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Hi, my name is Julius but you can call me Cookie. Throughout my life as a musician/songwriter, I have always been interested in the ever-changing technology that goes along with making and distributing music. As soon as I could afford a home computer and audio interface, I was clicking around on FL Studio which back then was identified as Fruity Loops.
Along the journey of developing solid chops in the digital recording environment, I was also taking an interest in using the digital realm as a distribution format for the music my friends and I were recording. This was prior iTunes and YouTube. I actually discovered some really cool and innovative software being developed by Todd Rundgren at his website, patronet.com. The software was similar in concept to a current platform for artists called patreon.com (Todd was deploying his software around 15 years prior which in tech years is at least a century). Patronet was very bold in concept and design. However, the internet both figuratively and literally was not yet up to speed to properly execute Patronet and it’s application, the Interocitor. I opted to try and figure out how to host audio files from my website to be available for download and streaming. A recipe utilizing HTML, PHP, RTMP, and a no longer supported software called Flash seemed like a good place to start. I learned the HTML from viewing page source as well as a lot of copy & pasting. For embedding audio in Macromedia’s Flash, I lucked out and stumbled upon some great tutorial videos by a guy who went by the name of Mikey Live. The PHP was handled by some guys I found on a site called rentacoder.com.
I also spent some time learning necessary web development basics like securing a domain name, getting a web hosting plan, and using FTP software to transfer files to the server. I quickly felt comfortable enough to help out some of my artist/musician friends get their websites together and even acquired some other website clients through word of mouth (owners of the venues my band mates and I played in, a music publicist (who ended up booking my band on a lot of great gigs and getting some of my music licensed in a televi$ion show), pizza shops I frequented, my uncle Luigi’s barbershop, you get the idea). I was developing quite a nice little side hustle. At the time, I didn’t really have to deal with much back-end development and if I did, I would out-source it. I eventually incorporated WordPress into my toolbox. WordPress is a CMS (content management system). Although it is very rich in features and dynamic capabilities, I’m not a particular fan of WordPress due to it’s relatively long load time. I prefer unique, custom, and efficient websites, but with time restraints and skill limitations, I needed to keep the development simple. After all, I originally started learning to code just so I could make a website for my music. Anything else was all gravy.
Fast forward to March of 2020. The world is going through a pandemic. As a direct result, The majority of income opportunities that I and a lot of people rely on are shut down. The most logical thing I can do during this “downtime” time is to learn, and increase my value as a web developer.
Here we are in the first week of 2021 and I have learned so much from the online course I have been immersed in. I am very excited about the possibilities now to not only make mine and my friends’ online aspirations come to fruition but also anyone out here who is redesigning, adapting, and expanding their identity, presence, brand, business, etc. in these uncharted waters.
I aim to take the new skills I am learning to develop not only my online music and business goals but to also help anyone out there that needs to update their business model to meet the current needs of their client base.
Thanks for reading.
Do good things,
