NEW SITE

It’s been a bloody long year. New album. New films. Moved house. And now a new website. Well, it’s not exactly new. This site has been in my head for ages. You know, a net thingy that incorporates and builds on whatever I have done and will do. Kinda like underwear really – keeps all the important stuff in one place.

Chuckle.

Anyway, here it is. It’s not the finished thing of course. But these things are never truly finished. The main site is the place you’d arrive if you use the domain URL ‘peteteo.com’. It works as a navigation portal to jump from one sub-site to another. As of right now, we have connected to it this brand new blog, the old Rustic Living site, a new guest book and a funky news section that (through the marvels of RSS technology) puts out all my newsie bits to prove to mum that I’m not just smoking pot instead of doing my homework.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll also be adding other sub-sites to the growing sprawl. Such as a new free download area. On it, you’d not only find stuff to download on bittorrent but also smaller things that I can let you download directly from my server without bankrupting me. Meanwwhile, the old bittorent free download area is still working (here) – though it might not be for very long. In truth, you won’t miss it much once the new version is up. It’ll be a whole lot cooler.

And then we have the new ‘Television’ album site. The reason why it isn’t up right now is this – it shares the same freakily cool video technology that we’re basing the new music video on. This means the project site can’t be worked on till the video is almost ready. Still, having seen the test sequences, it should be worth the wait. Please keep your ears peeled over the next few months.

I’m also working on getting the Songwriters’ Round a piece of its own online real estate. This is not expected to be difficult and should take no more than a week to code the basic elements. I’ll get to it when I have a bit more time to think. In the longer term, it’d be lovely to be able to put in place a multi-lateral online network of grassroot singer songwriter groups and affliliates from all over Malaysia. I see tonnes of benefit for everyone. So let me see what I can do in the months ahead.

Finally, there is this new blog. I’ve been frustrated with the design and functionality of the old Movable Type blog for a while now. Although it worked well enough, it was kinda clunky and inelegant. So I sat down after we wrapped production on the record and came up with this new one. Based on WordPress, it is like a grown-up version of the old blog. It’s slimmer, less cluttered, has ajax technology dripping all over it (try posting a comment to see it work) and has native audio and video streaming capability (check out the preview section). Okay, it’s content-light for the moment – but I’ll be transferring everything from the old blog soon. Still, it’s amazing how good this one feels. It looks simpler but does far more than the old one. A triumph of good design. Or so I immodestly claim. Smirk.

Anyway, my thanks here must go to Studio Voxel for coming up with the basic template for the site. But mostly, let me take a deep bow in Dan Johansson’s direction. He is the friend who helped me set up the old free download site in the first place. And his help in the last few weeks has frankly saved the site from going to shit. I owe this uber coder in Minneapolis big time and look forward to finally meeting him in real life. Till then, please help me thank Dan by leaving your Oscar blurbs below.

As for me? I need to get my ass get back to flogging records.

Laters.