HURRY UP FEDEX


Update: SERIOUSLY?! IT HASN'T ALREADY BEEN DELIVERED YOU IDIOTS!! OTHERWISE I WOULD'VE RUN TO THE FRONT DOOR LIKE IT WAS CHRISTMAS AND SIGNED FOR IT >:[

Update 2: Well it's barely a delivery if you have to go pick it up... oh well, I have it now

Yeah... for the past 5 months Youtube have been sending me messages asking me to become a partner. Finally I did it and the application was just accepted before. Pretty cool stuff. I have some kind of popular videos (20-50k views) but not many subscribers (<400), which is weird because generally they want people to have at least 1000. Anyway, hopefully this'll start getting me more into the Youtube culture I've been meaning to make more videos for ages now. Seems like this will force me.

You can check out my channel at [link]

I don't expect many to read this, but I really need to tell this story, because I am incredibly shocked and amazed at what dA has done for me and I just find this story so coincidentally funny.

So, for christmas, my parents decided to buy me an external hard drive. A western digital one. Until now, I hadn't used it at all, but I needed to back some files to it so I plugged it into the laptop and proceeded to install the drivers. I noticed a file management program came with it, and usually I don't install these kinds of things, but I just decided to install it this time. So it goes through the installer, and eventually it gets to the part where it auto backs up my documents to the drive. I noticed that one of my HydroPro icons was on display on the page, and for a moment I thought that it was showing the icons as the program was backing up, but I slowly realised that the icon was embedded in the program. I went on to find that the program has used several of my icons, I wasn't credited ofcourse, but nonetheless I was completely shocked at how far my icons have spread.

This also hasn't been the first time I've stumbled across my icons on other things, once in a blue moon I come across a website that happens to use them either as navigational purposes or in their logo. But to have them embedded into a program installed on a Western Digital device, being sold all around the world, it's quite amazing, and coincidental that I happen to have purchased it. Which makes me wonder what other programs or devices include my icons with them?

Finally, I'd like to ask a question. Why are (digital) artists so uptight about having their work digitally copied across the web? I know so many people who get upset and angry over their work being copied to sites such as Flickr or others, or being used on other things. Furthermore, why do people feel the need to charge for their work to be used? I understand if it's commercial work, but if it's just work you've done as a hobby in your spare time, why do you feel the need to have to put a price on that, and limit the availability of your work? You're just ruining your chances at being found. I have always let my icons be 100% free to use in any way, and you have no idea how far it has gotten me. Sure, there will be a lot of people who take it and use it without giving anything in return, but that doesn't bother me, as it shows that people actually like and appreciate my work enough to want to use it in their own projects. But I also get a phenomenal amount of recognition, contract work, job offers, and many, many thanks over these icons. It's overwhelming. I know my icons aren't the best icons available, but having them available without any strings attached makes them far more appealing.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.

Have a great day!
Ben.

Basically, I entered my band into the Soundcheck .com.au national competition, and so far we're doing extremely well. You can view our entry here:

[link]

We got an email today congratulating us on being selected for this weeks promotional artist or something... yet to actually find out what has happened lol.

Voting starts the 17th of August. Right now we just need as many views and comments as possible. We're very behind in the competition since I only found out about it less than a week ago, and it's already almost over. But I think we can do it.

Click [link] for the prize list.

Thankyou guys, any support will be much appreciated!!!

...

I'm speechless. Has television really dropped this low? I mean, I thought we'd hit rock bottom with the five trillion series of Big Brother, but I guess it can somehow drop even further.

Well for those who didn't know I've been playing guitar for a very long time. I signed up for a new Youtube account today, where I am posting songs that I have written or covered. I already had an account before, and although I had started to get noticed with that account, I felt that all my older videos were "tainting" my new ones, and I really didn't want to delete them, as well as my account name was terribly confusing.

So, here's the first song on the new account, Rapid Delay. Note all my songs are guitar instrumentals.
[link]

Thanks for checking it out, my account is bjfguitar
[link]

So my computer gets a virus, I format, have my files backed up, all good....

EXCEPT MY NEW DOCK ICON PACK

Seriously it was the one thing I didn't backup. I thought I already had a copy of it in my backups but nope, just looking for it then and I can't find it anywhere. I had done about 6 icons, all were looking great, and very detailed.

So yeah, not too happy, but shit happens I guess...

Ben.

EDIT: I found two of the icons hidden away, so I guess that's pretty good

Well me figures I should venture back into the world of dock icons, starting with a brand new set. I think I'm going to lay the HydroPro pack to rest, since continuing it would become fairly redundant.

Instead, I've started an entirely new pack, and not giving too much away, but it won't be at a perspective angle, but rather a straight on point of view, and honestly I think it makes the desktop look that little more polished (not to mention it's a HELL of a lot easier). However that's not to say the detail will be less.

So... yeah, hope you guys look forward to that.

Also, while we're on the subject of dock icons, I've wondered if selling icons would be a good idea. Now this isn't a definite thing I'm going to do, but I'm curious as to how many people would actually purchase icons, not just for desktop use but for any type of commercial or non-commercial use. Since I'm not working at the moment I'm kinda left with no income... so yeah, I need to do something about that, lol.

