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  We hope you enjoyed our #SB46 party pics! Goodnight kisses from @heatherraeyoung! http://t.co/d0Ce4E5R
  (about 3 hours ago)
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  Welcome to the party @LMFAO @redfoo! #SB46 http://t.co/byQWbI3d
  (about 4 hours ago)
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  It seems that @daveannable10 is growing out his mustache ;) #SB46 http://t.co/6s8iWkdS
  (about 4 hours ago)
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  Any True Blood fans out there?! It's @mehcadbrooks & @TiffanySelby! #SB46 http://t.co/oVPex3Q3
  (about 4 hours ago)
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  It's okay to wish you were here, @NeYoCompound is on stage! #SB46 http://t.co/vRCFkYEg
  (about 5 hours ago)

Hello boys and girls!  Just a little post to put down some rumors and stories regarding some of the web properties I founded or owned that have been acquired by new companies or individuals.  With Manwin taking up my online passions, I don’t really have the time to run much of a web presence outside of work hours, so I’ve been looking for qualified people to take over my various sites and keep them moving in to the future.  A couple of months ago, http://www.pixel2life.com was acquired by a local Montreal based company that promises big things on the site and the migration is now over and I play no roles on there anymore.

With pixel2life.com gone, it was still obvious I had no time for my hobby based sites, so those had to go as well… I started with www.thehunterslair.com, which is now managed and owned by Art Andrews and his company.  They also run The Replica Prop Forum (RPF) and Dented Helmet so I know he will do a kick ass job with the Lair.  They took over a couple of weeks ago but I am stillactive on the site and will be deploying the latest IPB updates before I start fading in to the background.

The final project is my beloved www.predatorstuff.com, which is going to a very enthusiastic fellow Predator collector named Richard.  The migration has already begun to his server and I’ll be working with him on operating the site over the coming weeks.  He’s VERY stoked about running Predatorstuff and again, I know he’ll do a great job with fresh energy and has the time the site deserves dedicated to it.

So this leaves me with the two sites I will be keeping… my personal blog site www.danrichard.com and the new hosting company I started at the beginning of the year www.p2lhosting.com and I have zero intentions or parting with it.  In fact with the other sites leaving my business portfolio, I will have more time to work on the hosting, which I plan on working on with Adam and rebranding it so it’s not attached to the P2L brand.  So if you’re thinking about hosting, we’re not going anywhere!  You can check out the site and sign up for hosting by clicking HERE!

It should also note that included with the sites I’ve sold were all the twitter and facebook accounts that were associated to them.  So if you want to follow me, you can find my personal twitter account here: @THEdanrichard

That’s it guys.. looking forward to being off NDA next month, then I can share which site I am managing now!

Dan

Hey guys… just a quick little tip for anything who is having a bitch of a time pairing their Motorola S9 bluetooth headset to their iPhone. I recently dove in to the world of Mac with an iPhone 4G and was having a horrible time at getting my headset to pair, yet pairs with my Android phone in 2 seconds with zero issues. I dug all over the web for solutions and didn’t really get anywhere until I tried something so stupid that I couldn’t believe it worked. I powered on the headset and placed in across the room and it paired within seconds! *shakes head* So apparently the unit won’t pair with the iPhone if both are sitting on your dining room table, but works fine when they’re in separate rooms, go figure.

Oh and this was only necessary for the initial pairing. Once paired for the first time, the S9 connects right away when I power it on and they’re next to each other.

By the way, I can’t believe how you Mac fans are so rabid about the iPhone, it’s quite honestly the most horribly conceived smartphone I have ever used in terms of usability. Even after unlocking it, jailbreaking it and loading all kinds of apps to regain some basic usefulness, my Nexus One was still more functional straight out of the retail box. I still can’t believe you guys are forced to use that ridiculous iTunes for music management, what a HUGE piece of crap that application is.

Anyhow, I’m sure I’ll get used to the iPhone once I’ve hacked it to normalcy, but good lord do I feel bad for someone who’s not very tech savvy and gets saddled with this phone. Nick is promising good things with iOS 5, but until they allow me to connect the phone via USB and it opens with explorer like a normal external drive to move around photos and music (even a FREE basic noname brand phone does this) this will never be as good as an Android or Windows based phone.

I will say the iPhone is fast… the buttons respond very quickly and the screen is gorgeous with smooth transitions on the menus and apps. But the lack of support for so many common features that every other smart phone has is infuriating. No widgets, no writable drive via USB, too many paid apps vs Android marketplace, no free google maps GPS, can’t place icons where you want on the springboard… when you drag them to move them around, they always sort to the top left. You need a third party app for free placement and can only get that app after jailbreaking the phone.

The list goes on and on, but that’s for another post I think… for now, I hope this helps S9 users get paired up with their iPhones!

Dan

Good morning everyone! It is my extreme pleasure and pride to announce that after years of requests from the P2L community, we have finally launched professional hosting services backed by the same people that keep the Pixel2life Studios network up and running for the last 7 years. I would like to introduce you to P2LHosting.com!

For the last 3 years or so, folks have been asking us and telling us that we should definitely look in to website hosting as a means of revenue to help fund this site and out other projects. In all honesty, I was against this venture from the start, my knee-jerk response being “are you out of your mind?!”. My biggest concern was customer service. I didn’t want to start a hosting company and build up a client list that I couldn’t maintain or keep up with, then destroy my reputations as well as the reputation of the P2L organization. All too many companies start with the best of intentions, but crash and burn when the reality is that trouble does tend to happen at 3AM, not when you’re bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 1PM.

