Spotify music debate: Own a piece or rent it all?

"What Spotify is saying is, ownership (of music) is great, but access is the future," Daniel Ek

I'd rather own my music. However, streaming everything does seem to be the wave of the future.

Rent or own? What do you say?

Image from CNN

Spotify founder: Future of music is access, not ownership

The final Harry Potter review

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 closed out the series in fine fashion. Super attack on Hogwarts, character redemption's, dragons, flames, ghosts, explosions, love and sacrifice. I would watch it again. And this comes from someone who hasn't cared for the series at all.

I would announce that this is a spoiler alert, but most of the people reading this have probably already read the book and know how it ends. As such, I will say that according to all of the status updates on Facebook from Potter fans, they got everything right. As for me, I wouldn't have noticed. Here is the nondescript action movie run down.

Lord Voldermort (plaid brilliantly by Ralph Fiennes) steals the super Elder wand from the grave of a powerful wizard. He now has what he needs to destroy the hero, Harry Potter.

Harry, Ron and Hermione (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupurt Grint and Emma Watson) devise a plan to get the last piece of the deathly hallows which includes the Elder wand, cloak of invisibility and cup of resurrection.) This requires help from a troll. From myths and legends, trolls have never been the most trustworthy of creatures and it was proven once again. Inside the vault, Hermione bumps one of the valuables which hits the floor and starts replicating suddenly filling up the room. Harry gets the cup of resurrection and then becomes buried underneath the pile of valuables. He breaks out in heroic fashion and the troll promptly takes cup to make the exchange for a special sword.

So the troll gets away and here come the wizard police shooting at Harry and friends while they try to escape. Hermione comes up with a plan to use the big ol' dragon in the middle of the area. they hop on it's back, break it's chains and fly out of there leaving a path of destruction behind them.

Fast forward past some dramatic moments where they get back to the wizard realm, run into some folks, make their way back into Hogwarts, boost morale of the kids and make a grand appearance after the second bad guy in command, Professor Snape, summons all the kids to threaten them if Harry Potter shows up and no one says anything. Tadaa! Harry shows up.

Another professor defends Harry, running Snape off. Voldermort's essence makes a couple of girls scream and he says he'll leave everyone alone if they give him Harry Potter. Like that's gonna happen. Professors set up a force field around Hogwarts and guard the entrance with stone warriors. Voldermort and a crew of baddies launch a '300' style attack firing wand blasts at the force field. No luck. Harry goes off on a mission to find various jewels that can destroy Voldermort. Ron and Hermione strike the resurrection cup with the tooth of a basilisk. Didn't really understand that part, but the wall of water that blew across them provided for one of those "we almost died" make out sessions between the two. Whatever happened, Voldermort strikes the force field with a wand blast that destroys the force field and cracks the wand while he's at it.

The attack begins. Massive ogres vs stone warriors. A bunch of werewolf type witches and warlocks get blown up on the rear bridge entrance. Chaos ensues. Harry realizes that he must destroy the snake that follows Voldermort before he can take him out. A trip through front battle lines leads to a boat house where Voldermort sends his snake to attack Snape. Why? Power, of course. Since Snape killed Dumbledore, that means Voldermort has to kill Snape for the wand to obey him. Harry and friends hide while this happens and creep in just in time to get a couple tear drops from Snape before he dies.

Voldermort sends out another round of mental messages for his troops to retreat and for Harry to meet him in the woods for a final showdown. Classic, ain't it? Harry drops the tears in a plate of water and dunks his head in. We get to see how Snape falls in love and protects Lilly, Harry's mother, and then gets tossed aside as she falls for the guy who would become Harry's father. I feel for ya, Snape. Hate it when that happens. Nice guys finish last.

We also get to see how Harry's parents were murdered by Voldermort and the scar on Harry's forehead is actually a ricochet from Voldermort's wand as he killed Lilly. Snape finds the dead bodies and makes a deal with Dumbledore to save Harry. So Snape wasn't all bad. But he's dead. That's usually how it works. He got redemption.