--

Also, on another note, my Plumma game was entered into a state wide "competition" for best student work of the year. There was no 1st, 2nd, 3rd style placements but just placements into the top 10, which I managed to get. My work will be on display in Melbourne Museum for a whole month, and the opening will be in about.. a month. And I'm already receiving media attention, having arranged an interview already.

--

One more thing; that game I'm working on... yeah it's gonna be kick-ass lol.

--

OUT!

-1 on Nothing for me Here EXPERT!!!! Missed on the last chorus!!!

I'll get it..

I've had a Youtube account for a while now, where I record (some original) guitar instrumentals. Would be nice if DeviantArt had some sort of audio category for us musicians.

Anywho, one of my latest videos is a tribute to Metal Gear Solid's theme music: [link]

Thanks for readin'
Ben

I doubt anyone will read this, but I'm bored and I need something to do.


- Finished exams. Finally. Start year 12 orientation tomorrow

- Got Kool Skools album back. Our band Ayesha Knights won Best Instrumental Track.

- Possibility of having our band signed by Sony BMG. Spoken to the guy who owns the company.

- Doing a website for Redheads Matches. Well paying.

- Getting my guitar serviced/customised. 3 weeks and 1100 bucks.

- Dads coming home from another business trip to China on Thursday. Haven't seen him in two weeks.

- Got Guitar Hero World Tour (no, I didn't get the drums). God damn you have to be incredibly precise. MUCH more difficult than the third.

- Have great idea for a Flash game. Hoping to pull it off.



And there you go.

Newgrounds: [link]
Maxgames: [link]

I'm pretty disappointed at how it's gone. People never gave it a chance; just played the first level and that was it. But I guess that's a lesson learned, to make your games interesting from the start.

If you want to help me in the competition, please rate them. Although the deadline is in about 28 days so I think I'm going to have another crack at making a game. Just brainstorming some ideas at the moment.

Well the other day I went online and stumbled across a tech website called Black Tea Tech. The company was located in Melbourne which was even better. I looked around and found some great bargains, one of them being a 22" Samsung monitor. So seeing as I had been paid that week, I decided I was going to buy two of them. I also threw in a Logitech keyboard/mouse combo which was also a bargain.

They came today! Check out the picture here:
[link]

I got two 22" 2233BW Samsung monitors and a Logitech Cordless Desktop® MX 5500 Revolution keyboard/mouse combo.

I just hit 500 favourites and 80 thousand views on my HydroPRO Dock Icon set Thanks to everyone who supported, and is still supporting the set. These dock icons have been spread all over the net; it's an amazing feeling. If you haven't seen them, you can check them out by clicking here.

I'd highly recommend seeing the second version of the set here.

Thanks once again to everyone!

Alright, I have to tell someone why this game is terrible. I've played it for half an hour, and I had to turn it off.

Everyone knew this game was just going to be a mod of Guitar Hero 3, and I was fine with that, as long as we got to play new songs. I saw it in a catalogue today and decided I'd go and get it. I love Guitar Hero 3, so I had pretty high expectations of Aerosmith.

I plug the game in, and I notice that everything is just the same, except in different colours, which I'm fine with. I start up the first song, and start playing. Now, my number one complaint with this game is that THE SONGS ARE NOT IN SYNC WITH THE NOTES! If you have Guitar Hero xBox 360, you've probably noticed that your notes aren't completely in sync. But I have this on the Wii, and GH3 was perfectly in sync. Aerosmith, however, is so bad that it's literally unplayable. Now, I don't know if this is just for the Wii, but that's not the point. It should work on all consoles.

I decided to do the impossible and play through it anyway, hoping the song would catch up. It didn't, but I found my second complaint. When star power is activated, the clapping isn't even in timing with the song! The developers just got lazy and put in some random tempo instead of making it fit in with the song.

My third complaint is that if you try the hardest song in the game, it's far too easy. Now I wasn't expecting another Through The Fire And The Flames, but they could've at least put something challenging in the game! I passed the hardest song in the game first try, WITH the song being terribly off sync.

Now, here's my FOURTH complaint. I've probably convinced you enough by now, but just to be safe, here it is. The guest guitarist, John Perry or whatever, who puts all the hard songs on, is the same style guitar playing, and he's never doing it to a beat, it's just random playing. So, you can't really enjoy yourself playing it. His songs are probably the only ones that doesn't matter if it's in sync or not, since you're not playing to a tempo anyway.

Guess what? A FIFTH complaint. Building on the previous complaint, the guys solo's are bland and boring, so if you like listening to songs while playing it, you're going to get bored fairly quickly.

So, in conclusion, DO NOT PURCHASE GUITAR HERO AEROSMITH. I'm just hoping Guitar Hero 4 doesn't suffer from the same problems.

Well, I haven't spent much time on dA lately.. I've been working on a very big project with some people and haven't found the time to be doing anything in my own time.

I keep promising a new HydroPro pack, but I haven't delivered. The good news is, I have made progress on a new HydroPro pack, but it will not contain very many icons. I will release it in the next week, as I have kind of drifted away from icons, and design, and gotten heavily involved with coding.

So, in conclusion, my dA account will most likely be a ghost town for a while. I'm hoping I will be back into it soon, but I don't know..

Anyway, just thought I'd let everyone know.