So how did we resolve this? P2L has partnered with a professional server management company in order to provide you with 24 hour, 365 days a year technical support with full response time guarantees and unparalleled service to all of our clients. Our datacenter is located in the Infomart telecom hotel, a private, Tier III, N+1 facility near downtown Dallas and has a capacity for over 40,000 servers!

WEB HOSTING

P2L Hosting is offering 4 hosting packages suitable for new webmasters to seasoned veterans that need some serious resources to keep their sites running at optimum levels. With our Light, Medium, Heavy and Heavy Plus plans, we can accommodate any sized website. All accounts include cPanel management and Heavy/Heavy Plus include FREE domain registration for the life of your account! You can check out all our plans at http://www.p2lhosting.com/plans

DEDICATED SERVERS

Need some serious dedicated horsepower? We also offer dedicated servers on a case-by-case basis. Our dedicated server plans are customized to each client and are not sold directly from our site interface. We will work with you to choose the appropriate hardware based on your needs (We offer dozens of hardware configurations in Opteron and Xeon flavors with single, dual and quad core processors) and decide on the management requirements of your machine.

OTHER SERVICES

P2L Hosting is also proud to offer server management and CMS upgrade management services. If you own or plan to own a dedicated server running WHM/cPanel but you’re not sure how to secure it, optimize it, maintain it and/or what to do if you run in to technical problems, we can help! Whether you purchase your server with us or not, we can provide you monthly server management for what most sysadmins would charge for an hour of labor!

Can’t stand keeping track of and installing updates to your CMS software? Forums, Blogs and website CMS software all require updates to remain secure and optimized and sometimes this can be confusing, frustrating or simply ignored until you run in to serious problems. For pennies a day, you can have P2L keep track of your software and we’ll update it as soon as updates and patches are released!

Check out all the details on our services at http://www.p2lhosting.com/services

P2L Hosting also includes a fully automated client portal, allowing our clients to submit support tickets, view our knowledge database, upgrade accounts and view your billing options and much more! We will also be introducing new incentives for our hosting customers, such as free premium P2L accounts, swag and prizes and surprise free month’s worth of service at random! And because P2L is a community oriented network, you’ll find updates and news about our hosting offers and contests throughout our social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and here on our forums.

Join the P2L network and host your website with P2LHosting.com for safe, secure and fast service and see the difference solid customer service can make.

Thanks!
Dan

Good morning everyone!  Wow, this whole "error 24" issue out of Corel that I figured was a small error I had somehow generated through some magical Vista voodoo ended up being quite the event, not to mention my most commented article to date on this blog.  I want to thank everyone that stopped by to post a comment, be it to thank me for the help or to slap my wrist for helping folks with pirated copies circumvent the error.  All comments are welcome on here as long as they are civil, so no worries.  Anyhow, Corel has posted their final statement on the issue and have offered a deal for anyone that has been scammed by a retailer as long as you have proof of purchase, or if you want to purchase X4 outright.  Please check it out HERE.

At this point, it's obvious that Corel is acknowledging the fact that many users have paid for software thinking it was legitimate when in fact it was not, or people were using valid NFR or demo versions, or you were using a pirated version with a generated serial number.  The application is programmed to expire on these non-retail type passwords June 1st, 2010, hence the shenanigans that kicked up this week. I personally have been using NFR copies given to me directly by Corel since version 12, and quite honestly, this is the first I hear of any kind of expiry on them.  I called Corel this morning and they confirmed that my X4 was a vendor eval version and unfortunately has expired and I can no longer use it.

This is frustrating to me because when I was given this copy, I was not told of any expiry date or time limit, nor did it mention any in the terms and conditions I agreed to when installing the software.  Granted, I was given this software for free, but I don't think it's a far cry to say that I have since sold many copies to potential clients through my constant plugging of this software, not to mention the thousands of views my Corel tutorials and articles have received.  Either way, my X4 has expired so the question becomes, what do I do now?

First up, I've removed my X4 install and re-installed by eval copy of version 12… and low and behold,it works fine with no error.  So it would appear that the expiry date on vendor eval copies is new in X4 (unless X3 had the same expiry date).  Next up, I'll see if I can get a copy of X5 in the same manner, otherwise I'll pick it up… upgrade is $200 from the Corel store, so not a huge deal when compared to Adobe's pricing, although Photoshop has clearly become a heck of a lot more powerful vs Photo Paint, and there's no touching Illustrator.  But I guess when you've been using the same software brand for 15+ years, you get a little attached to it.

OK, moving right along… in terms of folks linking to the dr14.dta file in my previous post about this topic, I'm afraid that because this is a confirmed issue with eval versions expiring or generated serial numbers being invalid, using this workaround is not legal.  I know many of you have paid good money for your Corel software, but you've been unfortunately scammed and need to contact Corel ASAP to get your issue resolved.  So that being said, and after speaking with the Corel rep directly to confirm all the facts, I will be removing all the links to the .dta files in the comments area.  I know anyone can find these doing a simple Google search, but it's not exactly in my nature to support software piracy seeing as it's almost a daily struggle for me to stop people from copying my sites, stealing content etc.

So thats it from me on this issue…  now to get back to writing tutorials!  By the way, in case you are new to this blog and found out about it when you searched for a resolution to the "error 24" thing, thanks for stopping by!  If you're fairly new to the world of CorelDraw and would like to check out some Photo Paint tutorials, check out my complete list HERE!  I also run a huge tutorial search portal with thousands of free tutorials for graphic designers, programmers and webmasters and you can check that out at Pixel2life.com.

Thanks again for all the comments and feedback guys, take care and happy drawing!

Dan