Harry heads to the woods. Voldermort pops him with a super blast dropping both of them. Harry has that white room is-this-heaven type talk with Dumbledore and plays dead til Voldermort and crew take him back to Hogwarts to declare their supremacy.

Voldermort breaks out into a "Harry's dead! Join me" type speech. One of the kids steps forward and gives a rousing diatribe about how Harry will always be with them and proceeds to pull the same sword that the troll had out of a hat and promptly gets sent flying by Voldermort's wand blast. Braveheart moment denied. Harry springs back to life and takes off running. Battle ensues again.

Voldermort goes after Harry. The snake goes after Ron and Hermione. After a fun wizardry duel, Harry grabs Voldermort and is prepared to die by sending them both off of a ledge. They fly all over the place trying to rip the faces off each other and land back at the court yard where they scramble for their wands and fire at each other. The kid sword wakes just in time to cut the head off the snake as it dives for Ron and Hermione. Voldermort feels the pain of the snake dying after a test of wills fire blast with Harry.

Voldermort gives it the ol' college try one more time and loses his life and wand in the process. Pieces of him chip away into oblivion. The good guys win. Harry breaks the Elder wand and tosses it off the bridge, gives a little bit of a speech and the 3 friends hold hands while staring off into the distance.

I deliberately left out a couple moments because it's actually worth paying for (2D version is what I saw). You have the story in a nutshell. It follows a pretty standard action script. Most of the back story can be recapped here.

I say it's definitely a summer movie worth watching even if you haven't seen the other films or are interested in Harry Potter. It may not be in the same category, but this is better than Thor and Green Lantern.

That said... I'm still not a Harry Potter fan, but it has definitely earned my respect.

*Image courtesy CNN/Warner Brothers

Harry Potter fans flock to premiere

Not a Harry Potter fan, but I could watch the last film.

It's been coming for a while. Potter minions from near and far are gathering. The time has come. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Can you feel the excitement!? I can't. I must be one of those muggles. For me it's just another run of films I can't wait to fade into obscurity. Like when MTV played TLC's "Waterfalls" video at least twice every hour back in the 90's.

However, I will say that seeing the previews forced upon me at the start of each of the summer blockbusters I've watched has had a strange side effect. I think I want to see it.

I saw "The Prisoner of Azkahban" because a friend in the office invited me with her friends. I saw Order of The Phoenix for some reason I wasn't sure why.

But "The Deathly Hallows part 2"? Hmmm. A whole bunch of explosions, fighting, running for your life, dark halls of a wizard school, a bunch of wizards and witches firing off wand puls projectiles like a scene out of '300.'... This film looks kinda good.

On MSNBC, they show a video for folks like me. 7 Harry Potter films in 6 minutes. I got the gist of the back story on how everyone came to be where they are now which also helped me understand what I was watching in the two films I did see. So for those of you who are along for the ride at midnight for the premiere of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 or will see it another time or are only doing it because someone invited you, please watch this video.

May the force be with you... Or whatever they say to each other.

*Image from HarryPotter.com

Be your own Disc Jockey on Turntable.fm

Some days people can send you links to some of the craziest things. Today it was Turntable.fm. This isn't your regular Internet radio site. You actually get to pick the songs you want to play. As with most things that sound too good to be true, there is a catch.

The way it works is that there are chat rooms with 5 DJs spinning. Each DJ is a person playing a song they have uploaded from whatever genre or style the chat room is. Once the song is over, the spotlight moves to the next DJ. So on and so forth. A "Like or Lame" meter at the bottom of the screen can judge a DJ's choice of music along with the chat log on the right side of the screen and the movement of the avatars.

Speaking of Avatars, the more fans and DJ points you receive, the better avatars you can choose from. Everyone starts off with choices of dorky boys and girls avatars. From there it moves up various Hello Kitty-esque avatars and random characters from Cartoon Network, it seems. The highest ranking DJs I noticed had Deadmau5 as an avatar.

