My Torrent Guide for You

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

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Yes, as I have said before, I am a digital pirate.

I won’t try to defend myself. In some ways and interpretations, it’s stealing, and I admit to it. At the same time, I do buy stuff, though much less so since I’ve moved to Vietnam and been surrounded by piracy along with more limited work wages. But still, if you take any machine that I have, whether it be game console like the XBox 360, or DVD player, I guarantee that I have bought at least the average amount (also called the “attach rate”) that a customer will buy for that machine, and most of the time, much more so. I’ve bought many games, dvds, and even music cds that I never opened or played.

Torrents do have its more “gray” uses, though. Like watching basketball when it is impossible to do so in your country (Vietnam). Or checking out old tv shows or games that aren’t really sold anymore. Moving on
.

Torrents, What are and How to:

A torrent is basically a file that points to other files. Almost like a map. If you download a torrent, you actually haven’t downloaded anything, just directions to some files. You actually need something that can figure out how to read those directions, like uTorrent.

Download ”Torrent – Powerful BitTorrent Client

utorrent

If you’ve ever downloaded files with your browser, think of uTorrent as a download manager for torrent files. It knows how to find all the files you want. I don’t want to get too detailed on how to set it up, but here are some general tips once you’ve installed it.

Setting a download location:

utorrent003

Once you have uTorrent installed, go to the menu bar (up top), click on Options and then Preferences. (You can also click Ctrl-P).

utorrent004

Under directories, choose a location for your files (this is where the actual files will be stored. Remember this directory. Click OK to save.

Back to the uTorrent interface, look at the bottom, right:

utorrent005

You will find some funny numbers with D: and U:

D: means your download rate, U: means your upload rate. Normally, if you don’t change these settings, uTorrent will use all your bandwidth, which could upset your housemates, wife, etc., and interfere with normal internet usage. You can adjust these by right clicking on the D: to adjust the download rate (I suggest 10-20 kB/s) and then U: for the upload (match the download rate if possible).

Oops, one more thing. When you download torrent files from your browser, make sure when you get prompted if you want to download or open them, open them. Downloading them will do nothing, so open them like I show you below. If you have uTorrent installed, uTorrent will automatically handle it for you from there.

utorrent006

Torrents, Where to find:

Here are my recommendations, the sites I use:

General/Everything:

From movies to music to ebooks to games to tv shows. If you’re looking for movies try axxo or klaxxon in the search- results with those tend to be legit. The Pirate Bay is likely the most famous torrent site out there, but I much prefer Mininova and BtJunkie. You can also try Demonoid, but it’s not easy to get an account there.

Anime:

Comics:

Games:

Sports:

Other:

Last Notes:

Since many torrents link to files that are considered piracy or illegal, you do have to think about whether you’re ok with that. Depending on where you live, there may be repercussions. Mike, for examples, does not torrent anymore now that the various industries have started suing users. If you want to make sure there’s no chance of legal consequences, just don’t torrent. Simple.

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31.03.2009 Books/Comics, Movies, Music, Tech 2 Comments

Rapper Turns Scholar – San Jose Mercury News

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

Who over 21 doesn’t know this song? Back in the day, when I was young- I’m not a kid anymore, but some days I wish I was a kid again. And that’s all I know of the song, but it was a damn good song.

This post is for Kyle, who was gracious enough to give me the “Ahmad” album for my iPod before I left for Vietnam.

One thing to note: the article tries to make it sound so hard for someone to get into Stanford by transfer. This is in fact true, but you have to remember, Ahmad is a former music star, and can probably afford the tuition. And black. With all the academic qualifications. Who doesn’t want that story among your alumni?

 

Rapper turns scholar

HE HAS NEW HOME ON STANFORD CAMPUS

By Larry Gordon
Los Angeles Times

Article Launched: 08/24/2008 01:37:13 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES – Ahmad Ali Lewis made a deal with his mother back when he was a high school student: He would go to college unless he got a recording contract for his upbeat rap music.

