not everyone likes my drill or wants to hire me, but that’s ok…  it’s just art and business…)

Which then brings me to the whole iPhone/Android mobile site topic.  I am not an iPhone user.  I used to want to be one, but I am now the proud owner of the Motorola Droid and still with Verizon.  I couldn’t be happier with the phone and it’s the best phone I’ve have to date.  I can talk more about the phone, but I’ll save that for another blog.  :)   And I have been a 1st generation iPod Touch user since the day they were released (literally) back in October of 2007.  My iPod Touch is my all-time favorite gadget and I would usually leave the apartment with just my iPod and computer, leaving my cell phone at home.  (no-one calls me anyway- except when I’m working).  Anyway…  I randomly visited my website on the iPod just to see how it worked, and it was kinda neat.  My site looked good and had all the stuff it needed…..  except…  the videos didn’t work.  :\   Hmm…  That’s not cool.  It was at that time I realized that the iPods/iPhones couldn’t run Flash.   Although Adobe is supposed to be coming out with Flash 10.1 this year and enable Flash for mobile devices, at that time I was just kinda bummed that it didn’t work.  I figured that after some time that Flash would soon be available for the iPhones and it wouldn’t be a big deal.  iPhones were made to be able to browse the web just fine and all that…  but with there being so much detail and complexity in it the way it was then, a mobile site just seemed necessary.  (then again, I never really cared if I could view my site on my iPod Touch).

So, about 15 months go by and we’re at TMEA in 2009 – the time I was talking about earlier.  And noticing how many people I interacted with were on these touch-screen mobile devices.  After following Apple a bit more during that time, and also converting to a Macbook as my primary computer (loving it, by the way), I ultimately decided that since reading Flash isn’t really something Apple wants to implement in their products, why not work around it?  :)  So, last February, I created a quasi mobile site just for iPhone users, and it had video samples in a format that was readable on the iPhone.   I didn’t tell that many people about it…  I just did it to do it.  :)

But things are a tad different a year later.  Not so much with evolutions in technology, but with the introduction of the iPad…   me getting an Android mobile phone that can’t play flash videos either, nor the formatted videos for the iPhone site.  Only YouTube (for now).   I know that the iPad attracted many people that are in the music and marching business and I also know that, just like the iPhone and iPod Touch, Flash on it will be limited.

So…   I went ahead and did a quick redesign of my mobile site in anticipation for TMEA, and also to have something that will work on an iPad when everyone goes to pick one up in a couple months.   Also, it is optimized for Android phones too, giving multiple options of video samples according to which device is being used.  It won’t work on ALL mobile phones…  but more than likely any touch-enabled mobile device.

The funniest part about doing this is that I did it in about 4 hours a couple nights ago.  I was in need of a break from work and shoulda gotten up and done something else…  but I was looking at my calendar and thinking about TMEA…  and it reminded me about the mobile site I developed last year.  I knew it was kinda simple and cheap.   But like I said earlier, I like to stay ahead of the curve.   I may or may not be the only drill designer out there with a mobile site and many people might think “That’s because it’s dumb and no-one cares if you have a mobile site.”  Well, I’ll give that about 6 months and we’ll see.   When I first did this last year, one friend actually told me they thought it was a waste to do the mobile site.   I didn’t disagree or argue with them, and I could see what they meant at the time.  But now, I think it’s almost a must.  Many will disagree with these statements, but I think that the way technology is going and the direction of the tablet computers coming out and iPhones/Android phones being such a hot item now a days, and a device that many people can’t put down for two seconds, I think it’s almost a given that I should create a site specifically for those devices.

It’s no big deal… just a few hours on photoshop and encoding some videos…  I also had to add just a bit of code to my homepage for the mobile device detection and auto-redirect… piece o’ cake!

Well…   I guess that’s about all I have right now.  Again, if you are using iPhone/iPod Touch or one of the cool new Android phones, please test out my site and let me know what you think.  I don’t really need the feedback, but if something doesn’t work or doesn’t work right, it’d be good to know.  cool? word!

Okay…  time for bed… at 8:50Am.   hooray!  :P

Good “night”

P.S. – A screen capture of the mobile site, for those who might be interested.

So, I used to be one of those who had a xanga journal.   Is that still even around?   What about Myspace?  Are people still using that too?  :P

I haven’t gone and done all the edits, but in the coming days I am going to update this blog with about 40+ copy/paste blogs that I saved from my xanga dating back to 2004.  (I really don’t know how many…   probably not quite 40.)  I lost a lot of blogs I wrote from the time between closing my xanga account and opening this wordpress blog because I was using Myspace back then.  I don’t do the myspace thing anymore and I failed to save those blogs before I closed the account.   Whatever…  no big deal.

