T.H.I.S. 2.0
Well, it’s official: THIS 2.0 is live! As you can see, it’s quite a bit different than THIS 1.0.
Here’s why.
Kroc Camen - a long-time friend, master programmer, and web designer - built me THIS 1.0 from scratch. This was no small feat; back in the day, custom-built sites that allowed voting and commenting were few and far between. Kroc did all the design for the site and even included a huge admin interface where I could upload songs and their descriptions and the site would take care of the rest. It was absolutely brilliant.
But since the day THIS 1.0 launched, a lot has changed. Web 2.0 is well on its way here and there are all kinds of open-source projects that allow for easy site design and maintenance. My new career - writing - has replaced the need for THIS to be commercial-themed, and instead I wanted a music site that was low-key and casual, like my music composition would be from here on out.
Also, Kroc is now busy running a full-time computer repair business and I can’t pester him daily to update THIS as I see fit. 
I bet he won’t miss my 2:00am request updates! But seriously, I couldn’t be more grateful for the brilliant site that THIS was (and continues to be, at least until this new site is fully up-and-running). All of you should go to the old site (www.tannerhelland.com) and send Kroc a thank-you e-mail for his brilliant work.
My hope is that the new format of THIS will be more conducive to my scattered and sporadic postings. By using a standard blogging engine I’ll be able to not only upload music, but also sheet music, streaming media, and whatever else I can dream up. Plus, the removal of a voting feature (which only got abused by bots anyway) places the site more in keeping with my new plans for THIS: to be a showcase for SHARING music, not buying music. I think the change will be superb.
As with any blog, feel free to comment on anything and everything you find here. I’m going to leave the old THIS site up until it’s time to renew the domain name, and in the meantime I’ll gradually work on transferring songs over to this new server. It’ll be time-consuming and tedious so I make no promises for any kind of completion time frame.
But, eventually, everything will be found here, along with lots more.
In other news, I’ve started work on a full soundtrack for the podiobook version of my first novel. This soundtrack will include remixes of some of THIS’s greatest hits, along with some very good new pieces. As soon as I finish my final draft of the novel, I’m going to be putting a lot more time and energy into this new soundtrack. It oughta be good, so be sure to stay tuned!
Many thanks to my kind fans and followers. I wish I could update the site more often, but until I’m able to get this writing thing off the ground, it could be a little while. But have faith! More will be forthcoming!
As a final tribute to THIS 1.0, here’s the stats for the site as of today, June 4th, 2008:
Number of songs: 40 (or roughly 3-4 albums worth, all free!)
Number of unique visitors: 17,167
Number of free song downloads: 4,375
