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Weekend Gamer Update: Memorial Day Weekend

Windows 11 Pro Product Description Instantly productive. Simpler, more intuitive UI and effortless navigation. New features like snap layouts help you manage multiple tasks with ease Smarter collaboration. Have effective online meetings. Share content and mute/unmute right from the taskbar (1). Stay focused with intelligent noise cancelling and background blur. (2) Reassuringly consistent. Have confidence that your applications will work. Familiar deployment and update tools. Accelerate adoption with expanded deployment policies. Powerful security. Safeguard data and access anywhere with hardware-based isolation, encryption, and malware protection built in. Read More MicroSoft That’s because I just bought the Microsoft Office Professional 2021 lifetime license for $30, after reading about it on C-Net. The article referenced Stack Social, which I’ve never heard of until today. …

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, which means I have this Monday off and it’s a long weekend for me. As usual with these holidays, there are a lot of sales and deals all across retailers. I’m planning on going to a few Half-Priced Books to take advantage of their 20% instore purchases. The problem with HPB is that their stocks are limited and are vastly different from store to store. You never know what you are going to see, day to day, store to store.

Best Buy is selling a lot of Bluray for under $10… but the cool thing is that the new Pixel 7a is being sold for $450, the first sale price since it was launched on May 10. That was fast! Even though it’s a $50 savings, it’s still not enough for me to want it. I’ve already committed to buying the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro Max, so I need to set aside roughly $1,200. I was never an iPhone guy, until I started using the $25 unlimited data/phone service from Visible. Now, it’s impossible for me to break away from the Apple ecosystem.

Anyway, over at Stack Social, I just purchased Windows 11 Pro for $40. This is the full product key, not an “upgrade” key, meaning you could use it on a freshly built computer. I just basically upgraded my Windows 11 Home on my current computer.

For most people, Home is just fine for everyone. There are some differences, such as local accounts and Hyper-V and some extra security options (as well as more faster updates), but for the most part, I personally didn’t need to upgrade to Pro… But the sale price was so good (it’s normally $199), that I couldn’t pass it up. As of this writing, I don’t have buyer’s remorse.

When Windows 11 first launched in late 2021, video gaming was a problem with stutter and lag… but it was related to driver issues for video cards. Now that it’s been out for a few years, there are no issues with gaming. Since I started using Windows 11 Home in Nov 2022, I have been impressed with its performance over Windows 10.

Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition

Speaking of games, Epic Games is offering Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition for free. You guys know I love Fallout, so naturally, I’m going to encourage you guys to get it for free. Of course, I already own this on various platform (GOG, Steam, Xbox, etc.), and you can usually find it on sale.

This is the Ultimate Edition, which means all the DLC are incorporated in this game, so there’s a ton of great content to go through.

Of all the Fallout games, New Vegas is one of my top three. A lot of fans did not like the game when it first came out, but over time, I believe they’ve turn around and would agree with me that it’s a great game. The game is 13 years old, and it could benefit from a remaster or remake of the game, in my opinion.

Also, ROG Ally Update: On the day that it was available to pre-order on May 11, 2023, I overreacted and immediately ordered it from Best Buy. It was at a location and a time (noon-ish) and at Best Buy, that I normally don’t buy from online, and at such a high amount, that the unusual activity alerted my bank to issue a stop on my bank card. I had to basically go to the bank and told them that I did purchase the ROG Ally. Unfortunately, the bank already put a stop on the payment. That’s fine, I suppose I’ll just have to go to the physical store on June 13th to see if I can just buy one at their store. It kind of sucks because my local Best Buy closed this year, so I need to travel to another city to visit a Best Buy now. You know, all this could have been prevented, if ROG Ally would just make it available at all retailers… meaning if I had purchased it from Amazon, my bank would’ve just allowed it.