I plan to pre-date them so they all are posted here according to the dates they were originally written.   And the only reason I’m mentioning this is because…    I guess there is no real reason. I don’t care if people wanna go back and wonder what George talked about in 2004 or if they don’t.  But it’d be kinda neat to read stuff from back in the day.   Even for me.  I made a personal choice to not go back and read any of those blogs…  not even for fun.   I may re-read them someday, but it’s not that important to me…   it’s all in the past.

You might ask, why are you doing this, George?  I guess all I can think of is….  because I want to.  *shrug*  I was going through archived files and folders on my backup hard drive and I found a folder named “xanga 04-06″.  I forgot I exported those and saved them.  Then I thought, why keep them on the computer when I can just add them to my blog?  I suppose it’s a bit of a hassle, but it’s just a few copy/pastes.  Easy!  :)

So, if anyone is actually interested…  or if you are really bored and need to pass the time…  check back here in about a week (I will blog about it) and I will add blogs that date back to november 2004.   I know that’s not like a long long time ago or anything crazy…   but for me, that was the beginning of my online journal writing experience.  Kinda neat to see where it all started.  :)

Okay…  I’m literally running on empty right now.  Going on 36 straight hours of being awake and I need to sleep!   There’s NO way I’m going to put up with being tired tomorrow night.  The final season of LOST is premiering and I still have to watch the last 8 episodes of season 5 to lead into the premiere.   I did the same thing last year and it worked out great.  :)   I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited for Groundhog Day!  (….which is one of the most fun movies ever made).   I’m actually too tired and excited to talk about any LOST stuff…  theories and whatnot.  I’m just going to ride the excitement and see where it takes me for the next 18 or so weeks.   LOST is my favorite show on TV right now and I’m looking forward to seeing how jacked this series ends!   You know, if you’re a fan, that it’s gonna end completely jacked.  JJ, Damon and Carlton – you guys and amazing!  Thanks for entertaining me and confusing the hell out me and all the rest of us LOST fans for the past 5+ years.

completely random!  (and I do mean…  com-plete-ly!)

I just saw this today and couldn’t help but be amazed and somewhat bewildered. It’s fun though…  in a totally nerdy way.

I was supposed to post a different blog here, but I haven’t actually finished it yet.  :)  I was writing it a couple days ago and I put it aside as I started backing up my computer files and documents to prepare for my big hard drive swap. I went ahead and did something I know I didn’t absolutely need to at this point in time, and went out and got myself a hard drive upgrade for my macbook.

My computer has a 250GB and I upgraded only to 320GB.  I know that’s not much of an upgrade and some people will probably do the 500GB…  but I don’t need that much space ON my computer, especially since I already have a 250GB external, another 80GB external and with this new install I’m adding another 250GB external.  almost 600GB in external HD space.

psh…  that’s kinda ridiculous, eh?

I think that a lot of people think that “bigger is better” or “more is better” with the HD space.  Well, not me.  I prefer to keep it as low as possible. Who uses that much space anyway?  Well, not me.  I use about 2GB of space per year on my drill design…  my iTunes folder is the kicker at around 90GB.  But music is my life and I stock up on all I can.  But past that, a few applications and my web design work – I maybe use about 140GB total at any time. But then I have thousands of photos and videos from my travels and trips around the world.  (well, I can’t really say “around the world” – just the couple countries I’ve been to. )  But I would rather not store them on my computer. In 2006, my old Dell Inspiron crashed…  I lost everything on it and that included so many albums of photos and videos that to this day, I don’t know exactly what was on there.  I never really made a big deal out of backing up my data, but from that point on I don’t mess around.

Now a days, I’m perhaps overly protective, but that’s mostly just for my work related data than anything else.  I lost ALL of my 2002-2005 drill files, and that includes some of what I would consider some of my best work.  I was fortunate to be able to recover a majority of those files from e-mail attachements when I would send them to Mitch….   but I’m still missing a ton. I don’t know if you remember, but back in around 2002-2003, Yahoo mail only allowed something like 4MB of disc space. Around 2004 they upped it to 10MB and them immediately to 100MB a few months later.  I forget.  But I did not sign up for Gmail until the fall of 2004, but by then I had already had to delete dozens of emails/files to make room in my yahoo mailbox.  It never occurred to me to open another yahoo mail account, because I never thought that deleting those e-mails were eventually deleting my only “backup” of them.

