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

With 4th of July coming up, leave the grilling to the experts

4th of July cookouts are a staple of being in the U.S. Burgers, steaks, hot dogs, chicken, corn... if it can be grilled, then it will be somewhere in America this weekend.

The problem is, not everyone grilling knows how to do it properly. You don't need to have top of the line equipment to make a great rack of ribs. You don't need to dump a whole bottle of lighter fluid on the charcoal and mimic a Woodstock bonfire. And pouring your favorite brand of light beer on a burger patties isn't the greatest method of keeping them moist.

I have a theory that most of these habits began in college. So I have a list of reasons why things may be the way that they are.

1. Not cleaning the grill before using it: You get used to not having full sets of dishes and utensils, matching furniture and when it comes to grill ware... there is most likely a spatula, tongs and a pitchfork. Iron brush for cleaning? Some inventive, yet lazy, soul said "It's OK, it adds flavor and besides, once the grill gets hot, it won't matter." A co-ed probably validated this statement by eating a burger cooked off the dirty grill and saying "Not too bad."

2. Pouring light beer on the burger: A secret recipe or a desperate attempt to save a dry burger that had been left on the grill too long? I think both are valid. In actuality, the theory is there for adding a hint of beer flavor to a burger like folks do with beer can chicken. The catch comes with a phrase every chef knows, "The flavor is in the fat." Light beer is usually light on flavor and the majority of light beers found near or around 21 year olds is probably Miller lite, Coors Light, Bud light or various cheap and generally flavorless options. These are also mostly water. By pouring light beer onto a sizzling burger, you are washing away the flavor and putting out the coals cooking the meat. Thus the temperature drops and the cooking time slows. Drink the beer. Spare the burger.

3. Flames sear in the flavor: Well... Yes and no. Any surface that is hot enough can sear. That's why you burn yourself getting into a hot car that's been sitting for a while. On a grill, the flames burn more than sear. Once you get the charcoal lit, give it a couple of minutes for the flames to die down before throwing the meat on there.

4. Poking the meat to see if it's done: We've all done it. It looks done. The meat is brown. Cutting each piece half way to check the middle is considered a lack of skill amongst your peers. So what do you do? You poke it, flip it again or roll it one last time. Oddly enough, this is probably where you start going back to the whole "Light beer should moisten it back up." concept.

5. "Here, you take over.": I get it... It's a party. The company and the cooler with the drinks are probably out of range and until the food is done, everyone is hanging out by the drinks. The problem is, being picked to grill is an honor later in life. In college, it was more of a means to an end and passed off to the next guy that happened to come along and sniff to see if the food is done.

So here's to being a little older and a lot wiser when it comes to how the food is prepared. I like marinades but nothing over 24 hours. Having a large grill doesn't automatically mean I have issues... it means I enjoy multiple heating zones on the grill. When it comes to the Charcoal vs. Gas debate... Let's just say I have an opinion on both, but one over the other won't break my 4th of July cookout.

Do you have any tips or tricks for people on the grill?

*Image from CNN

An open letter to my neighbors who are very bad at grilling

Gym, Tan, Laundry and Pink Slip?

According to TMZ, sources say season 5 of Jersey Shore will be the last. That's not saying they are gone for good. They'll have spin offs while MTV can hire some cheaper super tanned kids to run the main show.

Poor New Jersey... Just when you thought you were out, they pulled you back in.

*Image from TMZ.

MTV to 'Jersey Shore' Cast: Arrivederci For Good!

Happy Birthday, Sonic The Hedgehog!

Another bit of nostalgia, Sonic The Hedgehog is 20 years old today. Those of us who remember the Sega Genesis are familiar with the video game. For those looking to bring some of it back, you can find working Sega Geneses (plural) on EBay for pretty cheap.

Does anyone know how old Street Fighter 2 is? Mortal Kombat?

Image from nerdreactor.com

Sonic turns the big 2-0 today.

Shazam helps you name that song you heard on the radio or TV.

We've probably all been there before. You're listening to a song on the radio and you've most likely caught it half way through. At the end of the song, the DJ goes into another one and the name of the song is never mentioned. What do you do? Drive around for another hour or two and wait for the song to come back on with an explaination from the DJ? Why don't you Shazam it?

Shazam is a free app(other versions go for $5.99 in the Apple App store) that you can get on iphone, android and blackberry that can tell what the song is and then tell you where to buy the song.

It doesn't work on people trying to sing the song from the few lyrics they know accapella. 3 folks in the office tried with me. If the app could laugh at us, it probably would.

I can't wait to try it out on various commercials.

*Image from Techcrunch.com

Shazam Raises A Huge Round To The Tune of $32 Million

The 80's action cartoon challenge.

He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe, Transformers, Voltron, M.A.S.K., The Centurions, COPS, G.I. Joe, Thunder Cats, Captain Power and The Soldiers of The Future (Not to be confused with Captain Planet). These were shows I enjoyed in my pajamas and a bowl of frosted flakes. This week, Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog has been asking which characters did you like the most on the various shows. I have a feeling that this will end with a "Who is the greatest 80's cartoon character" question, but with so many cartoons being team oriented, it's only fair to pick the best team.

So here it is. Which 80's cartoon team can rule over all the rest and why?

My vote is G.I. Joe. Mainly because of man power. The 'Joe had the largest squad with varying abilities of all the members and even though the stories centered around the main characters, there were always extra soldiers around. G.I. Joe could overrun He-Man and his team. They have just as many machines as Transformers. If one lion goes down, Voltron can't form. M.A.S.K. would be the only other one who would pose a threat. There are only 3 centurions. If G.I. Joe took out Panthro and Cheetara, Lion-O wouldn't be much good. Captain Power could be a dark horse in that cartoon battle, though. Agree? Disagree?

Image from EW.com/Everett Collection

Who is the coolest 'He-Man' character?