Subdomains: Using them to shorten an url
Since I started www.untidymusic.com I’ve written over 450 articles, some of these articles are about different projects.
Topics include guitar tuition, theory, recording, mixing, reviews etc.
A problem though with writing in this way is length of url.
For example if I wished to write down an url it’s a bit of pain if I wish to email I have to find said url, copy it and then paste it into my email.
The soloution seemed to be to use a service such as Tiny Url but these urls are hard to remember.
My solution is to use the sub domain service available in my hosting package.
I must point out that I have unlimited subdowmains with my provider ‘Host Gator’.
I’m writing them here as a way of being able to find them and also to maybe give people a solution to the problem I had myself.
So these are my sub domains with description.
backingtracks.untidymusic.com – this is a collection of backing tracks for playing guitar solos to. These backing tracks are currently free to download and a recorded in a variety of keys and styles. Recorded in my home studio using different production techniques.
barrechorddictionary.untidymusic.com – basically it’s a barre chord dictionary created using flash and photoshop. At the moment it covers all barre chords based on the most common four major and minor barre chords.
chordbook.untidymusic.com – Online chord book with chord spellings, chord box and photographs. Also piano chord is shown as well.
masteringplugins.untidymusic.com – Expanding list of free vst plugins.
scales.untidymusic.com – another facility from my online guitar lessons. Basically the theory and practical exercises and information for scales.
theory.untidymusic.com – as above online lessons open for free to my students and anyone else who is looking to advance their knowledge of music.
transpose.untidymusic.com – free online tool created using Flash and Photoshop. Designed to help with transposing chords but can be used to learn key signatures, chords within key and also can be used to learn modes and relative minors.
vstplugins.untidymusic.com – all vst plugin articles on the site.
Keyword Links
I’ve added a new plugin to my website www.untidymusic.com
It’s called BlogMechanics KeywordLink and it basically allows you to create links using keywords.
Install onto your server as normal in your plugins folder.
This means FTP uploading.
If you don’t know what that means you’ll to learn.
You’ll now need to activate the newly installed plugin as usual.
Find your plugin.
Look for BM KeywordLink
Once found you’ll find this screen…
It’s all quite simple.
Add a new link: Choose your keyword and add your link, including ‘ http:// ‘ you can also use the radio boxes to add extra options.
It’s a really cool way to link up sections of interest throughout your site.
An example on my site:
I have articles about theory and practical uses in music.
If I want to link to a post about ‘C Major’ in and article about ‘Key’s Of C Major’ I’d have to insert that as a link.
Sometimes I think about that later in the day, sometimes I forget altogether.
With this plugin I can use keywords to have the ‘C Major’ post linked with every instance of the keyword ‘C Major’ within the ‘Keys of C Major’ article.
Link – HTML
The following is the code needed to create a link using Html,
<a href=” – this is the opening code,
Replace the httpl://www.go-nowhere.com/link.html with your own link.
Make sure you’ve closed the link by adding “ after you’ve finished.
The next bit of code to look at is the,
target=”_parent” – This decides how the link will work, wether it opens within the window or opens a new window.
target=”_blank” - _parent opens within the window, _blank opens a new window.
>Link Title< - this part of the html is the part you see in your page, Link Title can be replaced with your own text. Don’t forget the > and the < surrounding the text.
Finally you need to close the html with,
/a>.
If you try this code and it doesn’t work then please look over your html and check for typing errors or missed code.
Image Tag – HTML
The below is actually a picture of the code needed to insert an image, you’ll need to type it out.
The code explained:
<img src= – This is the opening tag.
/> – This is the closing tag. Look to the very end /> – comes after “87″
“http://www.imagelocation.com/1234.jpg” – This is the location of your image file – if you’ve uploaded to picasa or similar you’ll need to locate your file and enter it inbetween the ” ” – don’t forget the ‘http’.
alt =”description” - In this part you can add a description of your picture, descriptions can be anything you want.
width=”255″ – Hopefully this is self explanatory, the height is in pixels.
height=”87″ – As above should be self explanatory.
The three tags above alt, width and height, are all voluntary.
Another tag to be aware of is the “border” tag,
border=”0″ - Creates a border around your image, insert this befire the width and height tags.
If you to add a link to your image then you need to do the following,
The extra information is highlighted.
The opening tag <a href=“ – this is where you add your link,
In the example our link is http://www.go-nowhere.com/link.php change this to your link address.
Don’t forget to close the link by adding the “
target=”_blank” - This state can be changed, it decides wether the link should open in the same window or open a new window.
target=”_parent” – the above tag “_blank” opens a new window, “_parent” - opens in the same window.
</a> – this tag is imporant and needs to be placed after your image closing tag />
Building a website
It’s been a while since my last post on here, my intention was to use this blog to update regularily on how my music recording website was shaping up.
2 Months in and it’s building up nicely. Lot’s of articles written by myself on a variety of subjects to do with music and recording.
Recently added free backing tracks, free midi drum patterns and a loops download service.
The reasoning behind this wa to drive more traffic to the site using stuff I created for teaching that needed a home and could possibly be of use to others.
I’ve decided that a lot of recorded material that I never used or intended to use will also be recyled into loops that sometime in the future will also be available to download.
To be honest I originally started the website as a dumping ground for this kind of thing and as a teaching tool for my students.
But now I’ve got it in my mind to make it a little bit more than that.
So far traffic is up to an average of 220 visitors per day – not sure how good or bad that is on a site running over 2 months but it’s a start but it seems to have flatlined a bit.
Anyway onwards and upwards…
Audio player plugin for wordpress
The simplest I’ve found is the 1 Pixel Out plugin.
Easy to install,
Download -
extract to plugins in your wordpress plugins directory,
(wordpress – wp-content- plugins)
Upload to server.
In wordpress activate Audio Player in plugins.
Add this code to your post,
If the mp3 is hosted on another site you’ll need to supply the address for that,
Done!
When I gave up smoking…
I got busy ha ha.
No seriously I had to occupy myself so much for the first couple of weeks – which in itself doesn’t really help.
Nervous energy + no nicotine = bundle of tasmanian devil grrrrrrrr
Anyway I kept it under control and after two weeks, with the help of patches – I wore them for 4 days and had to stop – they were like some weird tongue numbing speed.
Honestly I believed I could feel them working through my skin.
Anyways,
This was October last year,
It had to be done, don’t get me wrong I love to smoke, and if I thought I’d enjoy it again I wonder start in a shot.
But that’s the point, I wasn’t enjoying it anymore.
If I tried to sing I ended up hacking my guts up.
And I’d started to get bored with the ritual.
It helped that I don’t know anyone who smokes, which is a BIG help.
I have smoked since – twice – both times I threw the thing away after a couple of drags.
Boredom with cigarettes – that’s the way to quit.
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