It was a big if. But Lewis, 17, an honors student and top football player, skipped the college entrance exams and signed with Giant Records. “I said S.A.T. – whatever. I want to R.A.P.,” he recalls.

His 1994 album, called “Ahmad,” included a hit single, “Back in the Day,” a nostalgic riff on his south Los Angeles childhood. In it, he rapped:

“I miss those days, and so I pout like a grown jerk

Wishin all I had to do now, was finish homework.

It’s true you don’t realize really what you got til it’s gone

And I’m not gonna sing another sad song, but

Sometimes I do sit and reminisce then

Think about the years I was raised, back in the days.”

Looking back, Lewis said he does not regret his teenage decision, even though his early success was followed by struggles in a music industry he criticized as promoting violence in the black community. Now 32 and the father of a 4-year-old son, he is still recording songs but he is also finishing homework.

Ahmad the first-name-only rapper has become Ahmad Ali Lewis the Stanford-bound scholar.

Lewis enrolled two years ago at Long Beach City College and graduated in May as valedictorian, with a 4.0 grade point average. He was accepted as a transfer student by several universities for this fall and chose Stanford. “When I stepped on campus, something in my gut said, ‘Dude, this is where you belong,’ ” said Lewis, who plans to double major in sociology and African-American studies. He expects to get a doctorate in social work and become a professor.

“I love teaching,” said Lewis, who tutored at an elementary school. “Rapping and teaching are not that far apart. You’re rapping, you’re talking. You’re a professor, you’re talking.”

Compact but broad shouldered at 5-foot-7 and 155 pounds, Lewis still has the build of the running back he was in high school. His head is shaven and he has two tattoos: on his left shoulder, a map of Africa containing a woman’s face and on his right forearm, “4th Avenue Jones,” the name of the soul-rock-rap band he co-founded with his former wife, singer Tena Jones. When he talks, he waves his hands in the open-fingered style of rap performance.

He speaks of his Christian faith and academic ambitions with enthusiasm, humor and what he jokingly concedes is the “egomania” of a well-loved child. His mother, Paulette Holt, inspired him by starting college when she was a divorced mother of three and also “brainwashed me,” he said. “I always thought I was better than average, that I was handsome, smart and talented. It was a trick,” he said. “Being black in America, from the ghetto, you need that extra little bit of confidence. So that’s kind of my mission to give other kids that kind of confidence.”

The odds were against him at Stanford, which accepted just 20 of this year’s 1,200 transfer applicants. But Lewis was admitted and offered a financial aid package that will cover his tuition, room and board, which total more than $47,000 this school year. He’ll also receive funds for books and living costs each year through a highly competitive grant program the Virginia-based Jack Kent Cooke Foundation offers community college students transferring to four-year schools.

“Ahmad was really a standout in all the areas,” said Vance Lancaster, a Cooke foundation spokesman. “He is truly a scholar and a humanitarian who just happens to be a chart-topping rapper.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10290698?source=rss

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24.08.2008 Music, Random No Comments

Vietnam Loves Music, But to Whom Does it Listen to?

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Here is some data I manually pulled for English music in Vietnam, kind of an unofficial ranked (my suggestion is that this is pretty damn accurate) list of the top acts in Vietnam right now (all of these albums are fairly new as well, so I guess the data is reasonably current)

1. High School Musical 2 OST

2. High School Musical: The Concert

3. Avril Lavigne: The Best Damn Thing

4. High School Musical OST

5. Linkin Park: Minutes To Midnight

6. Shayne Ward: No U Hang Up | If That’s OK With You

7. Tata Young: I Believe

8. Ne-Yo: Because of You

9. Justin Timberlake: Future Sex / Love Sounds

10. Rihanna: Good Girl Gone Bad

11. What A Girl Wants OST

12. Akon: Trouble

13. Julio Iglesias: Love Songs

The Long Tail talks about how people started getting away from pop music after the Internet opened up and people really had the tools to be exposed to things that better suited their individual tastes (Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody, mp3 blogs, etc.)

