Updated Acting Resume

In addition to my blog updates, I've refreshed my acting resume (both HTML and PDF versions), available both from my site, and from the Box.net folder on my LinkedIn profile. There are some new video game and industrial gigs listed.

(It also felt like a good time to update my toy job print and profile resumes on LinkedIn, too.)

The Blogs are Back in Town ...

Guess who just got back today?

Them useful blogs that had been away

How they've changed, got a lot to say

But man, I still think them posts are crazy

They were asking if you had freedom

How you was, if you were readin'

Told them you were readin' all 'round

Driving digirati crazy

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

I said

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

The blogs are back in town

(With sincere, sincere apologies to Thin Lizzy.)

And apologies to you, because my multitude of blogs have been on a too-long hiatus, and now they're back in force.

Between changes with blogger.com and my Web hosting company changing how they were handling CName records -- my blogs got broken sometime last year. Add to that me being wicked busy at the toy job, and content itself has been light -- and a lot of what was there over the last year has been lost because of changes to the two not-so integrated services above. Sucky.

Anyway, due to me recently re-recognizing the importance of staying in touch with y'all through my postings, I've rebranded and reposted my blogs. To avoid further CName problems (and to take advantage of Google's various integrated media services), I've moved all of my blogs to be hosted by Blogger:

• Adam Creighton, Voice & Film Actor (Ramblings)
  http://ramblings4realz.blogspot.com/
• Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming
  http://gaming4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Playing
  http://playing4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Hearing
  http://hearing4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Seeing
  http://seeing4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Reading
  http://reading4realz.blogspot.com/
• I'm Playing With
  http://notdolls4realz.blogspot.com/

Apologies for the pseudo l33t speak of the titles, but since the blogspot goldrush has long-since passed, I needed to pick consistently unique named titles for each of my blogs.

Now, any time I make a new post to any of my blogs, notices will automatically post to Twitter (the World) and Facebook (Friends only). Posts from my game industry and acting blogs will also post automatically to my LinkedIn profile (Professional Network). Check out the post, "My so-called (connected gamer) life" over at my Gaming blog for the details for how I'm piping data back and forth.

Nothing should have changed for the RSS feeds, since I re-pipe all of those through my existing FeedBurner account, and kept the outward-facing URLs the same.

That's it for now -- more Freedom of Speechish fodder soon.

Resume, voice, and industrial updates

I've posted a few updated gigs to my resume (HTML and PDF), and the related voice clips.

I did an industrial for AMD for their Computex show in Taipei this summer, and also updated the site with a couple of my recent video game credits -- Mangled Metal (based on the WARMACHINE property), and Forbidden Terror on Station Z! -- an on-rails zombie shooter.

There is another clip from Mangled Metal I'll upload soon, and I'll probably capture some video from the game for both clips, since the voiceover works a lot better in the context of the video.

Linkies:

• Mangled Metal (WARMACHINE), Narrator
• Forbidden Terror on Station Z!
• AMD Computex 2009 video (Full)

AdamCreighton.com redesign?

Maybe.

It started as an infrastructure redesign to extend my properly formed (and utilized) XHTML and CSS across my Website, removed tables used for layout (a no-no), and improve the accessibility and usability of the site.

Then, inspired by Comic-Con (and my own inability to leave well enough alone), I started a comic book-themed redesign of my site.

Starting with the Photoshop mock up (below), I now have a working HTML version. And thanks to using CSS for shadowed containers, Web-safe colors on my graphics, and the like, the site is even smaller in download size than my current site.

Thing is, looking at the two side-bay-side, I think I like my "old" site. It's clean. It's informative. It's professional.

So, now I'm torn. The old site looks and works great. The new site feeds my inner fanboy (and took a couple of days to hash out), but I wonder if it's too cluttered.
What do you think?

Resume updates ...

I updated the online and PDF versions of my acting resume with my recent industrial gig.

See? I'm always working.

Make me work more...

Audio and video updates ...

I made some changes to the audio and video portions of my Website.

On the audio side, by popular request, I've added my recent "Comic book demo", which came together from some comic book inspired auditions and personal projects.

On both my audio and video pages, I streamlined information for readability and formatting (I'm sure you can assume the .MP3 and .WMA versions of my Character demo are both 1:08 in length).

And on both pages I added links to my newly launched SCHTICKFAS.com site -- because there will be a bunch of voice over and video coming from that ongoing effort.

"Pray with Thanksgiving" audio clips ...

I've uploaded sample clips (.wma and .mp3) from the short film, "Pray with Thanksgiving" to the audio portion of my Website (and I've added them to the new media player).

I'll add video once I decide what clip or clips to which I want to edit down and post.

Resume, audio, and video updates ...

I updated my acting resume with a couple of recent gig and training items, and made some revamps to the audio and video sections of my site.

I added a recent voice over gig as a talking piñata for Galen Carter-Jeffrey's film, A Birthday Story (I'll hopefully have a copy of the film, which screens this weekend, in the next week or two). I didn't blog about that effort at all, so you didn't miss anything.

