Finally I got my hands on Spotify and I am praying dearly for it to be finally released here in the US. Don’t ask me how I got to try it out, just know that I did. IT IS AMAZING…that is the simple way of putting it. I could see where they were coming from trying to reduce the number of piracy, and illegal downloads happening *cough* *cough*. However, with it being only limited and as of now a price tag of £9.99 or $16.00 USD is really not very appealing as I pay only 3.00 per month for last.fm. The question on the table is will people be willing to pay $16.00 a month just to run an app like Spotify or will Spotify reduce the amount that people will have to pay in order to access the service.

Here are some of the things I loved about Spotify:

Search:

The ease of searching for a song and finding a whole CD or even a few of the artist’s songs is really what should I say, impressive? I searched for Buju Banton and had the pleasure of finding some old hits, and even some songs that were practically stuck in my head for days. The good thing is you could play the whole list from the search results. Which brings me to the next  pointer:

 Offline Play:

With each search result, you could right click and add that song to a personalized playlist. Mine for example is called just for play. The offline mode allows you to virtually add the song to your playlist without buying it and so you could play it at will on that device whenever you want. Disadvantage to that is you will have to buy the song if you want it to play on other devices. I have no need however to add my songs to another device, and so I am quite comfortable with my playlist.

  Home:

The home tab shows you all of the latest and most popular songs that are available and those that are being played by other users. Plus they give you access to new releases which is actually a great opportunity to hear an album before purchasing it .

 Desktop Application: 

The desktop app once signed in gives you the same access as it would on the phone. Your playlist is available and you could also search for songs and add them to your playlist. Please note that your playlist would be updated on the phone almost immediately and vice versa.

Spotify is a work in progress however, and I do hope they reconsider their pricing as no one would want to pay such a high price just to listen to music that cannot be transferred. A great application that could possibly curb  your appetite for illegal downloads and an excellent choice if you want to listen to an artist’s hit songs without buying the cd. So far I am loving my run with Spotify, it sure gives itunes a run for its money. Hopefully you can try it too when it is released hopefully in 2010.

Disclaimer: I am using a fully paid and active version of Spotify Premium.

Well sorry for neglecting you for some time, and yes I know it’s been a long time but I’ve been getting things sorted and making complicated decisions. You know the things adults do (yuck ). I do hope that you are enjoying this day a special day not only meant for giving gifts but for cherishing the moments we have with family. I know times are hard but that  doesn’t mean however that you can’t enjoy the holidays. In times like these a smile and a little bit of love is all someone needs. Having fun times together is cherished more than a gift, but hey people think differently. So Merry Christmas to you!

I’ve seen a few of James Cameron’s movies, Titanic, Terminator and a few others, he is a man who could set almost anything on screen and make it EPIC.  First off I will say awesome graphics, maybe I should have used a better word to describe it but this is my true feeling. This is cinematography at its best. I admit at first I did not want to go to see it, but after looking closely and seeing my friends excited over it made me decide to go.

Here is my interpretation of the movie. There will be no spoilers as I do not want to take away your spirit to want to see the movie.

First off I saw a political side to this movie, and my hubby mentioned it to me while we discussed it after. Certain things that were said in the script had a political connotation to it, however that did not take away from the movie. Watching the movie in the IMAX 3D theater at the AMC made me see how advanced this movie was in terms of its use of technology. I mean 500 Million is a lot and Cameron put it all into good use. The whole movie from start to finish was color filled and after a while I forgot that it was 3D as I’d gotten used to the action on screen. My son however reminded me that it was 3D when he continuously tried to grab the particles.

The movie was practically predictable, as I had an idea of what was going to happen next. However, I was not bored to death because I was interested in the story line of Jake and how well he adapted to the Na’Vi. Even though you know what is coming next you still want to watch. As Dave said earlier we have sort of shied away from SCI-FI movies as they have gotten boring and its the same old alien mess. Cameron however is showing Hollywood that they have to step their game up in order to capture the attention of the audience. Their movies may not be as good as Cameron’s but that will force them to do better.

Back to Jake and the Na’Vis it is a world that was basically untouched. A world that has a niche that was connected down to the dust. A world that is only in the imagination yet it seemed so real. The characters seemed so real, everything seemed real, I even wondered if Cameron visited a world like that and it was his little secret. People are fussing about the name of the planet Pandora, for all I care it could have been named Tim-buck-two and it would not have made a difference. The way Jake adapted the actions of the natives, all brought the story together.

Jake’s brother Tom who was his twin died. He was a scientist working on the Avatar project, and since Jake is his twin their gnome matched so it was no problem fitting him to his brother’s avatar. The scientists and the military had two different agendas as the cooperation funding the project had one aim and that was to get the natural resources from the planet. At first Jake went in obeying orders but as he adapted to the natives, he began to see the evil around him. In turn for becoming one of them he betrayed the humans. He learned their language, how to walk and appreciate the forest. Having turned his back on the humans he created a catalyst to what was going to happen anyway. Destruction happened faster and was more brutal.

Even with a predictable story line Cameron still manages to capture the audience’s attention and there was never a dull moment. Kudos to Cameron.

I have decided to put my Droid recording abilities to the test and here are the results:

I will post my first experience and update you on why I love the Droid.

I am not a big fan of letting my Facebook status and pictures out to the public hence the use of the highest privacy given by Facebook. Today they announced some new privacy changes, they are easier to follow and I am very satisfied. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing to hide, but I consider Facebook my safe haven and consider it to be the only place I could express myself without repercussions.  Not that I will say something that will affect my job but you never know who you could offended.

At the time of clicking continue to the next step you will be asked to update your privacy settings which basically remains the same unless you want to make some changes.

What does the new privacy announcement mean?

1. Better Control Over Who Could See Your Status.

For some time there was an option where you could control from the privacy settings who could see your status. Now the option is directly in the status bar so at the time of updating you could select from the various groups. In my opinion that is easier. Maybe that could help avoid conflict when certain people decide that it is in your best interest to share their  opinions.

2. Better Security Settings

I have seen first hand what someone could do when they hack into your account, not that this feature would help if someone actually got into your account. It at least makes you feel safer that the password has to be confirmed before making any changes.

3. Concise Settings for Applications

You have the options to select what you share and what your friends can share about you. If you did not know, some of the applications that your friends use and what you use has access to your information and your friends information. You could reduce how much of that information you want the applications to have access too. That could help reduce those ads for example the “your friend so and so took the IQ quiz and scored 110 take the test to see what your IQ is”.

4. Ability to Hide Friends

You could show up to 12 friends on your profile or none at all.  They actually changed it from showing no friends on your profile which is not so good, but I consider it a whatever. This is what my profile looks  like to others:

Facebook has also added a video that could help you better manage your privacy settings:

Even though I hate the things Facebook does at times, I have to commend them on the privacy.