I noticed this happened to me, but I always assumed I just was getting older with growing taste, asking friends (Kyle) for suggestions and so on. I didn’t realize the Internet itself was changing our habits, and there were plenty of people like me learning about the whole different spectrum of music in the world.

This hasn’t happened in Vietnam yet, even with Vietnamese music. People don’t buy music here, nor do they pay for concerts, and they don’t quite have the tools or knowledge yet to go deeper into music catalogues. Thus, most people here are very pop heavy.

Just look above. Julio Iglesias surprises me, but the album name Love Songs reminds me, Vietnamese love nhac tinh yeu (romantic love songs).

Btw, here’s a nice site that shows the top music in countries (US, Japan, Korea, Europe) all over the world: Tokyo Stage (http://tokyostage.haru.tv/)

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04.06.2008 Music, Vietnam No Comments

I was almost an American Idol (Karaoke Revolution, PS2) [Review]

Monday, April 28th, 2008

CaptureWiz I like to sing. As with most people, however, you would not want to hear me sing live. In Vietnam, singing is a huge phenomenon, well, more precisely, Karaoke is. You can find a place to sing karaoke in nearly every neighborhood, and keep in mind that a neighborhood in Vietnam is much smaller than what we consider one to be in the US. There are also hugely popular websites dedicated to people singing and uploading for others to listen to and rate.

I like to sing, but I don’t do karaoke, even in Vietnam. Partly because of embarrassment, partly because it’s not always so easy to find the songs I want to sing (I definitely don’t want to sing Vietnamese pop). Karaoke Revolution, though, is perfect for me. Singing in seclusion with a lot of English-language pop (I love 80’s, but who doesn’t?), hoorah!

Karaoke Revolution presents American Idol has a very simple concept: imagine karaoke on an American Idol stage, getting feedback from the judges (this game replaces Paula, but has Randy and Simon) while you sing an assortment of pop songs that, most of them I assume, have actually been sung by contestants in years past. I’m not a huge fan of American Idol, but I do watch it if I happen to run across it on TV (it’s shown a lot on Star World, so SE Asia must like it too)

Simply, no need to read the rest of this review, if you like Karaoke, and you like American Idol, you will like this game.

Karaoke Revolution is basically Karaoke on your Playstation 2, but instead of free form singing, the game will grade you on how correctly you match pitch with the real version of the song (the songs are covered, but essentially you’re being graded compared to the real interpretation of the song, not your own). Grading is constant on every part of the song, but it isn’t truly grading you on how well you sing the song, just the pitch- this means you can hum the music of the song rather than sing it and still get a good grade.

I’m a little interested in what would I sound like if I recorded my singing because I think my singing isn’t perfect in the lyrical sense. Because the mic doesn’t pick up quite exactly when you sing, you have to start singing slightly earlier to compensate. Also, because of the game structure and knowing you have to match the song meter, you change the way you sing to make sure you’re on score. The end result, I believe, is sometimes you might not say all the words or you might change your interpretation of the song to make sure it fits within the scoring requirements.

Regarding the American Idol tie in, you can play without the American Idol career mode or you can even sing Karaoke without scoring, pure karaoke. There are a number of multiplayer modes as well, but the gameplay for everything is the same, pick a song, start singing.

In the Idol mode, you start from early tryouts, and move along the various stages you see in the show. The judges are there for it all, and are their normal selves (mean) when it comes to feedback. If you can get to the end, you’ll see the familiar final stage as your backdrop. Overall, it’s a fairly simple tie-in, and you won’t see anything particularly creative or interesting (Mariah Carey does not drop by, for example).

I had a lot of fun, though to me, the tracklist is not so much weak, but not enough 80’s! There’s probably no coincidence that the songs I like most are the ones I sing the best. Playing KR:AI definitely is motivating me to find other KR mixes; I think this would definitely favor a Rock Band-like model (and Harmonix developed both games) where you buy the game disc/starter pack and buy new songs online.