I suppose it’s probably better this way. Now that I’ve seen early reviews, it’s not exactly “twice as fast” as they’ve been claiming. The truth is, it sounds like the ROG Ally is about the same as the Steam Deck… the only difference is that the ROG Ally runs Windows 11 out of the box. Basically, once I get the ROG, I’m calling it my ROG GOG because it’ll be my GOG and Battle Net machine. I just cannot wait to play Diablo IV on handheld.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer

Read more Weekend Gamer.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Google I/O 2023

Read More Google a Google home, as everything is built around the Google Home Hub application. If you don’t mind giving Google your information, you can use many of their services - for free. That’s the attractive thing, it’s mostly free. …

Here’s all the products announced at Google’s I/O 2023.

Pixel Tablet
We’ve seen similar designs from Lenovo, but hopefully the upcoming Google Pixel Tablet will be a faster and better experience. Like that other design, the Tablet is a picture frame when you dock it to the magnetic charger and speaker. If you want to use it as a tablet, you just pick it off the stand… think of it as a tablet that is always charged.

I’m not entirely sure if I will use it on a daily basis, since I already love my iPad 12.9 for the big display and fast processor… the Pixel Tablet is kind of a step down.

Pixel 7A
At $500, the “A-Series” of Google’s phones are the affordable version of their Pixel phones. I’ve been unimpressed with their previous A phones. The phones are not fast or flashy, they’re basically a budget/cheap version of their regular phones… Having said all that, I think the 7A is the phone that I’m actually interested in. That’s because, for the first time, their A phones are going to include wireless charging. I have been all-in on wireless charging, it is hard for me to go back to the old way of charging my phone.

While I’m not in the market to replace my iPhone 14, I might pick up the 7A as my backup phone… mostly because for a limited time, Google is throwing in a free Pixel Buds A-Series if you buy the new 7A phone. I have a Pixel Bud Mint Color and I think it’s one of the best earbuds I own. I love that rubber nub that locks the buds in my ear.

I guess it all depends on if I can buy the Asus ROG Ally (the better and faster Steam Deck) or not. I have already devoted my budget of $800 to buy the new handheld gaming PC.

Pixel Fold
As soon as I saw the price for this upcoming Google’s folding phone, at $1,800, that’s a hard pass for me. As cool as it looks, there’s no way I’m spending that kind of cash on sometime that is unproven. I would love for the price to be sub $1,000... that is the magic number for me.

As a fan of technology, I’m always interested in seeing new products. My complaint about Google has a bad reputation about introducing something and then not supporting it. Plus, I hate to say it, but their products look boring.

Still, I love the fact that I can find any Google products in retail stores, such as my local Target or Walmart. Knowing me, I might just end up buying their Pixel Tablet on a whim, while standing in line at a Best Buy or something.

Read more Technology

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

WPS Office

WPS Office wps.com Free Includes Writer, Spreadsheet, Presentation, and PDF Editor Available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS Install on any device you own Compatible with MicroSoft Office Does not need to be online Read More MicroSoft Anyway, when I saw that the new MicroSoft’s Surface Pro 7 (with keyboard cover) on sale for $600, I couldn’t pass it up. Currently their price is $700, but MicroSoft’s website is still showing $600. …

I used to love MicroSoft Office. Well mainly for Word and Excel, but when MicroSoft decided to go to a subscription model… I decided it was time to move away from Office. Previously, I had Office 2003, which is a little dated and won’t work on Windows 10. I tried the new Office 365 and I liked the new updates, but I still wasn’t willing to pay for a subscription.

After hearing from so many people asking to just purchase the software, instead of “renting” their software… MicroSoft caved in and gave us the Home & Student Edition, which has a one-time payment. Unfortunately, their asking price is expensive. We’re talking over $150 for one computer (although Amazon has it on sale for $100), it’s still not worth it to me.

Like I said, I have looked for alternative to Office. I’ve tried out the free Office Libre, which I do not like at all. I tried out Google Suite, which is very basic, and you constantly have to be online.

Nothing worked for me…. that is until I discovered WPS Office. The Office includes WPS Writer (a knockoff of Word), Presentation (a knockoff of Powerpoint) and Spreadsheet (a knock off of Excel), as well as a PDF Creator (which works like Adobe Acrobat).

