Along with a slightly new design, we have added official MySpace profile links for your PhuseBox profiles. This will help you stay connected to friends on not only PhuseBox, but other sites as well.




To add your mySpace link to your profile, goto your profile editor and enter your mySpace URL link.

Enjoy!

{nt}

Usually, I try not to cross promote my other projects on PhuseBox, but this one was just too exciting for me to pass up.

Today, The Tennessean has an article about my newest startup, PodPoint.net. Very nice.

There is also another article about "godcasting," or rather, churches and ministries that podcast. Both are good reads.

{nt}

Penguins cannot pick up oranges.

{nt}

Have you ever been to Starbucks and order a tall drink and they give you a venti just for the heck of it? Those are the good days.

So here I sit... enjoying a venti White Mocoa Frap...

{nt}

So, did the Wicked Witch of the West ever take a shower?

Shares
of H&R Block fell on Friday after the tax preparation and software
provider admitted it had miscalculated its own state income taxes,
understating its liabilities by $32 million as of April 30, 2005.

[full story]

Note to self... stay away from the lime green block...
{nt}

So, here is a productivity tip to people that seem to live in their inbox...

I have had my mail client to check for email every minute... Therefore, whenever someone sent me an email, I got it almost instantly. The problem is, I check the email as soon as it shows up in my inbox... I am usually working on something at the time. So, I am working, then I see a new email and I check it... Then, I either answer that email right then (stopping whatever I needed to be doing in the first place) OR I would read it and decide to answer it later... which I would not do.

I found that after setting my mail client to check for mail every hour instead of every minute, I was more productive, not being inturrupted by the red number by my email icon... So now I check/reply to email hourly instead of sparatically throughout my work day.

It is all about productivity... and for some reason, it makes me happy.

{nt}

Thanks to everyone that left me remarks and messages wishing me a happy birthday... it was great!

This is my new toy from my parents...




Very nice... I also got several gifts from my fiance which I like very much... my gifts... not my fiance... I love her.

Also, today, I got a birthday cake from all the TLJ people... (thanks Maria)!

{nt}

So, yes, today I turn big 22. It is not that much different than 21 though. You remember when you were younger and every birthday seemed to be a milestone and you would think to yourself with a prideful bliss that you were one year older... yeah, that does not happen anymore.

I wish I could be in Tennessee with my family and fiance for this day... maybe next year.

Thank you to everyone that has already left remarks or sent messages to me. It is much appreciated!


{nt}

So, today is Tuesday. Yes, I know, I know, it is Valentine's Day... everyone knows that, so I will spare you the "Happy Valentine's Day" or "This is the worst day of the year..." Luckily, I have a fiance... and I sent her roses and lillies if you must know...




But, Tuesday also means that Apple updates the iTunes store... well, as part of my Tuesday routine, I like to check out the new albums... and now new TV series that pop up on there.

Much to my surprise, I realized that I actually woke up in 1989... That's right, the first season of Saved By The Bell is downloadable on iTunes now.

Some of you are too young to remember, but before all the shows like Dawson's Creek and the OC, there was Saved by the Bell... You had to get your daily fix... back in the day, after several seasons, it was shown at least twice a day on the WB and TBS... etc.

Anyways, 17 years later, here I sit, nearing an embarassing level of excitement over the new iTunes addition. Hmmm... I think I will go visit my childhood now... oh, and... happy valentine's day! I love you, Rach!

{nt}

So, I guess I am facing my first blizzard right outside my window... and there are no lizards in the blog, it just went well with blizzards...



Photo from NASA of blizzard


Ok, that looks like a hurricane. So basically, I am in a hurricane of snow... but thus goes New York City...

{nt}

For those of you that are into investing and have some extra money around, now would be an excellent time to invest in Apple (AAPL). Seriously.

{nt}

Today is my brother's birthday... Make sure that you go to his PhuseBox page and wish him a happy birthday... even if you do not know him!

Happy Brithday, bro!



thumbs up for the birthday boy!

{nt}

Happy Birthday Brett!

I really do feel sorry for people that bought Google's stock yesterday... I told you it was unstable...

{nt}

Here is an interesting article for your guys that are interested in number theory... It is called Benford's Law and it explains the dynamics and the phenomenon with the frequency of the number "1"... ok, so call me a dork.

{nt}

Ok, so I had to let everyone know about this website that I have been addicted to lately... it is called Pandora.

Basically, if you like music, of any kind, you will love this site... especially if you love finding new artists that you have never heard before. Think of it as a radio station that knows exactly what music you like and plays it...

Here is what they are all about:

"Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most
fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical
attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together
these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song -
everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation,
orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of
singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or
what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records -
it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Over the past 5 years, we've carefully listened to the songs
of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure -
and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a
time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include
all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around
the world."

Seriously, try it out. First, select an artist or a song that you like, and the player will begin to play something you may like. If you like it, click the album art and give it a thumbs up, and if you don't, give it a thumbs down. The system will begin to learn what you like... not like, what artists are similar, but actually the "genetic" makeup of the song and why you like it. It may take a while to learn your tastes, but when it does, you WILL BE AMAZED as the player starts playing music that you REALLY like, but you never heard of before.

This is really one of the best websites I have ever found!

PANDORA

Everyone, remember to go to iTunes today and purchase the live Passion EP... it was recorded at the Passion conference a few weeks ago in Nashville... It rocks and it is only like $5...





purchase the live Passion EP on iTunes

Do you think that Bob Barker ever gets stopped in a grocery store for a pricecheck?