The Tracklist: (my favorites in bold, many have to be unlocked)

1. “All My Life” – K-Ci and JoJo
2. “Alone” – Heart
3. “Always Something There to Remind Me” – Naked Eyes
4. “Be Without You” – Mary J. Blige
5. “Breakaway” – Kelly Clarkson
6. “Build Me Up Buttercup” – The Foundations
7. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” – Elvis Presley
8. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – Queen
9. “Dilemma” – Nelly & Kelly Rowland
10. “Do I Make You Proud” – Taylor Hicks
11. “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” – Elton John
12. “Don’t You Want Me” – The Human League
13. “Easy” – Commodores
14. “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” – Poison
15. “Flying Without Wings” – Ruben Studdard
16. “Heartbreaker” – Pat Benatar
17. “Heaven” – Los Lonely Boys
18. “Hungry Like the Wolf” – Duran Duran
19. “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” – Simply Red
20. “It’s Not Unusual” – Tom Jones
21. “Just the Way You Are” – Billy Joel
22. “Let’s Stay Together” – Al Green
23. “Love Will Keep Us Together” – Captain & Tennille
24. “More Than Words” – Extreme
25. “Photograph” – Nickelback
26. “Piano Man” – Billy Joel
27. “Proud Mary” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
28. “Rock with You” – Michael Jackson
29. “Saving All My Love For You” – Whitney Houston
30. “She Bangs” – Ricky Martin
31. “Stand By Me” – Ben E. King
32. “Stickwitu” – The Pussycat Dolls
33. “Straight Up” – Paula Abdul
34. “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” – Fall Out Boy
35. “The Real Thing” – Bo Bice
36. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” – Bonnie Tyler
37. “Unwritten” – Natasha Bedingfield
38. “What a Girl Wants” – Christina Aguilera
39. “You and Me” – Lifehouse
40. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” – The Righteous Brothers

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28.04.2008 Music, Reviews, Video Games 2 Comments

RickRoll has Gone a Little Too Far

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

RickRoll

From my Wordpress 2.5 Dashboard on 04/16. I admit it, I am tempted to go download it and I still have not watched the whole video yet.

Incidentally I got the Vietnamese equivalent of rick-rolled a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, here’s the real one: http://www.vnxxpress.net/

VNExpress is a huge news site, it’s really supposed to be www.vnexpress.net.

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17.04.2008 Blog, Music, Vietnam No Comments

Michael Jackson – Thriller (25th Anniversary Edition)

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

 

The Biggest Album Ever just got bigger. The 25th Anniversary Edition of Thriller celebrates this ground-breaking album with 7 bonus tracks, six of which are previously unreleased. The new tracks include exclusive remixes from Kanye West, Fergie, will.i.am and Akon along with a previously unreleased track from the Thriller sessions, “For All Time,” newly mixed and mastered by Michael Jackson. Also included is a BONUS DVD with new, digitally restored versions of the three videos from the album as well as the Michael Jackson’s groundbreaking performance of “Billie Jean” on the “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” television special (first broadcast on NBC May 16, 1983). Also included in all versions of the release is a new personal greeting from Michael Jackson to his fans penned exclusively for this special release.

Releaselog | RLSLOG.net » Michael Jackson – Thriller (25th Anniversary Edition)

—-

Too bad I’m not in the US; I’d buy this for the bonus DVD to get the Billie Jean performance. Anyway, downloaded the CD, and well, it’s really not that big of a deal. The remixes are nice for a single listen or so, but nothing startlingly awesome. Of course, the original material is badass, it’s the best selling album of all time for a reason.

I’m a Michael Jackson apologist- like Dave Chappelle said in a Chappelle Show skit defending the child molestation charges, “He made Thriller….”, and I’m still hoping for that super comeback album that shows he can still do it. You tell me, what other popstar could get Van Halen to play on a pop song (Beat It) and be Grammy nominated for best Hard Rock song?