Now a days, I have it covered is more ways than I think anyone would care to go through the trouble.  First there’s my backup externals.  I keep a complete archive of all of my drill files from over the years, organized in folders on all of my externals AND on my computer.  Not only that, I have an 8GB flash drive that is only for my drill and I keep that in a container on my desk.  I keep about 50% of my files/apps and drill on my own website server, which is a great extra benefit to having a website.  And then I have Dropbox, where I have 2.5GB of storage and I only keep my current year’s drill in that.

If you don’t know what Dropbox is, it’s an application that allows you to sync a folder online from your computer.  That way you can share through the web, or simply log on from another location with your account and access it from that computer.  In the event that my computer gets stolen and I lose everything on it, I will have my drill backed up on that account and I can access it from a different computer or location.

I guess using dropbox or my website file manager isn’t much of a difference…   but again, I’ve become overly protective about my files and I would rather save it all to more places than less.   By this time next week, I will have my entire drill archive backed up on my computer, 3 different external hard drives, a flash drive and a protected folder in my website file manager.  All of my photos are backed up on all of my externals and not on my computer anymore.  My music will eventually be backed up on my other 250GB once I get it outta my laptop, but right now it’s just on my computer and the other 250GB.

One thing I learned over the years, and mostly from my experience in 2006 – you can never be too careful with your computer files, especially if your life and work is on it.  I don’t particularly prefer to have so much on my computer, which is why I said earlier that I prefer to keep as little as possible on there so it’s not a huge loss if something goes kaput!  I also do full-system cleaning about 3 times per year (this one is my 2nd in 6 months) and I think it’s a heck of a lot easier to worry about 140GB rather than closer to 800GB.

Quick note – the new iMacs are friggin’ sweet.  I want one.  But they come with a 1TB hard drive (standard).  What would I do with all that space?  What does anyone do with 1TB of disc space?  How on earth could any casual computing human being honestly fill that disc up with data that isn’t 90% illegally downloaded videos or files?  How?  I would really like to know who’s job/work requires THAT much disc space.  Not only that, if you did fill it up completely…  however the heck that is possible…   what would you do to back it all up?  What if it crashes?   What do you do WHEN it crashes.  ;)  Obviously, I would never hope for that for anyone…   but seriously folks at Apple and the rest of the computing world – take it easy!  we don’t NEED that much disc space.  We just need fast processors, large monitors, mice with multiple programmable buttons and wireless keyboards that have number pads.  Lets take a break, because even with my 140GB of disc usage, I have everything on my computer I would ever want or need in my life, and I would have to try very, very hard to fill up the other 110GB on this smaller HD.  (I guess this is where someone chimes in with the whole growing popularity of the solid state drives. )

I think I forgot to mention this, but why did I just go on a rant about disc space and not needing a whole lot, yet I’m upgrading to a larger HD?  Well, simple.  The HD that I use now is something like a standard Mac/Toshiba something-something 5200 RPM stock hard drive.  My new HD is the western digital scorpio black 7200 RPM performance hard drive.  From all of the benchmarks and reviews I’ve read and seen over the past several months since I began researching this, it isn’t a whole lot different from the western digital scorpio blue (5400) regarding speed.  But it is certain that it’s a heck of a lot faster than the stock drive I have now. (or so I’ve read).  I don’t really know – yet!  But I will in a few days.   I just need something that will be able to read/write just a bit faster, to help me speed up some save/load times with work stuff and photoshop projects.  I know that a lot of what makes the computer faster isn’t just one thing, but several including the processor and the RAM.  I’m pretty set with a 2.4 C2D and 4GB RAM.  Now I get a faster HD (with the added bonus of some extra room) and can hopefully get a better experience out of my everyday work life,whether it be with web/graphic design, or the drill design.  :)

I’m looking forward to this new install.  I love the feeling of a computer when there’s nothing but the bare essentials, and I get to rebuild it with the applications I want and really need.  Every year I download a crapload of apps and junk that I install and never use.  I eventually delete it, but some of them I have on here and think “oh, I’ll use that sometime”.  Well, now I can just install it whenever I actually wanna use it.  Which might be never for some of them.

Okay… I’m just rambling and sounding like a wannabe techie. I really don’t know all there is to know about computers, and every time I go to forums discussing this and asking questions, I get replies from the most ridiculously hard core computer gurus who treat me as if I’m an idiot for using “just a laptop” and that I should have a desktop PC, with a full tower and multiple internal HDs.  umm… sure!

It really feels good to have a job that relies on the computer and not have to get the biggest and best stuff on the market.  I can save my money and buy cooler stuff – like flights to Hawaii or eating out at Cheesecake Factory a couple extra times.  Yumm!!