I also added my voice credits for my own ongoing SCHTICKFAS animated series -- a recurring, very diverse creative voice over opportunity I've created for myself.

And I updated my training section to include the "Into the Abyss" acting / emotional deconstruction workshop I did with Dan Fauci.

I also enhanced the audio and video portions of my site with new Flash-based players, courtesy of SplashCast Media. The traditional way to get to my audio and video clips is still there, but now there's a one-place, in-page media player for all of the clips -- you just need Flash installed for your browser of choice.

Let me know what you think.

I'll be adding audio and video clips for Pray with Thanksgiving and A Birthday Story in the next week or two.

Updated pages / files:

• Resume (HTML)
• Resume (PDF)
• Voice Acting Demos & Clips
• Video Clips from the working actor

More ways to share blog posts

I've updated the "Sharing" footer that shows up at the base of each blog post.

I iconified (iconized?) the Digg / del.icio.us / Reddit links, left TinyUrl alone, and added a one-click way for you to add me to Twitter.

This last one is "in theory", as Twitter is a victim of its own success, and is struggling mightily to keep up with ever exploding demand and usage. So, if you get an error page, just refresh, and see if that fixes it.

I am a tech geek actor dude ...

Google or Twitter should buy TinyUrl.com

If you haven't discovered TinyUrl, the awesome online utility from the mind of Kevin "Gilby" Gilbertson, you should check it out.

Hate long, cumbersome URLs (those "Web site addresses" that probably should never have been exposed in the first place)? Enter them in TinyUrl, and get back a 24 character URL.

So this:

http://www.adamcreighton.com/blogs/
ramblings/2007/04/voice-acting-
mocap-and-video-games.html

Turns into this:

http://tinyurl.com/272x9w

Much nicer! Especially for things like mobile and Twitter usage.

Since blog PermaLinks, links to forum posts, links with lots of parameters, etc. are wicked long, think about someone like Google integrating TinyUrl into their services, and automatically converting URLs before display.

I'm not talking just for Blogger.com (I think I'm getting done with them for a variety of reasons), but for all of the other multitudinous efforts Google's got in constant beta -- Google mobile, Google Maps, etc. -- shortened URLs would rock.

And in the Web 2.0 mashup world, I see other opportunities for TinyUrl -- like Twitter. I would so like Twitter to automatically take a posted URL and turn it into a TinyUrl. Makes sense, since TinyUrl is getting so much freaking usage from Twitter users. And it could be configurable, so Twitter users can choose whether they want to convert URLs or not.

In the meanwhile, I've created a "TinyUrl" link at the bottom of each blog post, so folks can more easily create TinyUrls from my posts.

I've found it hard to take my Product Management hat off this week.

Twitter, Twittervision, and life as I know it is over ...

The world moves quickly.

I recently got into Twitter on a lark, and I'm pretty hooked -- even replaced my mini headshot on my acting blog with a Twitter badge.

Just found Twittervision, a real Web 2.0 mashup of Google Maps and Twitter.

Check them out, but prepared to lose a bucketload of time (if you're into this one facet of the future).

I'm not saying Twitter is taking over my life -- just that technology is pretty cool, moving ridiculously fast, and I'm good at it.

Think I'm going to focus on some of my own mashup ideas...

Digg me, find me del.icio.us ...

I've had requests to make it easier for folks to add me to their Digg, del.icio.us, and Reddit favorites, so I've added links for these three social bookmarking / social content sites to all of my templates.

These are social bookmarking sites, so now you can easily add (or bury) particular posts you like (or don't), using links at the bottom of the respective posts.

For those not familiar with these sites, here's a brief description of each (from the horses' mouths).

Digg:

"Digg is a user driven social content website. Ok, so what the heck does that mean? Well, everything on Digg is submitted by our community (that would be you). After you submit content, other people read your submission and Digg what they like best. If your story rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of visitors to see.

What can you do as a Digg user? Lots. Every person can digg (help promote), bury (help remove spam), and comment on stories... you can even Digg and bury comments you like or dislike. Digg also allows you to track your friends' activity throughout the site — want to share a video or news story with a friend? Digg it!"

del.icio.us:

"del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website -- the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

You can also use del.icio.us to see the interesting links that your friends and other people bookmark, and share links with them in return. You can even browse and search del.icio.us to discover the cool and useful bookmarks that everyone else has saved -- which is made easy with tags."

Reddit:

"A source for what's new and popular on the web -- personalized for you. We want to democratize the traditional model by giving editorial control to the people who use the site, not those who run it. Your votes train a filter, so let reddit know what you liked and disliked, because you'll begin to be recommended links filtered to your tastes. All of the content on reddit is from users who are rewarded for good submissions (and punished for bad ones) by their peers; you decide what appears on your front page and which submissions rise to fame or fall into obscurity."

Web heartburn and updates

Regular visitors and subscribers to my Web site and related feeds probably saw an obscene amount of weirdness and activity on my site this weekend.

First and worse, the site was down for most of Saturday, thanks to an outage from my Web hosting company that made my site and domain-related Email unavailable.

This really sucks, because the Saturday after I send out my traditional Biz Valentine's cards is usually a huge traffic day for me. So, thanks, Earthlink -- you cost me marketing opportunity.