What I mostly needed was WPS Writer. Wow, this software is identical to MicroSoft Word. It reads and open and edit Word Documents, including the latest docx files, without any issues, it’s practically Word.

All the shortcuts and all the amenities of Word can be found in WPS. I just can’t believe it’s completely free. There are ads, but they aren’t intrusive. The ads are mostly trying to get you to upgrade to their Premium subscription, which costs $30 a year.

I’ve been using it for nearly a month now, and I can say that I am officially abandoning Word, in favor of WPS. If you want to give it a chance, or looking for a free Word alternative, check out WPS.

The $30 annual subscription for WPS Premium gets you the following.

PDF editing

File format conversion

Same account can be used up to 3 PCs and 6 mobile devices

No advertising

20 GB of Cloud storage

Cloud collaboration

I think if you want the online access (between your computer and mobile device, such as an iPad), the 20GB storage might be worth the $30/year fee… but for me, the free version works for me. I think if they offer some sort of one-time payment, I would be more eager to go that route.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Vestron Video Collector's Series

Read More Movies While U.S. companies have long abandoned re-releasing classic Shaw Brothers films in America (nobody will buy these Chinese films here), other countries, such as Hong Kong or the United Kingdom, they are still …

Here is a Bluray series that I love: Vestron Video Collector's Series. When they first came out in 2016, the retail prices were very, very expensive. Normal prices were $40 (and that didn’t even include digital copies!), so I waited for sales or never bought them when they originally came out. That meant that when it went out of print, I probably won’t own it for my collection. So there are gaps in my collection, particularly the early releases.

Then, in 2018, Lionsgate Home Entertainment changed their strategy for Vestron. Instead of charging a high price for few collectors, they decide to sell the releases at a reduced price ($12.99). This meant that they were going to double or triple sales of their titles… instead of catering to the very limited collectors who were willing to pay a higher price. I think it was the right decision, as I’ve been happily buying every title on the Vestron label… even titles that I wouldn’t care for, such as Little Monsters. I would never consider paying $34 for that title… but at $12.99, I’ll take it!

All the releases (at least the first pressing), comes with a nice slipcase. New-ish artwork (if available), remastered video, and usually have special features and audio commentary. The newer Vestron releases also includes a digital copy, via Vudu or Google Video… which is such a nice added value.

I recently picked up the latest release, Dream a Little Dream (1989), a film starring the two Coreys. I’ve never heard of it, but apparently it did get a theatrical release, as well as a sequel! I just watched it for the first time this weekend, and it’s not a great film… but I’m glad to have it in my collection.

The next film, Extreme Prejudice (1987), will be available in May 2022. This film looks amazing, it’s yet another film that I’ve never heard of.

Hopefully, down the line, I am hoping Vestron finally release Paperhouse (1988). We had own this film on VHS, and I do not believe it has made the digital transition. Vestron distributed the film, so I’m patiently waiting for its Bluray debut.

