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Available on the downloads page, two new DJ mixes for your streaming/downloading pleasure  "Trance Mix" is my first trance mix uploaded, and "Remixes Vol 1" is my first small set in a series of more remixes to come.

Let me know what you think of the mixes! As always head to the downloads page, click on DJ Mixes, then pick the mix you want to listen to.

"Trance Mix" Track List: Tiesto ft. Kirsty Hawkshaw - Just Be (Antillas Club Mix), Armin van Buuren - Control Freak (Sander van Doorn Remix), Markus Schulz ft. Carrie Skipper - Never Be The Same Again (Markus Schulz Coldharbour Club Mix), Tiesto - Love Comes Again (Original Mix)

"Remixes Vol 1" Track List: Tatu - All The Things She Said (Dave Aude Club Edit), Paramore - That's What You Get (Funk Avy Remix), Keri Hilson - Energy (Wideboys Remix), Sean Kingston - Fire Burning (Dave Aude Club Mix)

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Just got done doing a quick mix of two video game songs and two movie theme remixes, around 23 minutes long, feel free to stream it, download it and let me know what you think! Available on the Downloads page as always, click on "DJ Mixes" folder, then "Video Game Movie Mix" to stream or click on the arrow by it to download

Track List: Phenyx - Saria's Song, Electrixx - Tetris (Original Mix), Moby - James Bond Theme, DJ Stoltz - Pirates of the Caribbean Megamix

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DJ mix of original music is available for streaming/download on the downloads page in the DJ Mixes folder, titled "Original Music Mix."

I know, bit of self-promotion but I'd love to hear what your favorite tracks are in the mix, considering releasing an album on iTunes if I get enough good comments  

Track List: DJ Stoltz - Midnight Sun, DJ Stoltz - Airwaves, DJ Stoltz - Ibiza, DJ Stoltz - Congestion, DJ Stoltz - HJW 

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New folder on my downloads page titled "Wedding Resources" available for everyone who's planning a wedding. They're organized in separate folders that include ideas/templates for newsletters, bridesmaids requests, a camera scavenger hunt, ceremony, clip art/flourishes, wedding favors, fonts (if a template says you need a font then download that font from the folder and move it to Fonts in Control Panel for Windows), guest lists/activities for guests for out of town and destination weddings, how-to tutorials, invitations, kid's coloring books (keep them quiet during the ceremony!), organization for budget and address book, reception and timeline/itinerary templates.

Let me know if you find any of these templates useful, if you have questions on using any of them or problems opening a file let me know and I can assist you with any technical difficulties  

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Came across this template from bridaltweet.com - great resource for wedding vendors and brides/grooms alike so check out the site for their other articles, this one stood out to me as a useful template so I figured I should share it with everyone!

Original site is here: http://www.bridaltweet.com/forum/topics/wedding-day-templates

12 month
Announce engagement to friends and family
Make sure both families meet
Throw engagement party if desired
Choose a style, theme, or color combination
Set a date
Decide on basics [season, outdoor, formal, etc]
Decide on ceremony location
Budget
What are the wedding priorities [guest, food, etc]
Determine who will pay for what
Open a wedding bank account
Consider cash back or airmile card
If considering a prenuptial, contact lawyer
If you have preferred ceremony book now
Decide on ball park number of guests
Look through magazines to get ideas
Research potential DJ, florist, bands etc
Have engagement ring appraised and insured
Book photographer for engagement photos
Think about attendants
Start collecting addresses for guests you plan on inviting
Mail out save the date cards [especially for holidays & destination]
Setting up a wedding website
Purchase thank you cards

11 month
Consider wedding insurance
Finalize theme/style of wedding & reception
Meet...

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More music that I mixed from Wipeout HD - these are the three drum n bass songs in the game, less than ten minutes long but it's pretty fast paced so enjoy! Download available on the downloads page in the "DJ Mixes" folder as always.

Track List: Mist - Smart Systems, DJ Fresh - X-project (100% Pure Mix), and Ed Rush, Optical, Matrix - Frontline

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Techno mix available on the downloads page in the "DJ Mixes" folder titled "145 BPM Techno Mix" - enjoy some techno yah?