The other craziness is I finally built out my sitemaps (XML and HTML) and formally loaded them into Yahoo and Google. They've got some great tools for Web administrators.

Speaking of great tools, I found a free sitemap generator that rocks. It's not perfect, but it's free, and once I figured out a few of the idiosyncrasies, it saved me a ton of time. Click the icon below to check it out yourself.



Doing sitemaps right isn't trivial. I spent a ton of timing cleaning up dead links, republish blog entries that weren't migrated correctly by Google when they purchased and upgraded Blogger.com, making sure annoying stuff (spacer images, etc.) weren't included in the sitemap, etc. This meant there was a lot of republishing of blog entries and related RSS, atom, etc. news blasts. Sorry.

Finally, I added my new blog about toys to the right side "I'm [whatevering]" sidebar, "Blogs" sub listings, and Feed pages.

Oh, and I updated my copyright to 2007. Like you care.

50,000(ish) served ...

I've been working through my 2006 Web traffic statistics for the last several weeks.

I sifted through all of the data my Web hosting software gives me -- weeding out duplicates and anomalies, search engines and Web spiders, pulling out anything I'm pretty sure is me or family. And so on.

And what I net out with is it looks like I had around 50,000 unique visitors last year to AdamCreighton.com -- not total visitors (that's a whole lot more) -- but unique visitors. Which, honestly, is pretty freaking amazing.

Far and away, it looks like people are coming directly to my Website, with referrals being much lower. This means folks likely have my site bookmarked, are coming from Email or direct market mail, or are typing the address directly.

Second biggest area of entry is from people subscribing to my RSS feeds. Lot o' subscribers, which is good to see. People efficiently getting my info, which is nice, since one of my big goals for 2006 on the Web front was to get away from direct Emails and mailing lists (I'm mostly there). And that's just the people who come to my site from their RSS reader. For most of my blogs, I publish the entire post, so there's no need for folks to come to my site, per se.

As far as referrals go, I'm getting a lot of traffic from blog aggregators, acting biz-related sites, and (recently) links from friends', colleagues', and (recently) some professional Websites.

I'm also seeing some nice, regular traffic from folks. Not to out anybody, but traffic from game companies, production studios, and related industries.

Glad you're looking folks -- now hire me! ;-)

Truly, though, thanks to everyone for looking and listening.

Now, this year, I'm actually going to market the promote the Website and its sub-sites as product. Hang on to your hat ...

(This post is duplicated on both my Acting and Gaming blogs, since it pertains to the whole of AdamCreighton.com.)

I've got a new blog ...

I evidently don't have enough blogs, so I've created a new one, dedicated to toys.

Check it out:

• adamcreighton.com/blogs/notdolls/

Resume updates

I made changes to my resume, updating it based on "Friday Night Lights", commercial stuff, and the fact that since I'm freaking always in class, I need to consolidate my "Training" section and "Special Skills" awesomeness.

The biggest changes are reflected in the PDF version, but the HTML version has reflective changes as well. And the HTML part will be changing quite a bit soon, too.

But all the content in both is up to date.

Resume updates

I've updated the html and PDF versions of my resume with a corrected film credit (Pray with Thanksgiving / eleven72 Films / Storme Wood) and my current "Samurai" training under Van Brooks.

• HTML resume
• PDF resume

Updates to my resume

It's been a busy month, but I shouldn't let things like this slide.

I've updated my online resume with film credits for Thanksgiving and The Torture Room (that's either an odd or apropos juxtaposition); the Centex Destination Properties industrial; and the Dan Fauci workshop.

Good month ...

Blogger.com heartburn

Apologies for the blogging weirdness the last few days -- Something's wonky with Blogger.com. Only 2 of my of my 5 "July 26" acting blog posts were actually supposed to be July 26th -- the rest were published July 24th or 25th, and took a day or two to show up on the Website.

And my July 24th post to my video game blog -- which has my biggest readership -- showed up today. Nice. Glad I look current to the gaming public.

Glad they're free, or I'd be more pissed. Might be time to roll over to the Movable Type blog I've been playing with.

UPDATED: Yikes, take a look at the Blogger "system stability" for the last few weeks:

• Tuesday, July 18, 2006: "... photo uploading and serving will be down ..."
• Monday, July 24, 2006: "We've been having some database issues this morning, causing Blogger.com to be inaccessible for some users...."
• Tuesday, July 25, 2006: "Some users are noticing problems with photo uploading timing out or taking a very long time to respond..."
• Thursday, July 27, 2006: "Some folks are finding that some of their emailed posts get dropped and don't reach their blogs..."
• Tuesday, August 01, 2006: "Due to a configuration change made earlier this evening, around 10% of requests made to Blog*Spot will not be successfully returned..."
• Friday, August 04, 2006: "We are having problems with one of the Blogger databases. Posts and commments to blogs that are stored on that database are failing..."

I appreciate that they're up front with what they're seeing (it's not like they can hide it from their users, though).

So, did Blogger.com just become a victim of its success, or did Google screw something up when it bought them?