It took a little longer than expected, but it’s online, NuTech One!

As said in a previous post, I decided to start a new series, and this is the first release. Keyword for this new series is TechHouse and if you ask me, this is where the most exciting music is maid at this moment.
Play it streaming

NuTech One Dj Go.star by Dj Go.star

Or download the track through the SkyLark Music site http://www.skylark-creative.com/dj/nutech.aspx Please send a message to obtain a promotional download code.

Welcome to the year of the Tiger. This weekend (14 February) the Chinese celebrated their new year, with the traditional dragons, fireworks and Mianju masks. One of the bigger celebrations in the Netherlands is held in The Hague. These photo’s were made on the 13th in the city’s China Town.

Chinese gate in The Hague, Netherlands

In an earlier post I reported about the invisible man Liu Bolin. He’s the master in camouflage photography.

Not everyone believes it, but the photographs are real, so no Photoshop filter! Liu is HANDPAINTED in al photo’s.

And what a treed, here is a new serie.
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To be honest, after 2 years of MixMax mix cd’s, I’m a little fat up with the progressive sound of today. Mostly remakes and no real innovations. My last MixMax compilation was released in September 2009 and it will be the last for now. (for now: never say never)

Time for a new sound, and I found it in Tech House. Many innovative sounds there! So I decided to start a new series of tech house mix cd’s with the working title: NuTech.

At the moment I’m mixing the first one, which will be released shortly. I’m not sure if it will be physical cd’s or mp3 mixes only. I’m also experimenting with streaming mixes on SoundCloud, so maybe I will release the NuTech mix there.

The tracklist for the first NuTech:
My Anthem – Martinez
Persuader – Mutant Clan
Daytona – Christian Smith & John Selway
Feelin – Pitto (Joris Voorn rmx)
Coma – Sasha (Gabe & Demitri Nakov rmx)
Spindizzy – Cari Lekebusch
Tylium – James Zabiela (Spooky rmx)
Air Miles – Christian Smith & Reset Robot (Madskillz rmx)
Body Language – Jay Lumen
The Raw Road – Layo & Bushwacka (Nic Fanciulli rmx)
Whole Life – Oxia
Strung Out – Scope (2009 rmx)
Lamur – Guy J (Henry Saiz rmx)

A really commercial mix, made for my local pub, is still online at SoundCloud.

Keep checking the blog for the release of NuTech.

After a slow year, I’m now working on Aviamagazine again. Some minor layout changes will be made, but more important, functionality and content will be expanded.

Social connectors

The most significant change is the integration of social connectors. Facebook and Twitter will be integrated on all content pages which makes it easy to publish the page to both social networks. On the technical side, jqeury popup modal windows will be introduced and bit.ly urls as well.

The existing comment functionality which can only be used by members will be made public. To make the comments more attractive, gravatar will be integrated in the site.

Layout

Some changes will be made concerning layout. The red main color will be replaced with a more brighter red. Page section titles will be changed to a web 2.0 style title. All box titles (tabs) will change.

The interaction column (now placed on the right side of the pages) is moved to the left navigation column providing more content space.

Content

And finally, lots of changes on content. I still have trip reports to Japan, Australia, China, Canada en the US on the shelf. This year the content will gradually be published. Also the Out of Service section we be expanded with a special on Datachang and Davis-Monthan.

When

I’m using a phased implementation instead off a big bang. First of all, some layout changes will appear followed by the social connectors. Content is changed throughout the process.

Finally, after testing in the real world for several months, BEgallery is ready for download.

BEgallery is a gallery extension (duh) for Blogengine.net 1.4 and up. It integrates the excellent Highslide JS thumbnail viewer, by Torstein Hønsi, seamless in Blogengine.net.

For all the info and download of the extension open the BEgallery extension for BlogEngine.net page.

To see what the extension can do, check this example.

Li Wei, a contemporary artist from Beijing China, has been taking self portraits to new heights… literally!

Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and that he works with the help of props such as mirrors, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics. He then removes the wires and scaffolding with Photoshop to create these seemingly impossible photos.

I made a small collection of some of Wei’s most outstanding photos, in a unique combination of artistry and acrobatics that are sure to make you take a second look.
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Finally started the mammoth task of indexing my aviation photo’s. Picked up the hobby again in 2002 when I, from then on, concentrated on civil airliners photography. Now, 7 years down the line and some 10.000 photo’s further I can’t remember which, where and when.

There are several options to index your collection, for instance use the metadata in Lightroom. Because I want to query the data in all kinds of ways I decided to build my own application. It’s a custom made and especially tailor made application, but maybe of use to other enthusiasts.

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Just returned from a 2,5 week trip through the US for AviaMagazine. Amongst the almost 3000 photo’s I did some experimenting with high dynamic range photography (HDR). When conditions are good (which means some great cloud base for instance) results can be stunning.

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