Track listing includes:

D.H.T. - Listen To Your Heart (Dance Remix), DJ Splash - You Spin Me Right Round (Remix), Vibeout - Time After Time (Original Remix), Cascada - What Hurts The Most, O-Zone - Dragostea Din Tei (Techno Remix), and Usher - Yeah (Techno Remix) 

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New mix available on downloads page in "DJ Mixes" folder - "Wipeout HD - Electro Mix" featuring some of my favorite tracks from the game. Warning to people who don't like instrumental music, most of it is instrumental! As always message me with requests for future mixes, now it's time to go outside and enjoy the sunshine 

Track List: Move ya! & Steve Lavers - Chemical, Stanton Warriors - Tokyo, DJ Mason - Exceeder, Noisia - Machine Gun

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Here are some videos from the Valentine's Dance I did at Agate Hall last Saturday for Narcotics Anonymous, party went really well, 8:30-11:30 and the group made quite a bit of money so I'm proud for them! This is also the same group I did the New Year's Dance for so it's great getting repeat business from them  

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Just uploaded two DJ mixes in my downloads section - this is a new thing which I hope to dedicate time to at least once a week outside of gigs, so check them out in the downloads section in the "DJ Mixes" folder! There's a Britney Spears and Lady Gaga set, next set of mixes will be more than one artist, if anyone has requests for mixes then let me know via e-mail or leaving a comment on this post!

Quick note about the audio quality - both mixes are compressed at 96kbps cbr (constant bit rate) mp3PRO file - meaning on standard mp3 players the audio will be radio quality, but if you have a player that supports mp3PRO codecs then you should receive better audio quality. I had to compress them to save disk space and not go over my 25MB limit for uploading files. If anyone wants the original uncompressed mixes then I'll have to give you a CD in person  

Track Lists:

Lady Gaga Club Mix: Paparazzi (Moto Blanco Remix), Love Game (Marilyn Manson Remix), Bad Romance (Chew Fu H1N1 Club Mix), Poker Face (Jody Den Broeder Remix), Just Dance (Guena LG Glam As You...

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So if you've been following the past couple of tweets from Twitter or Facebook, you'll notice I'm actively organizing more karaoke music, and with that I plan on having an update in my karaoke library within a week, along with updates to my music library and Guitar Hero library as well. I won't have Guitar Hero: World Tour as an option anymore because I figured out how to import that music library into Guitar Hero 5, plus I've added some downloadable content for Guitar Hero 5 and will put up the song list for Guitar Hero: Van Halen soon.

I'm also in the works on creating a couple mix demos to pass around to local bars and clubs, hoping I can get a relationship with a few local venues for monthly or weekly gigs 

Last of all I'm in the process of upgrading the rest of my halogen lights to their LED models - this will be more power efficient for venues and I won't have to run duty cycles on any of my lights, so if you want all of my lights on all of the time, you'll have that option soon! The newest member to my lighting family...

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The song lists for Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock are available to download on the downloads page in the DJ Documents folder. I also created a master song list with all the Guitar Hero songs I have available.

Also to avoid confusion with file types I deleted the other file extensions for my music library list, so if there are any problems downloading or opening a file just contact me and I'll e-mail you another version of it 

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One cool feature about Craigslist is the ability to use RSS feeds to notify you when something you're searching for comes up. Most people will use this feature for items being sold, but for the wedding and event industry there are brides and others who post opportunities on Craigslist, and because time is money the sooner you respond to a posted gig, the more likely you'll either get the gig or at least be considered for it.

Since I'm a DJ I have my RSS setup to search for DJ gigs and jobs in every Craigslist area in Oregon. Most internet browsers or mail clients have an RSS feed option, so it's a matter of performing the search, then scrolling down to the bottom of the page, click the RSS button and copy the URL to your RSS reader. Now you're up to date on all posted gigs for your area, and they're delivered right to you 

I have booked numerous gigs using this and figured I should share it with everyone, this feature can be applied to any business that has an applicable area market on Craigslist. I urge everyone to give it a try, if you need help...

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I finally decided on my default (and only) browser for my computers. I use to be a devout Firefox fanboy, then I decided to see if Microsoft finally did something right with Internet Explorer 8. Although it is a step up from 7, I still ran into problems on multiple websites and realized that IE8 still does not support the open web standards that are popular in most websites today. After test driving Google Chrome for a while I have been impressed with it's speed, usability and reliability that I believe is superior to IE8, and although Firefox is a great browser once I started using add-ons and themes it quickly became bloated.

