Author Archives: Mike Cavano

Week 9: “Good Vibes” – Acoustic

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While I haven’t gotten into some of the creations I hoped to make by now yet, I am kind of enjoying doing there little acoustic tracks. This one is a tune I wrote a few years back called Good Vibes.

I recorded it on my iPhone for convenience sake, so the sound quality is a little less than the others, but it’s still half decent anyway. I always liked this particular song. Let me know what ya think of it!

Coming Projects

I suppose an acoustic version of an old track isn’t as much of a “creation” as it is just a little performance. Admittedly, I only did today’s track as a last minute thing because any of the other creations I could have potentially posted just aren’t quite there yet. I have a few other creations on the go. One is another website that I started at the request of an artist that frequents Inity Studios. You’ll probably see that one next week.

I want to move away from so many web projects and little acoustic performances. At the start of the year I would never have assumed I’d be focusing so much on web stuff with Weekly Creations. I hope to get into a few tech/electronics projects in the coming weeks. I have some great projects in that department that I just need to drop a couple bucks into.

(On a side note: If you or anyone you know has any old electronics, drop me a line! Particularly any old computers or LCD monitors or TVs – preferably working, though items with malfunctions, dead pixels, etc. are still potential useful.)

Aside from the tech and web projects, I also have some quality final recordings and new songs that I’m working on – things of a little bit more substance that I’m looking forward to posting.

So until next week, stay creative!

Week 7: InityTV.com Updates – New Design & 15 New Channels

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Two weeks ago I posted about Inity TV for week 5’s creation. This past week I’ve updated the site with a new design and 15 new channels, including some of my personal favorites like Discovery, Comedy, A&E, Spike and TSN and bringing the total channel count to 52!

New Design

Earlier this week I launched the new design. I personally have a widescreen monitor, but after hearing from others who don’t and trying out InityTV.com on my laptop, I found that the channel selector on the side didn’t work well for most users because it always had to be manually opened and closed. I resolved this issue by having the channel menu slide up from a bar along the bottom, and then slide out of the way again when you click on the next channel you’d like to view.

I also added some nicer looking graphic design. The old look was bland – just something to get by. I like the feel of the new look. Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

Eew, gross!

Mmmmm, sexy!

 15 New Channels – 52 Total

Wooohooo! New channels are always good! I wanted to put these ones in from the beginning but they don’t load within the Inity frame, so I had to devise some solutions. The only option for the time being is to have them come up as a pop-up video player window. I was hoping to avoid that, but it’s the only choice for now.

The new channels are amongst the best on the site! Here’s a list of all the InityTV channels.

General

  • CTV
  • CBC
  • Global Television
  • TVO
  • City TV
  • TV Tropolis
  • APTN
  • Canoe TV

Comedy

  • Comedy
  • Bite

Music

  • Much Music
  • MTV Canada
  • MTV2
  • Aux
  • BET
  • CMT
  • Juicebox

Kids

  • Treehouse
  • Disney XD
  • Teletoon
  • YTV
  • Family

Education

  • History Television
  • Food Network
  • HGTV
  • TED
  • Discovery
  • Space

Documentary

  • A&E
  • Bravo
  • Biography
  • National Geographic Channel
  • Nat Geo Wild

Late Night

  • Showcase
  • Action
  • Spike

Movies

  • Silver Screen Classics

Sports

  • TSN
  • Sportsnet
  • NHL
  • Toronto FC

News

  • CTV News
  • Sun News
  • Global News
  • CPAC
  • The Weather Network
  • C-SPAN
  • BNN

Specialty

  • Fashion Television
  • Out TV
  • Slice
  • Grace TV

Hope you enjoy the updated InityTV.com!

Week 6 – #2: “Get Together” – New Demo Recording

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Photo by Natalie Miller

A second post for week 6! I’m on top I’m my game this week. 🙂

I wrote this tune at the first sign of summer weather last year, but never took the time to record it. I had the idea in mind with just a simple acoustic thing I put down on my iPhone, but left any work on it for “later”.

Then, earlier this week my neighbor who runs the restaurant downstairs came by with a case of Coronas that a party had requested with their booked but only drank a couple out of. So, this is what happens when you combine a discount case of Coronas and a warm week in February with a guy like me. Looks like summer came early!

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/36222021″ params=”auto_play=false&show_artwork=false&color=0044ff” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

 

Normally I’d give a tune at least a couple days so I can come back to it with fresh ears to finish it off. But this is just a first run demo, and the Weekly Creations vibe is all about wrappin’ it and putting it out there. So, tell me what you think!

Week 6: “Johnny Was” – Bob Marley Cover

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Happy Birthday Bob!!

It’s rare for someone to be called a “Legend” and society unanimously agrees. John Lennon, Bruce Lee and Bob Marley are three undisputed Legends. None can compare, but we can all pay tribute.

I always love jammin’ on Bob’s tunes. This is one that doesn’t get played much but is just an insanely awesome song. I hope you enjoy it!

Week 5: InityTV.com

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I love this week’s creation!

