Our Dad

Jazz Funk Music

Technical Info: Building a FREE Website

Guitar lessons Chord Scales

Here is a guide to putting your own stuff on the web at low cost:

Facebook allows you to add photos, videos, mange chats, announce gigs, and all for free. The only problem is that no-one can see the Facebook group unless they actually '''join''' Facebook. so, it's not "open access". Soon the whle world will join Facebook anyway, but until then,.. the Our Dad website was put together using these free services.

I used www.infogami.com to build these pages (ourdad.infogami.com). Using a "Wiki" makes it is easy to update the site from anywhere, share the editing with others, and make links to new pages.
Now I needed a domain name, and that is not free. But everything else here is free. I used UK2.net and it allows me to "redirect" people from '''http://www.our-dad.com''' to '''http://ourdad.infogami.com'''
at this point I have the ability to edit these pages from ANY browser on AMY computer in ANY place in the world. Because the content and tools are all stored "in the net" I need no software, cannot lose the content, and do not need to back it up. A simple menu system for inter-page navigation is imitated by using the same links at the top of each page.

First, because the wiki server does not store images, I used www.freeimagehosting.net to store the images in a separate place and
then I built a personal wiki, swimage.infogami.com, just to remember where all my images are "on the net", nothing is stored on my laptop, so i can change things even if I'm using an Internet Cafe in Istanbul. (Well, it could happen!).
However, recently I replaced most of the above images with Picasa (Google) Photo albums. This allows you a much better way to store 1GB (1000 BIG pictures) of pictures for free, and refer to logical albums. See Google. For example if you "'''V'''iew" the logo on this page, the graphic file is actually stored in Facebook.
Next I want an internet calendar that the band members can share, so we can track our gigs. Google Calendar does that of course, but also allows you to embed the live calendar as a frame within your own web pages. Great! So next I embedded Our Dad's calendar into my wiki pages.
Then I added some Videos to YouTube and found that all I really needed on my front page was embedded Google Photo Albums and embedded YouTube Video Player.

Now we need to get in touch with people! You can "socialize" your stuff using MySpace and Facebook and Our Media and MSN Spaces
MySpace also allowed me to store my Videos! The advantage of MySpace is that it is SO EASY to share music, but the trouble with MySpace is that most of the advertisers (and a few of the users!) are a bit "tacky".
Now I want visitors to my site to be able to subscribe to newsletters. Google to the rescue, you can use Google Groups to run the bulletin boards for members and fans - see News Subscriptions where I have embedded input boxes for subscription to Our Dad's private and open Google Groups.
then I got (free of course) pages for Our Dad and for Steve Weeks at GarageBand where you can upload your mp3 files. Having done that, add the '''iLike''' application to your Facebook profile. After about 2 weeks, the music on '''garageband''' becomes visible to '''iLike''', which then allows you to dedicate songs to people and add your songs to messages in the Facebook world! Great! Now the good stuff is (after a effort & patience) available directly in Facebook just like MySpace - so the users can have your songs embedded in their own pages - thus (within their closed network) '''they''' are socialising '''your''' music in the true and natural contemporary viral fashion.

I then registered licenses for my shareable but controlled music and other content at Creative Commons
at last I uploaded my lovely music, somewhere spacious that people can download from. Here's the Internet Archive - where you can make stuff available in streaming and mp3 and orbis format - with the licenses embedded.
Finally, to help people find your free legally protected stuff, use commoncontent.org - where you can register shareable content in a catalog

That little lot could keep you busy for a whole weekend. :-)

last updated 10 months ago #