I'm sure this won't be the last time I change web browsers, but for now Chrome is the best one for me. Let me know what you think and if you agree/disagree with my views on IE8 and Chrome. And if Chrome somehow fails in the future, then back to Firefox 

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The music library documents got recently updated so feel free to download the new versions, it's available in four different formats organized by Title and Artist. I now have 15 saxophone samples online, which means it's time to record more piano samples in the near future: right now my plans are to record Canon in D, Air On the G String, Fur Elise and Moonlight Sonata. Let me know if you have any other requests for demos and feel free to leave comments here on the Blog page, on my Guestbook or on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter.

Now for something not music related - since I've been the recent and proud owner of a BlackBerry I've been running my course through apps and will be doing a review on the ones I find useful and use on a regular basis, so BlackBerry owners be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog to see what I like and then afterwards feel free to leave comments on what else I should check out, if you agree/disagree, etc.

Things are looking good for my business, thanks to everyone for all the referrals and comments, it really is all of you...

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Decided to get a head start in recording tonight, have four samples uploaded in the downloads page in the "saxophone samples" folder. Since these are samples they fade out after I play the melody, I figure this way I can get more recorded and uploaded, for those of you not familiar with jazz songs most of these are structured as melody, soloing, melody.

Should have more songs uploaded by Monday!

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In preparation for rolling out next year's level of service, I'll be working on a few additional documents to upload on my site:

- Karaoke song list

- Saxophone song list

- Piano song list

- Document that will lay out tier pricing for additional services in addition to DJ service (live music, karaoke, Guitar Hero, etc)

- New information sheet to outline ceremony events, current information sheet will be renamed Reception Information Sheet

- More audio files available for piano and get around to recording saxophone!

- Song lists from Guitar Hero games (Guitar Hero 3, Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero 5, including a master list and all purchased downloadable content

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Thanks to one of my friends I got a Blackberry Pearl 8120 for dirt cheap, and pairing that with the Blackberry data plan and connected to my laptop I now have internet connection anywhere I have cell phone service by using my phone as a modem. This will be a huge benefit for those last-minute requests at gigs where I simply don't have the song or access to free wi-fi, as I can now download that song and honor the request!

I will also be making some changes next year for my DJ service - most notably I will be adding karaoke as an option, and paired with my projector and projector screen that will make for a nice addition to any wedding or party, or anyone who just wants to throw a karaoke party! I'm still sifting through and organizing my collection, which right now is at 2,000 songs and I hope for that to grow as I start out on the karaoke venture. Pricing for services will also slightly change, due to the economy and cost of living and details on that will come in a later blog post once I've decided.

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Title is pretty self-explanatory - all my DJ Documents under the downloads section have been updated, so if you're looking for my playlist I've updated that in several formats sorted by Title and Artist, I also removed audio files that don't really count as songs (play-along tracks, beats, audiobooks, etc).

I also uploaded a reference letter that was sent to me a while ago but I forgot about, also there are a few more people added on my references file :-)

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New trance song for the summer "Ibiza" - it's a free download under the Downloads section of my website. You can also find it on MySpace and SoundClick.

Hope you enjoy the song and leave comments!

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Well I've been testing out Google Voice (formerly Grand Central) for a while and I'm pretty impressed with the service. If you're not familiar with Google Voice it allows you to have one phone number that forwards to your other phones, so whether you're at home, work or on the go with your cell phone people can contact you with your Google Voice number. Also did I mention it's free? Yeah - it's Google, so it's free .

Some neat features are transcriptions of Voicemail - definitely not perfect but if you're in a situation where you can't answer a call and receive a voicemail (library, computer lab, business meeting) but happen to be at a computer then you can read the voicemail. Just a warning though, if the person can't pronouce words clearly then it'll definitely be off from the recording . You can also have the service use your phone to connect you to anyone in the nation for free, or send and receive free SMS messages from your Google Voice number. If you have an unknown number or that one person you always ignore who calls to talk about meaningless stuff you can listen in on voicemails...

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