Samsung HM7000 Review
Posted: March 1, 2012 Filed under: Gadgets | Tags: Android, Bluetooth Headset, HM7000, Samsung 1 Comment »It has been almost two months since I got my HM7000 as my Christmas/Birthday gift. I have not used many bluetooth headphones compare to number of phones I have owned. I considered BlueAnt Q2 and Jawbone ERA but I chose HM7000 based on Gizmodo’s Review. After about two months of use, these are things I love and dislike.
Love
- Charging / Carrying case
- Long battery life
- Quick charging time
- Absolutely high quality
- People I talk tells me my voice is clear than before
Dislike
- I want in-between rubber ear-pieces
- Charging / Carrying case feels cheap and flimsy
- Samsung’s freesync app force closes every single time
I would recommend this headset to any one and everyone and if FreeSync works well then it would be absolutely the best bluetooth you can get for your android. Especially with $59.99 price-tag, I cannot see any other reason not to get this.
Windows and crapwares
Posted: March 1, 2012 Filed under: Gadgets | Tags: bloatware, computer, hp laptop, Mac, OS X, PC, Windows 1 Comment »Yesterday, my uncle stopped by at my house and dropped off a brand new HP laptop. It was a stylish looking and looked great with Windows 7 home premium. I congratulated him with a new laptop and asked him how it is. First thing he told me was, it is not working smooth and he does not want to deal with all these icons and programs opening up in the beginning.
There is one thing I absolutely do not like about windows. Windows updates that come up almost daily is so unnecessary. It bogs down the system so much and often forces me to reboot. Coming from a Mac system where I barely restart, maybe once in two weeks, to reboot in a day or two forcefully is not a good experience. I have been using OS X as my main operating system for a long time but I use windows system daily with my netbook and three other computers at my home with clean copy of windows 7. I love the windows 7 experience and its cleanliness. However, this experience over HP did not make me so happy about the windows.
I remember the days of bloatware loaded to the brand new computer that I purchased and had to spend few hours to uninstall all and update the windows. All PC manufactures working their best to catch up to Apple. Many debates that it is the windows vs os x. To me it comes down to how smooth the computer runs. I can deal with either Windows 7 or OS X. I prefer OS X due to it’s simplicity and effectiveness. What if Windows rolls out updates in scheduled time in each week rather than so frequently? How about all manufactures remove craptwares and focus on smooth and speedy user experience? How about PC manufactures to downsize its model offerings and focus on fewer models?
As Windows 8 consumer preview released yesterday and all the raves around it gives me a second thought to returning to PC as a main operating system. This short encounter of HP laptop ruined my happy day-dream completely. As long as PC manufactures continually release their lines of computers with crapwares, there is absolutely no chance for Microsoft and PC manufactures to catch up to Apple.
Chicago Auto Show 2012
Posted: February 13, 2012 Filed under: Car | Tags: Chicago Auto Show Leave a comment »I will go straight to the points
Cars I liked (In order I saw)
- Hyundai Veloster
- Hyundai Elantra Coupe – Civic is in a big trouble Here
- Hyundai Genesis Coupe
- Audi A3 TDI
- Lexus LFA
- Lexus IS-F
- Camero ZL1
- Toyota Prius-V
- Subaru BR-Z
- Subaru Impreza WRX
- Kia Optima Turbo
- MINI Countryman
- VW Golf R
- VW GTI
- VW Jetta
- VW Passat
- VW CC
- Mazda MX5
Cars I did not like
- The entire Honda/Acura lineup including Accord Coupe Concept (What a sad day as a Honda Fan). I thought new NSX supposed to be here but I did not see it
- Chevy Sonic
- Fiat 500
- Scion FT-86… BR-Z was much better
- VW Beatle
Regarding Auto Show
- Chicago Auto Show scales down every single years
- Not many concepts and new debuts make the auto show less attractive
- It is much better to have a dinner and get there around 7 pm. People tend to leave around 7:30~8:00 pm and auto show becomes more enjoyable
- Parking sucks
Digital Purchase vs. Streaming
Posted: January 11, 2012 Filed under: Music | Tags: digital sales, iTunes, Music Business, Spotify, streaming Leave a comment »Source: Spotify Doesn’t Sound So Great to Some Artists
The article talks about how major acts from major labels refuse release their new albums on Spotify despite of big advances labels took. Also at the end the Author mention how artists are losing a source of income to Grooveshark and Torrents illegal downloads.