Unfortunately, I’ve been waiting 15 years since Dangerous for something that everyone to recognize again, the King of Pop.

Random Trivia: In 1987, I changed my name from Huy to Michael because of Michael Jackson. Actually, didn’t change my name because of him, just wanted to change my name to something American, and chose Michael Jackson in honor of him. I was 6 at the time.

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10.02.2008 Music, Reviews No Comments

Shorty’s Guitar Hero 2 Custom Disc – ALL SONGS ARE CUSTOM

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 
This is a custom version of GUITAR HERO 2...
The song list!:

1. Blink 182
First Date
Dammit
The Party Song
Rock Show
What's My Age Again

2. Foo Fighters
My Hero
Pretender
Time Like These
Everlong
All My Life

3. Rage Against The Machine
Testify
Freedom
Bomb Track
Calm Like A Bomb
Gorrila Radio

4. Sum 41
No Difference
Underclass Hero
Over My Head
The Hell Song
We're All To Blame

5. Red Hot Chili Peppers
Can't Stop
Charlie
Give It Away
Hump De Bump
Snow (Hey Oh)

6. Tenacious D !
BezzleBoss
Break In City (Storm The Gates)
The Pick of Destiny
Kikapoo

7. Green Day
American Idiot
Nice Guys Finish Last
Holiday
Good Riddance
Basket Case

8. Dragonforce !
Revolution Deathsquad
Fury Of The Storm
Operation Ground and Pound
Through Fire and Flames

Holy Bonus Tracks, Batman!

Brainstorm
What's This (FOB VERSION)
School of Rock
Detroit Rock City
The middle
Master of Puppets
Ultimate Showdown
Separation Between Church and Skate
Misery Business
Anna Molly
Out of Control
Paradise City
Rock Lobster
Cannon Rock
Cute Without The E
Here It Goes Again
The Immigrant Song
Pinball Wizard
Joker and The Theif
Purple Haze
Rock n' Roll High School
Eruption
Walkie Talkie Man
Halo 2 (Mjolnir Mix)

This is about the coolest thing ever- I saw the song list and was….(jaw dropping), EVERLONG!!!!

(Most favorite song ever, along with so many other cool songs I’d want to play)

So I downloaded it and put it in to play and THEN….noticed that most songs are Expert only. And I can barely play hard. Why, lord why?!

And I have the PS2 Rock Band, so it’s not like I can download (buy) these songs and play either.

I honestly don’t think I will ever be good enough to play Expert. If I can pass all the songs for all the GH + RB games on Hard, I’d be plenty happy.

I won’t link to where you can get this, but search for the title (of this blog) and maybe it’ll come up :P

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22.01.2008 Music, Video Games No Comments

CyDay And Cyworld!

Friday, October 26th, 2007

You can see some of the pictures in the “New Photos” sidebar widget right now, and a bunch of the better pictures are highlighted at the end of this post. CyDay was a few weeks ago but I’m back in Saigon for a few days again for work, and hopefully I can get back to Hanoi on Saturday.

CyDay was a concert hosted by Cyworld on October 6th. A lot of big stars came out: My Tam, Ha Anh Tuan, Anh Khoa, Quang Vinh, Bao Thy, Luong Bich Huu, and some other people. Nice venue, over 6K+ people (over capacity, I hear), got broadcast on BTV live, and has been viewed on VTV, HTV, etc.

