Kross

Hi, I'm Ben.

I am passionate about music (Piano mostly these days ArtsiaLuna.com and am presently writing lots of new quasi-classical pieces. I have not been uploading any sketches or recordings recently but should have some tracks ready to release somehow soon.

It's crazy how many people listen to (streaming via other sites and downloading the MP3's for free) the rough practice out-takes and other snippets I have on Artsialuna.com (I do no promotion, there are no ads or loads of clever link strategies in play etc) - so I hope some of you who visit here might wish to support my continued efforts to improve my piano authorship and playing, by purchasing MP3 files of better and more polished recordings soon.

Ideally, my business will grow enough that I can hand it over to others so I can focus more on piano. Not that I don't have an equal interest in tech.

For distribution of music, I am preparing to use StreamingAudio.com.au to output these in future (and perhaps other artists also). Let me know if you'd like to have something to do with StreamingAudio.com.au either as a contributor or investor.

*[see below update] Currently helping out on Margot Smith's new CD.

UPDATE: Margot passed away in April 2011. I'm relieved to say that she did manage to reach her goal of finishing her CD Inhumaninane and am glad to have been able to be there for her in her last year or so to help her make her final dreams come true in this life. I write this nearly 9 months after she left this world and it really does not get any easier. Thank you to all those who helped to raise her quality life in her difficult struggle with her illness. She will not be forgotten.

Apart from me spending most of my time with her in Sydney helping with friendship, love, housing, food and care through 2010-2011, she was also aided greatly by her sister Vicki, Sue Campbell and Rajani Enderby, two fine friends and champions of her music, Lindy Morrison through her work with SupportAct.com.au alone is a legend. Sue and Raj helped finance and press her final CD and to organise her wonderful benefit concert which Margot sadly missed. Time - it's hard to get things to happen in time. We tried our best to keep her well and turn her life around but it was too late.

That being said, Margo was extremely proud of her last CD and it was as close to what she wanted to leave for us as it could have been. It is a message of frailty, life lived, regrets and some powerful messages for us all within these themes.

Others appearing on the CD include her three brothers in the band "The Church", Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes, Tim Powles. There is also John Kilbey, Skeet, myself and quite a few others. Please visit her website for more detailed info.

You can purchase Margot's "Inhumaninane" CD via Rajani's eBay store Futura Lifestyle and of course visit Margot's website for any new info. By purchasing via Rajani's store, you can be assured that you are buying from Margot's officially endorsed source.

Margot asked my nearest and dearest Kathy Dora to take photos of her benefit concert. Kathy is a widely respected music photographer with photos of some great names in music in the Qld State Library. She took over 300 great photos which she is diligently working on in her spare time for those who loved Margot to see and share - free of charge.

Other. I have also been helping people register domains at FarCoolMart.com for 5 years now - .com or .net .org etc and many dozens of other extensions. I keep my prices as LOW as possible because I am my own best customer. Prices went up this year - it seemed that low prices didn't win as the #1 value proposition.

Use the hosting and other DIY services there or contact me for bespoke requirements and we'll work something out.

My main business site is FarCool.com

Currently I am:

--- writing this

--- writing new music

--- organising some nice .com.au domains for future businesses such as:

DigitalBank.com.au & DigitalPayment.com.au (seeking serious seed investors/partners)

StreamingAudio.com.au (seeking investers/participants)

DiamondSolitaire.com.au (seeking quality wholesalers)

EstateSale.com.au (investors/participants)

and hundreds of others, over time.

--- writing hundreds of new original web templates for release soon at WebsitePageTemplates.com

--- making incremental changes to other web sites

--- looking for new web site clients

--- keeping up to the minute with tech

--- knowing some of my sites need updates to reflect that

--- smelling the coffee, world events, spreading awareness etc

--- occasionally stopping to smell the roses

--- brokering domains via my service RealComEstate.com:

I will be changing format there soon. Due to Margot's CD and other business and life commitments I really did not end up having the time to put in when I launched it. In fact I launched that in the hope that I could gain commission on a valuable domain name or three, so that i could use it to help Margot get the treatment she needed. That did not work. Thank you to those who contributed marvelous and genuinely top tier domains in that first instance, Mike Mann via a sub-commission deal with Melly Walker, Adam Dicker, Andrew Wright of Fabulous.com.

Thank you also to the few other domain owners who have offered their domains since launching. It may certainly take more money and time to get it off the ground - have you seen the competition lately? Sedo is king in this it seems, and for a reason or two - short URL, great brokers and an established budget for marketing their services.

If you know people in the market for quality domain names please let me know. If you would like to list your quality domain names also. The new format is an interactive, searchable data table format with a self rolled jQuery interface. Looks nice, just need a little more time to add/test more features and roll it out. Should be this half of the year - but other things do tend to require my energy too.

--- WebApp.com.au needs to be built asap. Have had offers to buy it but not for the right price - and I'd rather get it right.. there's newly GPL'd web app store software available and I'll be testing that soon too - might be best to make it in to a Australian web app store with a leaning towards indie devs.

--- seeking self cloning machine

That's a short wrap. Thanks for reading and catching up.

Life is busy, time is *very* short. Remember those you love.

Cheers and thank you, Ben Kross.