Cover	Details	Cover	Details
	01 Chopping Mall (1986) Concorde Pictures September 27, 2016		02 Blood Diner (1987) Lightning Pictures September 27, 2016
	03 Waxwork (1988) Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992) Vestron Pictures/ Electric Pictures September 27, 2016		04 Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993) Trimark Pictures November 22, 2016
	05 C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D. (1989) Vestron Pictures November 22, 2016		06 The Lair of the White Worm (1988) Vestron Pictures January 31, 2017
	07 Parents (1989) Vestron Pictures January 31, 2017		08 The Gate (1987) New Century Vista Film February 28, 2017
	09 Wishmaster (1997) Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999) Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001) Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002) LIVE Entertainment Artisan Entertainment March 28, 2017		10 The Unholy (1988) Vestron Pictures June 27, 2017
	11 Warlock (1991) Warlock: The Armageddon (1993) Warlock III: The End of Innocence (1999 ) New World Pictures / Trimark Pictures / Tapestry Films July 25, 2017		12 Slaughter High (1986) Vestron Pictures October 31, 2017
	13 Gothic (1987) Vestron Pictures January 30, 2018		14 Class of 1999 (1990) Lightning Pictures January 30, 2018
	15 Beyond Re-Animator (2003) Lions Gate Entertainment July 24, 2018		16 Dagon (2001) Lions Gate Entertainment July 24, 2018
	17 Maximum Overdrive (1986) De Laurentiis Entertainment Group October 23, 2018		18 Shivers (1975) Cinepix September 15, 2020
	19 Little Monsters (1989) Vestron Pictures September 15, 2020		20 The Wraith (1986) New Century Vista Film July 20, 2021
	21 Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1991) Vestron Pictures August 17, 2021		22 Dementia 13 (1963) American International Pictures September 21, 2021
	23 Steel Dawn (1987) Vestron Pictures October 26, 2021		24 Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999 ) Artisan Entertainment January 18, 2022
	25 Dream a Little Dream (1989) Vestron Pictures March 15, 2022		26 Extreme Prejudice (1987) Carolco Pictures May 17, 2022

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Free VPNs

Read More Google a Google home, as everything is built around the Google Home Hub application. If you don’t mind giving Google your information, you can use many of their services - for free. That’s the attractive thing, it’s mostly free. …

I've been testing out some free VPN (Virtual Private Network) services. You may have a need for a VPN for various reasons: privacy, ad-blocking/ad-tracking, removing restrictions, etc.

I should also mention that these are completely free, meaning not a trial basis offered by ExpressVPN (their services are not free - I’m not sure why they ended up on various “free VPN” lists).

I did not bother with some services, like TunnelBear, which doesn’t really offer a free version. Their “free” version is restrictive to 500 MB per month (meant for testing purposes only).

I also left off various browser extensions, such as OperaVPN, because their services are restricted to just your browser. I also avoided any VPN services, such as Betternet VPN or VPNBook, that serves you advertisements (no thank you!). I would recommend that you also avoid any VPN that uses ads… to me, the reason why you’re using a VPN is for privacy concerns and any products that will sell your data or serves you ads doesn’t make any sense.

Of course, I didn’t try out all the free VPN services out there… For example, I did download and tried out Hotspot Shield, but their 500MB daily data cap just sucked and I ended up removing their software right away. The same can be said for Speedify, which I didn’t bother with, due to their 2GB data cap.

If there is a free VPN that you really like, let me know.

ATLAS VPN atlasvpn.com Atlas VPN is simply the best one (at least the fastest connection) among all the ones I’ve tried. The service is free, with no catch. If you choose to pay, you get faster connection with over 500 servers to choose from. Since all traffic has to go through Atlas, you have to close your current Browser’s session and restart the browser for the internet to start working again. If you don’t need various countries connection or speedy access, the free Atlas VPN is good enough for you.

WINDSCRIBE windscribe.com The free Windscribe account will get you 10 GB of data a month. You either pay for all the services, or pay $1 to get another tier of servers and data allotment (in 10GB increments). The service also comes with its own ad-blocking system called R.O.B.E.R.T., which works on the iPad to block some YouTube ads. I would have ranked Windscribe higher, if it wasn’t for the data cap (even though they think it’s more than generous).

HIDE.ME hide.me According to Hide.Me, their free account doesn’t support streaming… but from my experience, it seems to work with YouTube and Amazon Prime… so I’m not sure what they mean. Do they mean they aren’t encrypting your streaming? Currently, their free services offer only four countries. If you choose to pay, it’s $12.95 a month. You can get it down to $5 a month if you buy two years in advance.

PROTON VPN protonvpn.com Switzerland-based company Proton VPN came highly recommended… but it was the worst of the free VPNs. Ultimately their free version is among some of the strictest: limited to just 3 servers and does not support peer-to-peer or Adblockers. The only bright side is that they offer unlimited data. For what’s it worth, the basic $4 a month price is cheaper than most VPN services and would unlock those restrictions mentioned earlier.