  • My Tam is by far the biggest star of those who performed, she’s one of the biggest stars in Vietnam. She’s good looking, but a lot shorter than you’d think. (I’m not tall at any means at 5′6, she’s probably around 5 feet-ish. She also looks a lot older (than she should?) I look younger than my age (26) but she’s younger than me, and I would never think she was my age or younger. Her performance was good, you can tell why she’s a star. She closed off the show, and the event organizers had balloons drop from the ceiling to celebrate. Cool effect, not sure how they got the balloons to drop (balloons are hung on a horizontal string line, and then they started dropping off one by one. Other times, from sporting events, I just see that things are dropped as if a hatch opens up and stuff empties out.
  • Ha Anh Tuan’s a relative new comer, he won Vietnam’s version of American Idol last year. (There’s also Vietnam Idol now, fully licensed from American Idol)
  • Quang Vinh’s an emerging pop-star, has an Elvis-ish look to him. His look is a bit quirky, not sure how to really explain it, he’s got the long sideburns. I know the girls like him. A good performer and a nice guy from what I’ve heard.
  • Bao Thy’s another emerging star- former model turned singer. Turned popular after winning the Miss Audition contest. Audition is a super popular PC dance rhythm game that originated in Korea. I think it was supposed to be released by Acclaim in the US, but not sure about its current status. She can’t sing very well, and she isn’t the greatest performer, but she was pretty ok in the concert once she was at “concert” level Bao Thy.
  • Anh Khoa was the first act, but he’s a good performer as well. Very entertaining, more of a rocker…to bad he didn’t have a real rock band behind him. I guess Vietnam is not so ready for him yet, but I can imagine him being bigger if live rock catches on here.
  • Luong Bich Huu, I wasn’t a fan of at all. Her wardrobe, or her pajamas, her songs, not sure why she’s popular. She came off like a 12 year old to me, but I think she and Bao Thy are both 19. Anyway, everyone has their own preferences.

Other Notes:

  • Vietnamese people in front don’t stand for concerts. Very unlike America. There’s just a layout of seats throughout. They did get rowdy thought at certain moments. The MC’s did a great job of getting the crowd involved, though this came mainly from the front.
  • I obtained some tickets for family, kind of nice thing for them not see what I do (not easy to describe), but that I’m connected to a legit operation. Too bad parents couldn’t attend. Mom’s side couldn’t attend either, they were rebuilding their house or something. I still haven’t visited them since I left the US over a year ago.
  • In the afternoon activities, the agency has Wii Sports running along with Dance Dance Revolution. Interesting “cameo” appearance/reminder from the RedOctane days.

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26.10.2007 Music, Vietnam No Comments

10 Years Ago, in 1997…

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

I was 16, a junior in high school in San Jose, CA. I remember sometimes staying up late, trying to write a crappy essay, I mean crappily trying to write an essay. An essay that I thought was good, yet I’d had a track record of writing not-so-good ones, or just decent ones, so how good could my essay really be? And what’s a theme anyway? Motif? All these fancy terms being thrown around, what the hell. I’d listen to Foxy Brown’s I’ll Be and Get Me Home (w/Blackstreet), among other songs repeatedly as I stayed up late. I of course loved Michael Jackson, Remember the Time, playing through my head and my headphones…or were those the Yamaha 5W speakers I had for a while. I remember I loved those, was I using Win95, accessing the Internet for free with Cyberfreeway, listening to music with my Creative Labs Awe32 sound card, and then using some mp3 player called WinAmp?

10 years later, in Hanoi, Vietnam, I stay up late crappily trying to put together a 4th Quarter Strategy for my team, which I believe is good, yet how do I know if it’s good or not? Maybe no one else can do better, but that doesn’t really mean much.

10 years ago, I’d get a C+ and a rewrite request scribbled on the top of my paper. Now, it’s my job. And I could use a job.

10 years later, WinAmp is still around, I’m using Windows XP, I pay $15/a month for internet, and listening to music on my headphones on my 4 year old laptop. Foxy Brown’s in jail, Michael Jackson should probably be in jail.

I can still listen to I’ll Be, it’s on my hard drive, along with all my Michael Jackson favorites. In fact, I’m listening to the Dangerous album right now. Maybe I’ll put on I’ll Be and Boyz II Men later before I finish this.

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03.10.2007 Music, Work No Comments