Probably all you can think is lady Gaga and $160 check she got from Spotify for 1 million plus plays. Here’s some things you need to know. She did not get paid as the artist. She got paid a as a writer. Even as a writer, she is a half owner of the song. On top of this, publisher took a good chunk of her royalties too.
Now let’s talk about some numbers between Digital Purchase vs. Streaming.
When it comes to iTunes sales…
Writers get mechanical royalties same as CD sales, which is a great thing, however reason why labels prefer actual CD sales are the money they get is much higher. They dont’ have to pay Apple, distributer/aggregator (when it is a CD sales major labels own distribution channels), and all of the above that takes money away. Label gets less than a half of $9.99 an album sales. It looks pretty bad, right? Streaming is even worse.
When it comes to streaming…
Here it gets interesting. It starts from how much revenue a streaming service generate that month, quarter, an year. From the revenues, they will take out all expenses (staff, servers, buildings, and etc), divide all that into how many songs have been played. Then pay aggregators, and pay to the labels according to their royalty deals. How much labels get paid? A fraction of a cent. Per album, they would get paid few cents. So how much do artists get paid? A fraction of a fraction of a cent. I am talking here with paid subscribers. With freemium users this number gets even worse.
Plus Spotify will never release exact figures how much they paid royalties to who. Why? The deal between Spotify and each labels are different.
My Thoughts…
If you are a label or an artist, which one would you prefer? Isn’t the answer too obvious? Would you think label would encourage artists to promote and embrace streaming when both of them knows digital sales will pay them much more? Are they really losing a money to illegal downloads and torrents? I bet illegal downloads are and will happening no matter the songs are available right away on any streaming services.
Streaming services can be a future, however,t as of now it is a very poor business model for labels and artists. Sure, labels have stakes in Spotify and got advances already meaning they got money already whether their songs are played or not. Unless it was written on the contract that the labels must make any music their artists release available on Spotify, they are not doing any wrong here. Spotify subscribers can complain all you want. If you truly support your artists, simply purchase their songs.
Music Labels are not stupid, yes they are behind of technology in many aspects, but I am confident that they can can calculate how much money they can lose and gain from releasing albums to spotify early even with the risk of torrents and grooveshark. So let’s not cry over the songs get delayed to be on Spotify.
CES Show and manufactures’ problem
Posted: January 10, 2012 Filed under: Gadgets | Tags: CES, innovation Leave a comment »Source: The ‘CES curse?’
I do not have any issue with the CES show. It is a trade show. It is given that there will be c crap load of junks. It is like finding a gold at a closed gold mine that are open for a tourists. There are always few great stuff announced at the CES show. What is the point of the article? The point of the article to me was “Apple is not here, therefore the show lost its original purpose.” What a joke. The author wrote some examples of recent failure of the big announcements that were failed and wrapped that as a curse.
Let’s look into what really happened.
WebOS was absolutely stunning. It is still stunning despite of many improvements it needs.What happened to WebOS? It took way too long from the innovation to actual products. One thing I admire apple so much is they do not announce any of their products till close to the final version. It takes only few months from the announcements to actual release. Palm took forever to release Pre. When it came to the HP? An awful long time to release newer version of phone and tablet. When products announced, it was a huge reap forward. However, When actual products were released, it took awful long time that Apple already exceeded what new innovation HP came up with.