Conclusion

You know that old saying, “You get what you pay for”? It’s true. If you want the best VPN service, you’ll want to pay for it. If you’re a cheapskate and don’t really want to pay, I do recommend Atlas or Windscribe. However, it’s up to you what you choose, based on your needs.

Compare	Atlas VPN	Windscribe	Hide.Me	ProtonVPN
Data	Unlimited	10GB	10GB	Unlimited
Servers	3	11	5	3
P2P	YES	YES	YES	NO
Adblock	YES (Malware block)	YES	NO	NO

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Shaw Brothers Weekend

Read More Shaw Brothers Associated Press is reporting that Run Run Shaw has passed away at the age of 106 (the report lists 107, but he was born on November 23rd, 1907).…

Still in lockdown here… so I’ve been on a Shaw Brothers kick lately. As you know, I’m a huge Shaw Brothers fan, and for a time, I thought I’d seen most of the ones that were officially released through Celestial Pictures. Unfortunately, with the lack of interest in the USA, Shaw Brothers films just stopped being released here.

Fortunately, other countries, like the UK and Hong Kong, they’re releasing these classic films on Bluray. I recently ordered a few UK releases, paying a hefty import tax and shipping … but it’s worth it. Since they are Region 2 locked, I suggest you have a no-zone Bluray player or decrypt it on your computers. If that’s too much of a hassle, you can buy ($4) or rent ($1) these films on Google Play.

Here are some Shaw Brothers films I recently saw.

KILLER CONSTABLE (1980)

Having just seen this film, Killer Constable (萬人斬), I have to say that it’s one of my new favorite Shaw Brothers film. Unlike a lot of Kung Fu movies, this one has a really good story with a great twist.

The story starts with the robbery of the royal vault. The administrative appointed chief constable Ling Tien Ying to track down five robbers. Ying has a reputation as the “Killer Constable” as he doesn’t take prisoners. The constable brings along five loyal assistants to help return the gold and bring justice to the thieves.

One by one, the constable’s assistants dies on this long journey, and you find out the truth about the robbery. It’s masterfully shot (particularly all the night fight scenes), and the ending was very satisfying.

THE SAVAGE FIVE (1974)

The Savage Five (aka The Savage 5) pre-dated the Five Venoms, but it does have some elements and themes of later Venoms formula - such as five masters/strangers teaming up to fight a common enemy.

In this story, a group of bandits takes over a small town and demand them to open the safe they’ve stolen. When the local blacksmith refuses to open the safe, the bandits murders and rapes the inhabitants. A thief (David Chiang), a kung-fu fighter (Ti Lung), a woodcutter (Chen Kuan-tai), a blacksmith (Danny Lee) and a visiting acrobat (Wong Chung), teams up to defeat the gang of bandits.

In typical Chang Cheh style, there’s very little story here, but there’s plenty of blood and kung-fu action. It’s not one Cheh’s better films, but I’m not terribly fond of some of his early work.

The one thing I did like about the film is that the villains are very distinctive. One guy has a whip and knives, one guy has two guns, and one guy have a big gap in his teeth. They try to make the good guys interesting too, but they aren’t as fun as the bad guys.

I do not believe this film was released on Bluray or DVD, but you can stream it online if you have Amazon Prime. The English dub is pretty bad, like making the thief sounding Australian. The fighter sounds too old for his youthful looks, so it was hard to enjoy the film.

BEWITCHED (1981)

I had a VHS bootleg copy of Bewitched, when I was little. The VHS copy was called “Black Magic”, so for many years, I had thought that was the title of the film… when, in fact, Black Magic is a different Shaw Brothers horror classic.

There’s actually a lot of similarities between Black Magic and Bewitched, but I feel the latter is a far superior and effective horror film.

The story of Bewitched is about a guy who visits Thailand and had a fling with a local girl. She puts a curse on him, that if he doesn’t return to her by a certain time, that he’ll die a gruesome death. Sure enough, the man undergoes a series of disgusting spells by an evil bat spirit. The rest of the story follows a police detective investigating the cursed man. He eventually sought help from a Buddhist monk to fight the evil.