I’ve been wanting to cancel my cable for a veeeeery long time.I always feel like I’m being ripped off ’cause there’s so much good content online for free. Why am I paying for both? It’s so expensive, but when you just want to relax for an hour and put something on, it’s so very convenient.

Well, I’ve taken the time to scour the interwebs and find all the goodness of tv land, and put it all together in one place so you can essentially channel surf through the video pages of tv network websites! It’s called InityTV.

The main thing I’ve never liked about watching TV online is that it’s so hard to find the various networks or programs you want without having to do a bunch of Google searches. Here’s a way to watch TV online for free, from an aggregate of your favorite networks video websites! Inity TV is sort of like a search engine like Google, or a discovery site like Digg, but focused solely on cable channels that are providing full episodes of their shows online for all to watch. It’s sort of like a free Netflix!

There’s still some bugs to work out. I plan to change the channel navigation to a smoother and less obtrusive design. Maybe a few other things too. Please test it out and let me know how to make it better.

And if you like it and find it useful, please SHARE IT!!

Week 4: WeeklyCreations.com Theme

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Week 4, ahead of schedule!!  🙂

Okay, it feels good to not be posting this at the last minute on Saturday night. However, I am planning to have a second post for week 4… “planning” that is.

Anyway, this week I completed the current theme to this website; the Weekly Creations “Da Vinci” Theme. I may play around with it a little more in the future to add some fun stuff, but for now, I’m calling it done and ready for use!

Here’s a comparison of the old theme and the new one:

As a musician, it’s nice to dabble in visual creativity. It’s something I don’t do nearly as much, but I love it nonetheless. I’d like to paint one day, just like Da Vinci himself. I love and admire the vast and complimentary creativity of polymaths.

I think this little change will have a big impact on the feel of a site of this nature. It’s a “Weekly Creations” site, it should have a creative look!

Week 3: Cover of Little Wing (SRV style)

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Well, like the last couple weeks, I had to put something together last minute! But here it is. I decided this afternoon to do a cover of one of my favorite tracks to play on guitar: Hendrix’s Little Wing. I’ve always wanted to record a version of this tune. It’s always been a huge inspiration. One day I’ll have to take a little time to really make this my own, but for now, I basically just bit Stevie Ray Vaughan’s styling (and some of his licks to boot!).

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/34133935″ params=”auto_play=false&show_artwork=false&color=0044ff” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” / ]

 

The backing track I played over was created by a YouTube user (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uE0DbTvQII). I made plenty of mistakes – it’s far from perfect – but I’ve been having a blast jamming on this track occasionally over the years, so it was a lot of fun taking the time to record it today. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed recording it! One day I’ll play it reggae style. 🙂

Week 2: SolarElectricExchange.com

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Well, I was hoping to post a new song recording or DIY project this week, but I’ve been pretty tied up ’til today, and recording just wasn’t working out when I took a stab at it. Fortunately, what I’ve been tied up with this week was an excellent website project! With last week’s creation being this very website, I was reluctant to focus this week’s creation on another web project. But I quite like the site, as well as the cause.

Solar Electric Exchange are a GTA (Greater Toronto Area) based solar panel installation company. In Ontario, the government is supporting the solar power industry by paying out $0.80/kWh to the owners of solar panels set up to contribute to the grid. As such, Ontario is quickly becoming a world leader in green energy production because it’s not only a conscientious choice, but it’s a great high-return investment.

I created the site on the WordPress platform. I love WordPress!! WeeklyCreations.com is built on WordPress as well. This open source software started as a blogging platform, but has grown into an exceptionally dynamic tool that can function as the back-end to virtually any type of contemporary website. Not only is it so well written and flexible enough of a platform that you can get a basic site up in minutes (like the initial launch of this site), but it’s also exceptionally user friendly to update, so clients love it! And with it being so flexible and dynamic, you can make a site as simple or complex as the circumstances require and always end up with something awesome.

Most of the additional functionality of SolarElectricExchange.com came from the vast selection of available WP plugins. There’s literally tens of thousands of them to choose from. Those were then embellished and sown together with some graphic design. I use Photoshop when I design. Having friends who have worked on half-million dollar websites for major name-brand clients because they can do magic when it comes to graphic design, I’m quite humble about my design skills. These days there’s a tonne of tutorials online to teach you just about anything that’s possible with Photoshop – thank God. 🙂

Week 1: The Weekly Creations Website

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Okay, so for the first week’s creation, and to start of the Weekly Creations endeavor, I’ve created this Weekly Creations website! It’s nice and simple – designed to get the job done, not glorify it. You can check out the About page for some basic info on this site and what it’s for.

It’s a simple site, but I hope it’ll be a great foundation for this endeavor. I’ve added some basic functionality, like a social plugin, a contact form and some pic changes and other minor tweaks to the basic theme. But in the spirit of social collaboration, I’d love to hear some thoughts on what would make this site better, while keeping it simple. Please comment!

And while I have a few things in mind, I’d also love to hear some ideas for future weekly creations topics!

Until next week, stay creative.