Music choices are all over the place. From various forms of dubstep all the way to country music and around indie rock. Folks are now bound by only the rooms listed. You can create your own. A Conquer Entertainment DJ Room in the near future would be pretty cool.

A couple things you should know: Turntable.fm is still in "beta" which means there are kinks and glitches with the site that the developers are working on. But while they are fixing it, you get to play on the site. The site also doesn't work well with Internet Explorer so now is the time to try Firefox, Chrome or Safari as a web browser. Getting selected to be a DJ relies upon the speed of your index finger. Because there is no actual "que" for picking who goes next, although some rooms do have their own selection process.

However, with being able to create your own room to play your own music, this is definitely a way for independent artists to get their music out there without leaving the house.

Turntable.fm

*Image from CNN.com

5 tips for spinning on the addictive Turntable.fm

Kids like you more when you have an iPad.

A couple weeks ago my small one bedroom condo became ground zero for my team of editors working on a project we submitted to the annual 48 Hour Film Festival. This is a great competition that gives filmmakers 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a seven minute film. We were under the gun to get the project done on time, but some of my teammates had families with kids that they invited over to my place while we were working through the final edits.

My place isn't very big and needless to say we were a little cramped for work space. With a packed house, lunch was delivered by our executive producer and her 3 children. Don’t get me wrong, I love kids and hers are great, always well behaved, but I could tell they were getting a little restless after around 10 minutes or so.

Being the great host I try to be, I wanted to find something to keep them entertained. As I was scrambling to find something, anything for the kids to do, I had a flashback to the night before when a producer kept going on about things he needed us to do while we were trying to focus on editing. I handed him my iPad, and coached him how to play some games and get online. He was content, quiet and kept to himself in the corner. I wondered, if it works on a grown man, could it work on children?

I broke out my iPad and the kids’ faces immediately lit up. "Oh Cool! You have Assassin's Creed!" one shouted out. Another editor handed his iPad over "Angry Birds!" the second kid gushed. What to do with the last child? I wasn't sure. It was at that point I wished I’d had a third for the young ladyt that was left out, but she waited patiently for her turn as her brothers played games. So I showed her how to use Apple TV while she waited for her turn. The mom looked at me in disbelief; I had actually found a way to silence her children. Does this mean that I am destined one day to be parent of the year? Let’s not go that far, but I was feeling pretty good about myself!

As they left, I heard a chorus of "Thanks, Louis!" To that, I say thank you, iPad.

The great thing that this story tells us is that the iPad is universally known by both children and adults, and is so simple to use that a toddler can find their way around this incredible piece of technology without breaking a sweat.

The iPad has over 90,000 Applications (Apps) that span from the office to education to the latest in video games. It’s a communication tool, as well as a way to access the internet, and take photos and video. It’s the Swiss pocket knife of technology.

Here are a couple notables for family life. There are apps that can work with office files. PDFs, Word, Excel and others can be read offline through different apps. They can also be viewed through Safari which is standard Mac Internet Browser. For road trips with the kids, the iPad can hold movies which can be downloaded from iTunes and enjoyed between the kids with a headphone splitter. Movies can be upwards of 1 or 2 gigabytes easily so this is where the difference between the 16 and 32 gigabyte storage on iPads takes place.

For the musician in the family, there are apps with guitar/bass tuners, amplifier effects and even a whole drum kit. iMovie for iPad allows you to do editing and uploading on the go.

For the reader, there is iBooks. No more searching around for to find the right book to read to the kids before bed. Just bring it up the app. And the iBooks app is free.

Along with education apps that involve English, science, math and history... There are coloring books! Yes there are apps for coloring books. Learn more about the educational apps at this link.

Is it worth the investment? I've found it to be and I think your family will as well.

Share with us some unique ways that iPad has changed your families lives. Tells us about ways that you think the iPad has helped your family, and how your kids use it.


Pick up an iPad 2 in black here.

Pick up an iPad 2 in white here.

*Image from CNN

5 reasons why the iPad was made to keep parents sane