Since the film took place in Hong Kong and Thailand, they did go a little over budget, and watching all the gross practical special effects (including condom skins blowing up!), it was all worth it.

If you’re a horror fan, you’ll really appreciate all the strange and disturbing gore effects. It’s so uniquely Asian horror, and it is still very scary and effective to this day. Imagine what it was like to view the film in its original theatric release. It was terrifying and nasty. Trust me, you’ll want to throw up when you see all the maggots!

Overall, a great little Asian horror film. The film is similar to other Asian horror films, such as Black Magic, Hex, and Seeding of a Ghost.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ facebook.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Weekend Gamer: Civilization VI and Google Podcast

Read More Games Pathfinder: Kingmaker is not out yet, but I was so excited about this game coming out on GOG that I pre-ordered it. This game is based on the Pathfinder tabletop game, which was and offspring of Dungeon and Dragons…

SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION VI
epicgames.com

Wow, Epic Games is giving away some great free games. Last week, they offered Grand Theft Auto V and this week it’s Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. Normally these are $60 games, but free, I’m definitely signing up and doing two-factor, anything you guys want.

I’ve tried to play some Civ games in the past, they’ve never really worked out for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love strategy and turn base, but I’ve just never really enjoy the Civ franchise.

If the trend continues, I’m almost thinking it’s going to be another Triple-A game, like Assassin’s Creed or Dragon Age? The internet seems to think it will be Borderlands: The Handsome Collection (which contains Borderlands 2 and The Pre-Sequel).

Details:

Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K
Available: 2020
Tags: Turn Based, Strategy, 4X
Rating: EVERYONE 10+
Platform: Windows

Civilization VI offers new ways to interact with your world, expand your empire across the map, advance your culture, and compete against history’s greatest leaders to build a civilization that will stand the test of time.

Read More Google a Google home, as everything is built around the Google Home Hub application. If you don’t mind giving Google your information, you can use many of their services - for free. That’s the attractive thing, it’s mostly free. …

GOOGLE PODCAST
play.google.com

Over at Apple’s iOS, they had the official Podcast app that, while does not have a ton of features, it worked and it was free. When I switched over to Android, it had no official Podcast app, so I had to try out different players. I used AntennaPod for a few years, and then I tried Player FM… which I liked. Then with a recent update, Player FM decided to introduced advertisements in their app. To get rid of the ads, you have to pay $49 a year. I’m not upset that they want to make money, but this is the wrong way of doing it.

So like many users, I’ve uninstalled and looked for an adfree Podcast app. I didn’t realize that the Podcast landscape has changed! Google finally took Podcast seriously and put out an official Google Podcast app. Naturally, I tried it out… and had to re-subscribed to all my previous podcasts. In doing so, I started to discover new shows that I would’ve never known existed if I hadn’t had to search for my shows.

Sure, there are some downside to the Google Podcast app, for example, there is only one playlist, and it’s a manual one. Their download manager sucks, often failing and doesn’t have any resume download options. Still, despite its faults, it generally works and there are no advertisements, and I’m happy with it.

In some ways, I should thank Player FM for forcing me to leave their app. However, if I had known there were ads in the new update, I would’ve never update.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ facebook.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Lenovo Smart Frame coming soon

Read More Lenovo With Lenovo Smart Display, it’s pretty much free. If you want music, you can upload all your MP3s to Google Music and access them via the Smart Display. Of course, if you prefer, you can subscribe to Google Music, YouTube Music …

Shortly after being disappointed at the Google Nest Hub Max in last week (particularly the low resolution of the screen and inability to use Nest’s camera because I had a G Suite Account), I decided to see what their competitor, Lenovo was up to - and was very excited to see that they will be releasing the Lenovo Smart Frame!

I’ll explain why I’m so excited, but first let me do a quick round up of my ownership of digital photo frames. What I own so far:

Lenovo Smart Display 10”

Lenovo Smart Display 8” (I own two of these)

Google Nest Hub Max

Lenovo Smart Tab M10 (with Amazon Echo Show).