"True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance." –Henry David Thoreau

I have learned a lot about friendship during the last few weeks. I have learned that even the people in your life that you think are the most reliable can turn their back on you in an instant without any logical reason. I have learned that no matter how hard you try to resolve things, some things still may not be resolved. I have learned that sometimes, you have to go through life with mystery, not really knowing what is going on. I have learned that the people that have to convince you that you can trust them are often the ones that you cannot trust in life. I have learned that some friends are opportunists, taking what they can get for now and then moving on when something better comes. I have learned that friends sometimes wear masks, and you are unable to see their true identity until conflict arises. I guess trust is sometimes overratted.

{nt}

I have been in Tennesse since just before Christmas and have not really
had much time to blog lately. In addition, I was trying to get this new
server thing solved so PhuseBox could get back online. All that to say,
here is the "Catch-Up" blog, where I will take you through the
entertaining events of the past 2 weeks:


First, there was Christmas. I had a pretty good Christmas... visited
family, gave gifts, that sort of thing... When Rachael and I exchanged
gifts, I was very surprised. After opening about five different boxes
that contained an even smaller box inside, I finally got to the wrapped
gift. Having no idea what I was about to receive, I ripped the paper
and, there in my hands, sat a video iPod... and not just the 30 GB,
no... the 60 GB. Wow. I did not see that one coming. It was the best
gift I got this year and the most surprising. My fiance must love me
very much... hmmmm...





So then, because of my new gadget, Rachael and I got sucked into the
world of LOST. I download a few of the first episodes on iTunes and on
Christmas night, we got bored and decided to watch one... thus, it
began. Yesterday, we finally caught up to where the television show is
right now... that's right... we watched all of season 1 and half of
season 2.


Then, came New Year's. Rachael and I decided last month that we were
going to through a New Year's party. And so we did. And it was good. It
was a cocktail-less cocktail party... everyone dressed up and
everything. It took us all day to decorate... and even then, the light
strands that we hung from the ceiling kept falling down, but all in
all, it was a great party... And we even rung in the New Year with
sparkling grape juice... mmmm.



the decorations


glowing orb of light (redundant?)


















Next, PASSION. Passion is a worship event/conference that was held in
Nashville, TN this year. Awesome. Enough said. Photos below:
















I guess you could say I have had a pretty nice time over the holidays. I leave tomorrow night to go back to New York City... all is well. I am just looking forward to the wedding in May...

Until Next Time...

{nt}

I'm off to Passion '06 in Nashville... It's going to be good.

So, for those of you that are interested in the details of PhuseBox going offline for so long... here it is...

December 17th was the day the skies went black... okay, so it was not that dramatic, but it was bad. I got onto the internet and made my usual sweep over all the sites I check frequently... only, this time it was different. This time, instead of the PhuseBox homepage, I was greeted with a nice message from my hosting company that informed me that my account had been suspended. Suspended? I did not do anything. And to add to the problem, this message (which I am sure many of you saw) also said that information was sent to my email about the reason my account was suspended and how to get it back)...

*Nathan checks email* NOTHING. At that point a grabbed a paper bag to help with my breathing. I tried to contact my hosting company to figure out why this had happened. And to make a long story short, they tell me that my account was suspended for taking 40% of the server load. Hmmm... and they shut down my site without any notice whatsoever? This has got to be the best hosting company of all time!

IPOWER or IPOWERWEB (I don't know why they go by two names...) They are the hosting company that I was with. They are the ones that shut down PhuseBox and did not give me access to the databases or files. So even when I finally purchased a brand new server for another company, I was not even able to tranfer the database and photos over. They did not play nice with me, expecially after I told them that I needed my files and database because I was going to another server company.

 Now, I must say, when I started PhuseBox last June, I did not expect it to get this big. I started out on what is called a shared server. That means that my site and all my files were on a server with anywhere from 10-30 other websites. These hosting plans are dirt cheap... I think I paid $99 for the year. Once PhuseBox really started to grow, I knew that I needed to get my own server... not to mention, I wanted to do some things that a shared server host would not allow.

And thus, with PhuseBox going down on December 17th, I was forced to purchase a brand new server from ServerBeach (great company... I have been pleased so far). Now I can control anything I need and I will not get shut down because my site is too big.

After many phone calls and emails to iPower (my old host), I was able to convince them to give me access to my files and my database. Here lied the next problem... transfering 50,000+ image files to a new server. It was not a small task, and it is actually still happening as I type.

I also have to set up a few other things on the server before everything will function perfectly again (that is why image uploading is disabled currently)...

All in all, I call this my 12-day-headache caused by iPower... but PhuseBox is back... and should be faster and has MUCH room for growth. And now, I can add more features since I have more freedom on the server.

The moral of this story is do not use iPower hosting... or any other shared hosting company when your website gets to large... that and find a fiance that is loving and understanding when you have to work on getting websites to work...

It is about time, huh?


PhuseBox has been down for 12 days now. I have heard that some of you
are going through PhuseBox withdraw. You may now end your support
groups and return to your computer screen. First of all, I would like
to apologize for this unexpected downtime. Without going into too many
details, PhuseBox was taken offline WITHOUT NOTICE by our hosting
company almost two weeks ago for taking too much of the server load.
They would not reinstate our account and we were forced to look for
other options.


I am pleased to tell you that we are now on a brand new server (cue
angelic choir). You should see that the site is much faster now. In
addition, PhuseBox will now be able to expand freely without being tied
down. This will also allow for new features for PhuseBox in the coming
months.


If you have logged in since we have returned, you may have noticed many
of your photos and/or profile image may be missing. This is only
temporary. We are still trying to transfer the huge amount of image
files from our old server. They should be online shortly.


Thanks for your patience through this matter. We are happy you decided
to stick around. Again, we apologize for being gone for so long, but we
are back to stay. Take a look around the site again, it has missed you.

-{n}

PhuseBox is back online...

I will post later with details on what happened...

Photos are slowly being added and should be back online soon. Other than that, let me know if you run into any major problems...

-Nathan