Netbook was a great idea in concept. In reality? What a joke. Qualities were poor and performance was even worse. Stripped down version of windows should been must yet all manufactures sold them with full of crap-wares that slow down even poor performance computers. However, is it a failure? No. Companies made so much profit out of these junks. Asus never had this much presence in the market until the success of the netbooks. I do not have exact sales figure in the states yet counting couple hundred million units since 2009 as a failure would be a poor judgement.
With such fast paced innovation and developments of new technology, it is harder for CES to be successful. Manufactures cannot wait to announce it’s newly developed products at CES before it becomes outdated nor announce new products too loose consumers interest near the time of releases. It is better move for the manufactures to hold its own press release conference rather than using CES as the place to be.
My recommendation to CES is hold an event every 6 months with smaller scale. This way CES can save money and many manufactures can utilize the show better to introduce right products at the right time.
Upcoming Epitonic Saki Sessions
Posted: January 10, 2012 Filed under: Live Sound, Making of Music | Tags: Epitonic, Recording, Saki Leave a comment »This Friday, Jan 13th, 2012
Epitonic Saki Session will feature Hospitality at 6:00 pm
I will be there to record. BYOB. Come and enjoy the free show.
Location:
- Saki Store
- 3716 w. fullerton ave. map
- chicago, il 60647-2306
- 773.486.3997
Happy New Year!
Posted: January 9, 2012 Filed under: Life Leave a comment »It’s been a while since I uploaded something here.
- Happy New Year to all! May this new year be filled with blessings and breakthroughs!
- Yup, my birthday just passed. I am 28 now =)
- Headway Studios is the official startup online audio mixing, editing, and mastering service that I offer.
- This year’s goal? I want everything to be simpler around me.
Is Facebook the choice for musicians?
Posted: December 16, 2011 Filed under: Music Leave a comment »Original Source: “How Musicians used Facebook in 2011″
This is a great article! Every musician should read and take some note on it. RootMusic points out that “There is a huge active audience of music fans on Facebook, and a large part of your success comes down to how to properly engage those fans.” However, I would like to complaint about the engage part of Facebook.
Let me start with this. I am not a fan of Facebook. Honestly, my world would not have any impact without having one, yet I have one so people can try to reach me through Facebook. Here is my biggest issue to choose Facebook to be your first and formost way of engaging your fans. YOUR WALL POSTS DOES NOT LAND ON FAN’S STREAM ALL THE TIME!
I liked few musicians and companies myself. Do I see what they update daily/weekly/monthly? I rarely do. By the nature of Facebook, you get more updates by people who you engage the most. Unless a fan go to your page every single time, leave comments every time, and spend their time on your facebook page often, it is safe to say THEY DO NOT SEE YOUR POSTS.
I am happy to see Facebook is becoming useful in any way, especially in Music Industry, however, there has to be a better way to engage 47.5 million Rihana fans.
I’m planning to open up my own business
Posted: October 24, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Name is unknown yet, but I’m trying to open up mixing and mastering services all done throughout online.
One by one, I will flip this site to that until I finalize the name and open up completely separate site.
HP TouchPad craziness and its lesson to all tablet makers.
Posted: August 31, 2011 Filed under: Gadgets 2 Comments »Since the announcement of HP TouchPad fire sale, there has been many surprise changes. Now discontinued model became the number two best selling tablet period (500,000 units) yet far behind of Apple’s iPad (27 millions). HP lost over millions of dollar and now trying to sell entire PC division. HP is now saying it will continue TouchPad production till the end of October. Last but not least, many online retailers got slammed with bad reviews with bad handling over TouchPad.
Out of all these craziness, tablet makers have to take a note of one thing.
Yes, I grabbed a touchpad for $150 (32gb) and actually gave my iPad to my sister. To me webOS is much superior platform that failed to optimized. I’d purchase decent tablets like this for $250-$299. I believe that will be the sweet spot for mass to jump in for a tablet. For $500? I still don’t see any tablets out there that works as good as iPad. So my answer is I will get iPad every time someone asks me what to get for $500. Vizio is a good starts. Forget sub-par crippled tablets for $200. Give us decent well working tablets for $300.