Amazon Echo Show (1st Generation)

Kodak EasyShare 7” Digital Photo Frame

I’m only using the Lenovo and Google displays at the moment. The ones I’m not using, I’ll further explain why they aren’t very good. The Kodak frame simply sucked - the display is terrible and it’s not internet connected. I bought it under clearance for $17, and still regret paying that much for this none-useful device. The Amazon devices, at first, I was excited. However, soon after using them, I realized every little thing I wanted, Amazon wanted me to pay money to use (including the ability to display my personal photos)… which I refuse to pay a reoccurring fee just to view my photos.

Why I am so excited about the Lenovo Smart Frame is that I’m really interested in a larger photo frame, and this 21” display would eclipse my 10” screens. It’s internet-connected and will work with my existing Google Photos, so I don’t have to do any work in setting up images for the frame. They also stressed that the display will automatically adjust the brightness and colors of your photos / art to match the ambient light in your room. This is the key, since you don’t want a bright display when you turn off the lights. My existing Lenovo smart displays already does this, and I think it’s wonderful (when you turn off the lights the screen is very dim).

There’s speakers and ability to use touchless controls - so I am thinking they might incorporate music or video control playback… which is interesting, but I’m not sure if I would be interested in those features (but obviously would still be nice if they included it out of the box). The other feature I would just like to see is the local temperature and clock, even though you don’t see them on the website. Maybe just include an option for that, for those that wants it.

The retail price for the Smart Frame will be $299, however, if you support or pre-order through IndieGoGo, you can get it for $150… which I think is a much fairer and more attractive price. They took down the date, but the pending date I saw was August 2020.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ facebook.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Google Nest Hub Max

Read More Lenovo With Lenovo Smart Display, it’s pretty much free. If you want music, you can upload all your MP3s to Google Music and access them via the Smart Display. Of course, if you prefer, you can subscribe to Google Music, YouTube Music …

When I first experimented with the “Smart Display” market, I started with Amazon Echo Show… mostly because it was first to market and the pricing was attractive with flash sales.

At first, it was great… but as I used it more and more, I started to see its limitation. I soon realized that Amazon just basically wanted me to pay for all of its services. For example, if I wanted to listen music, I would have to pay its Amazon Music subscription. If I wanted to display my photos (to use the Echo Show as a photo frame), I would have to pay for Amazon Drive (which comes with a Photo service). Want to watch movies? Amazon Prime, etc. It’s that classic razer blade strategy - get them in with a cheap product, but sell them reoccurring blades or services.

When the Lenovo Smart Display was announced, I quickly jumped ship. Switching over to Lenovo meant that we had to become a Google home, as everything is built around the Google Home Hub application. If you don’t mind giving Google your information, you can use many of their services - for free. That’s the attractive thing, it’s mostly free.

Using Google Music, I can stream all my music on the Smart Display. Using Google Photos, I can setup my display as a digital photo frame. It is awesome… and for the most part, they are all free services.

I love the Lenovo Smart Displays, I currently own three of them (one 10” and two 8”). I was eagerly looking forward to buying larger displays or a better redesign… but unfortunately the new redesigned is a smaller version: a 7” display.

As stores like Best Buy are phasing out the Lenovo Smart Displays in favor of Google Nest Hub (7”) and the Google Nest Hub Max (10”), I decided to get a Hub Max on sale. The Nest Hub is a re-branding from Google Home Hub.

The key differences (and improvements) in the Nest Hub 10” vs Lenovo Smart Display 10” is that the audio is a million times better thanks to its 3” subwoofer. The Nest Hub also features a better microphone to hear over distance and has an “ultrasound sensing” technology (to recognize the tiniest “hey google”).

If you have a Nest account, you can use the Nest Hub to spy, I mean view your room, as a security camera. Unfortunately, it does not work if you have a G Suite Account. You need a raw Gmail account… so this feature is useless to me.

