You should stop by my other website: FuzzMartinMedia.com. And if you have, thanks! I hope you stop by again sometime!

Here are some shots from my recent photo shoot with J Rilla, a rap artist from Sheboygan (the 2009 Kiss Icon). We did an interview and photo shoot for my one of my new websites, AsHeardInWI.com.

I’ve been working on a host of new projects. One of them is called, AsHeardInWI.com – it is a site where I will profile bands and musicians of any genre that have roots here in Wisconsin. My first interview and photo shoot was with a Sheboygan-based hip-hop/R&B artist named, J Rilla.

http://asheardinwi.com/artist-profile-j-rilla

This is a shoot that I did with three-month-old Ryan and his parents, yesterday. It’s best viewed by clicking the “full-screen” button on the bottom right of the slideshow. Enjoy.

http://www.fuzzmartinmedia.com/clients/2009/Ryan/

There were lighting setups that I have wanted to try, and I didn’t have a lot going on today, so I called up Ashley to see if her and her friend Amanda wanted to shoot. I didn’t realize it was going to be so friggin’ cold outside, but they were troopers and came out anyway.

I can’t tell you what it is right now, but a guy you know who’s name rhymes with “Buzz Fartin” just landed a really cool job outside of the radio station. It won’t take up much of his time, but it will earn him a good amount of publicity. I’ll let you in on more details as soon as they allow me to announce it. Until then… you’ll just have to wait…

Lately, I’ve been looking into doing some advertising for Fuzz Martin Media on LinkedIn, AdWords (Google), and Facebook.

While reading Facebook’s “Common Ad Mistakes” page, I came across this mistake:

Yes… their “correct” text says,

We’re going [sic] give them away for free for the first 50 customers.

“We’re going give?” Oh my.

Ashley and I shot at Studio 611 in MKE today. Here are some raw, out-of-the-camera shots for your viewing pleasure:

A word (phrase?) of warning to would-be Lunarpages customers – don’t use WordPress on their servers. For the second time in about six months, I have been flagged for using too many CPUs. All I was running on their servers was WordPress (latest version) in three separate directories. They informed me that even though I have been a loyal customer for the past five years, they wanted me to upgrade to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) for $39.99/mo. (as opposed to the $7 I was paying before) or they wanted me to move to a dedicated server for $99/mo.

Uhm. No.

So, from today forward, all of my websites will be run through a VPS that is NOT Lunarpages, and instead of having my clients buy their own Lunarpages spaces, I will instead have them sliced into my VPS and they will be billed accordingly.

I really hate getting headaches from people that I give money to.

Goodbye, Lunarpages. We had a good run.

I wrote my first blog tonight. Yes, I used a tutorial, but it was pretty fun to get a Ruby on Rails blog up and running. It feels so much freer than PHP. Pretty fun (for a nerd).

I’ve been wanting to create a user-driven website for awhile, now, and I think I might have found what I was looking for.

An idea popped up just as I was about to head to bed last night, so I stayed up a little late throwing this extremely simplified mockup together: http://www.thatsagoodbeer.com/

None of the user-side function is together, just the concept. Keep an eye on it, and who knows, it could be like Twitter’s drunken little brother.

Last night, I wrote a small and very light application for somebody using the Twitter API. Aside from PayPal apps, I have never really dug into using APIs before. It was pretty fun. I think I might write a more intense version just to see if I can do it.

(from ChappedLypse.com/milwaukee)

We Want You!

We are looking for models of all ages, shapes, and sizes to be a part of Brewlypse in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We are a group of Getty Images and iStockphoto.com photographers from throughout the Midwest.

January 21st through the 25th, we will converge on Milwaukee and take the modeling and stock photography worlds by storm. We need models who will be available to shoot everything from fashion to bodybuilding/fitness to cooking and housework.

If you are interested, please contact Simon McConico of McConico Photography at: brewlypse@simonmcconico.com

Lately, I’ve been so busy working on getting Fuzz Martin Media up and running that I haven’t had much time to devote to FuzzMartin.com. If you really care about what I’m doing, feel free to look to my Twitter feed in the column on your right. Twitter is like drive-by blogging. It’s great because I can bust posts out in between breaths and then get back to what I’m doing.

In the right-hand column, you can also see my latest iStockphoto.com files.

Enjoy.

My friend/client, Shaun Williams, of Williams Financial Services, is finally getting his website together. We are having an issue agreeing upon which domain name will best suit his company, and we’d like your help. I’ll tell you which domain name I believe is best, and why, after you vote (I don’t want to taint the results).

Please note that all of the “good names” are gone (e.g., WilliamsFinancial.com, WilliamsFinancialServices.com, WilliamsFinancialSolutions.com, Willams.com, WFS.com , et al.)

[poll id="2"]

Fuzz Martin bites the bullet, makes it official

MAYVILLE, Wis. — Since 2005, metro-Milwaukee radio personality, Fuzz Martin, has been conducting a photography, voiceover, copywriting, and Web site development company, known as Fuzz Martin Media. Over the past three years, each facet of the business has grown significantly. With the growth of the company comes the need to form an organized entity. As of January 1, 2009, Fuzz Martin Media will officially be known as Fuzz Martin Media, LLC.

A newly designed logo, mailing address, Web site (http://www.fuzzmartinmedia.com/), and phone number will be unveiled at the beginning of the new year.

Engaged White Media Guy seeks Big Beautiful Logo…

If you’re a designer and you’re willing to barter, I could really use a logo for my tiny, little business – Fuzz Martin Media. In exchange, I offer you my time for photography, copyediting, copywriting, a voiceover, or php/mysql backend work.

I would like to have the logo done by December 15th.

Contact me at the e-mail address on the right (fuzz aht fuzz martin d com) with the subject: LOGO.

Word to your mother.

When Lunarpages decided that we were using too much CPU (central processing unit), they booted us to an “abuse server.” The abuse server is designed to stop resource-heavy sites or sites that are experiencing Denial-of-Service attacks from taking down all of the other sites on a shared-server environment.

One of the safety switches on the abuse server blocks IP addresses when it detects that too much data is transferred to or from the site. That means that if you try to FTP (file-transfer protocol) files to the site or download them to backup your site, it blocks you from having any access at all to the site. So, for awhile, both Claude and I were locked out of our server. It was a nightmare.

As of this morning, Claude was able to view the site again. Balance has been restored to the Force.

Okay, enough nerdery. Back to your regularly scheduled nonsense.

Oh, and while you’re here – check out JeffSays.com.

FuzzMartin.com was on hiatus for a few weeks while I sorted out some issues with my web host. To put it lightly, it was a pain in the ass. But now, after three or four weeks of phone calls and emails with customer support, we’re back in business, baby. I have been with this company for five years and had never experienced any problems with them in the past, so I’ll give them a one-time pass for this bout of garbage that we just got through. This is their only warning, though. Thank you to everybody who suggested new host companies while we were in limbo.

Just checking to make sure that FuzzMartin.com is working correctly. We jumped servers last night (when my hosting company said, “tonight,” apparently they meant “two-nights… from now.”

PHP5 seems to be working okay.

Alright, I’m off to a weekend long photo shoot. Stay right, homies.