There’s also face recognition, to display your personal calendar, but because I’m the only user in the household, this feature is somewhat useless to me.

Now, for the main reason why I am going to not recommend the Google Nest Hub Max: the screen is simply terrible. It is only 1280 x 800 pixels. You might think, oh that’s not so bad. But when you were going from an HD display from the Lenovo 10” at 1920 x 1200 pixels, you can clearly see the differences. The Lenovo displays are amazingly better, thanks to the high resolution, but also deeper blacks.

The final nail against Google is its price. The Nest Hub Max retails for $229, while you can get the Lenovo Smart Display 10” for around $149. Personally speaking, based on my own needs (since many of Nest’s features doesn’t work for me), I would just go with the cheaper (and better) Lenovo Smart Display 10”.

The Lenovo Smart Display does almost everything that the Google Nest Hub Max does, and despite a worst speaker system, I can live with that over a better screen.

P.S. I tried to use the Google Nest Hub Max as my main display on my desk for a few hours, but staring at that awful screen, I simply had to swap it back to my original Lenovo Smart Display.

Breakdown below:

Product:	Echo Show (New)	Lenovo Smart Display	Google Nest Hub Max
Price:	$229.99	$149 (10”)	$229
Release:	October 11, 2018	July 2018	September 2019
Size/Resolution:	10”/1280 x 800	10”/1920 x 1200	10”/1280 x 800
Speakers:	2 x 10W and Dolby processing for room-filling sound	2" 10W Full Range Speaker, 2 x Passive Tweeters	Stereo speaker system (2x 18mm 10W tweeters, 1x 75mm 30W woofer)
Camera:	5MP	5 MP Wide Angle	6.5-megapixel camera with 127-degree wide field of view
Processor:	Intel Atom x5-Z8350	Qualcomm® Home Hub Platform (Snapdragon™ 624, Octa-Core A53 1.8 GHz, 14 nm)	Amlogic T931 chip
Software:	Amazon Products (Amazon Music, Videos, Photos) ($) Hulu CNN NBC Spotify Ring	Google Products (Google Music, Videos, Photos) (free) Google Podcast Google Duo YouTube Chromecast HBO Now Spotify Pandora	Google Products (Google Music, Videos, Photos) (free) Nest Camera Google Podcast Google Duo YouTube Chromecast HBO Now Spotify Pandora

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ facebook.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Site Update (04/13/2020)

Read More John Prine John Prine, who for five decades wrote rich, plain-spoken songs that chronicled the struggles and stories of everyday working people and changed the face of modern American roots music, died Tuesday at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University ....

We’re still in self-isolation here, no thanks to that Coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic.

If you were wondering, we’ve been having issues with the side panels since November 2019. The problem was finally resolved this week.

The solution was basically to migrate our entire blog (which is massive) over to a new, fresh start. The old blog is archived, but as a result, we now have an exact mirror backup as of April 1st, 2020 - which is a good thing.

The migration didn’t exactly work out as I wanted. There were some minor problems, like all the data was converted to standard 128 ASCII-based text. This meant that any characters beyond the original standard is unreadable. For example, something like “ ♥ ” may show up as “ ♥ ”. There may be other problems, for example, there may be some missing articles that I’m not aware of. However, since we have the backup, I can always re-add back the article by making a copy of the original article.

Anyway, I have gone through and manually updated some recent articles (up to February 2020), but I probably won’t go and update everything since it is too time consuming. The good news is that any new posts we make now should be fine, and I’m happy that we now have access to add and update our side panel.

The other good news is that the search is now using Google’s Custom Search. It’s not amazing, but it works…

Also, our #1 most popular page is our running Musicians Who Died in 2020… which has gotten so large, we had to break them up by months now. When you land on the page, it only shows you the current month. The biggest recent name on the list is American singer/songwriter John Prine, who died on April 7th, 2020, because of Coronavirus. So sad to see that the singer beat cancer, only to succumb to this virus that is killing ten of thousands.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ facebook.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic