Sự kiện "Nhất Thống Thiên Hạ" - Liên chiến server 4

Chư vị Quân Chủ kính mến,

Như chư vị đã biết, vào 11h00 ngày mai, 12/03/2013, Nhiệt Huyết Online đã tiến hành bảo trì 3 máy chủ Trường Giang, Thượng Phương và Bạch Mã để chuẩn bị cho ra mắt cụm máy chủ Liên chiến thứ 4. Với sự ra mắt này, những Quân Chủ của 3 máy chủ trên sẽ có dịp được giao lưu và chinh chiến với nhau trong một sân chơi rộng lớn và hoành tráng hơn.

Nhằm gia tăng tính cạnh tranh cũng như để vinh danh cho những người mạnh nhất, Nhiệt Huyết Online đã quyết định tổ chức một sự kiện đặc biệt dành riêng cho cụm máy chủ liên chiến thứ 4 này:

SỰ KIỆN ĐẶC BIỆT DÀNH CHO CỤM SERVER LIÊN CHIẾN 4

TRƯỜNG GIANG – THƯỢNG PHƯƠNG – BẠCH MÃ

Nhất thống thiên hạ

Trong lịch sử Tam Quốc, Lưu Bị - Tào Tháo – Tôn Quyền chính là 3 vị đế vương tượng trưng cho 3 thế lực Ngụy – Thục – Ngô. Vậy nếu một ngày nào đó , Lưu Bị - Tào Tháo – Tôn Quyền cùng sống chung một nhà thì mọi chuyện sẽ diễn biến thế nào? Liệu thiên hạ có được thống nhất?

Đây sẽ chính là thách thức dành riêng cho những Quân Chủ trong sự kiện “Nhất Thống Thiên Hạ” của cụm server liên chiến. Người chiêu mộ được cả 3 danh tướng trên, sẽ là người được vinh danh cao nhất, đồng thời cũng sẽ nhận được những phần thưởng vô cùng hậu hĩnh của sự kiện này.

Thời gian: Bắt đầu từ  ngày 12/03/2013 đến 11h00 ngày 12/04/2013

Nội dung: Tính đến lúc kết thúc sự kiện là 11h00 ngày 12/04/2013. Vị quân chủ nào sở hữucả 3 danh tướng TÀO THÁO – LƯU BỊ - TÔN QUYỀN sẽ nhận được phần thưởng sau:

Giải thưởng đặc biệt :

Điều kiện	Phần thưởng
Sở hữu được cả 3 danh tướng TÀO THÁO – LƯU BỊ- TÔN QUYỀN	01 Bộ trang bị Long Uyên ( 15 món )
	01 Long Uyên Bảo Mã
	Mỗi loại ngọc bảo châu 1 viên + 10

Ngoài ra, khi kết thúc sự kiện mà không có Quân chủ nào có thể chiêu mộ cả 3 danh tướng thì sự kiện sẽ có cơ cấu giải thưởng như sau:

Giải thưởng:

Tên danh tướng	Phần thưởng
TÀO THÁO	05 Rương Long Uyên + 100 Thể Lực bảo châu cấp 6  + 100 Dũng võ bảo châu cấp 6
LƯU BỊ	05 Rương Long Uyên + 100 Công kích bảo châu cấp 6  + 100 Mưu Trí bảo châu cấp 6
TÔN QUYỀN	05 Rương Long Uyên + 100 Phòng ngự bảo châu cấp 6  + 100 Thống Lĩnh bảo châu cấp 6

Lưu ý: Người nhận được giải phần thưởng đặc biệt sẽ không được nhận phần thưởng thường khi sở hữu các tướng. Danh tướng môn khách không được tính là danh tướng lịch sử.

Chúc tất cả chư vị đều sẽ giành được những thành công trong sự kiện “Nhất Thống Thiên Hạ”.

Tham gia Nhiệt Huyết Online tại: http://nhiet.gate.vn

Google Music Streaming

Wall Street Journal reports that Google will unveil a music streaming service at the Google I/O developer conference.

"Users of the service are expected to be able to listen to songs they have uploaded to the service in a so-called streaming mode but won't be able to download the files themselves. That limit appears to be a bid by Google to hinder the service from being used to spread pirated music. (...) The service is unlikely to be tied to an online music store like Amazon MP3, which gives users the option of adding new songs to their music locker at the time they buy them."

If you go to http://music.google.com/music/, you'll get an error message: "We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States," but you'll at least see Google Music's logo, borrowed from a new version of the Android music app.



Update: As Google's blog informs, "Music Beta by Google [is] a new service that lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud for streaming to your computer and Android devices. With the new service, your music and playlists are automatically kept in sync, so if you create a new playlist on your phone, it's instantly available on your computer or tablet. You can use a feature called Instant Mix to create a playlist of songs that go well together. You can even listen to music when you're offline: we automatically store your most recently played music on your Android device and you can choose to make specific albums or playlists available when you're not connected. The service is launching in beta today to U.S. users and is available by invitation." While it's in beta, the new service is available for free. To upload your music, you can use a Windows/Mac application called Media Manager. There's also a new version of the Android music app that has a new interface and integrates with the Google Music service.

{ Thanks, Scott. }

Google Music Search India

Google launched a new music service, this time for India. Google Music India helps you find Hindi songs and play them in your browser. Google aggregates the results from 3 partner sites: in.com, Saavn and Saregama, but it doesn't offer too many additional features.

"Google Music Search (India) Labs licenses meta-data of thousands of songs owned or licensed by partners to make them searchable on Internet. Once you search and find the music you want, our partners stream the music directly from their websites to your computer," explains the FAQ.



The US version of the service is similar and it focuses on finding music. Most of the audio previews are from iLike, a MySpace service. There's also a Chinese Google Music, which is less restrictive: it lets you find songs, play them and even download them for free.

Google plans to launch a music store for Android. "Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, hopes to have the service up and running by Christmas," according to some sources.

{ Thanks, Kapil, Pulkit and Abhijeet. }

MusicBee, a Web-Centric Music Manager

I rarely post about topics that don't have too much to do with Google, but there's a little-known music player that deserves some recognition. MusicBee is a powerful music player and music organizer for Windows that helps you auto-tag your songs, find lyrics and album pictures, create smart playlists with related songs from Last.fm, convert songs and much more.


MusicBee manages to combine the best features from applications like iTunes, Windows Media Player or Winamp, while adding a lot of useful features that aren't available in those popular media players. For example, you can automatically fix the tags for all the songs from your music library with just a few clicks.


MusicBee has a great Last.fm integration: it automatically scrobbles the tracks you play, it lets you import your loved tracks and your playlists, it has a cool feature that imports Last.fm tags and there's also an option to sync play counts with Last.fm.


The application supports tabs and it includes a Mozilla Gecko-based browser that lets you read information about the songs you're currently listening and download songs from music blogs.

Besides the extensive support for music formats (MP3, WMA, Vorbis, AAC, FLAC), the application converts music files from one format to another and synchronizes your files with many portable devices, including iPod and iPhone.

MusicBee is probably the media player that integrates with the most popular music-related web services and the nice thing is that it's constantly improving. Steven, MusicBee's only developer, is open to feedback, sometimes implementing user suggestions and fixing bugs in less than a day after they're posted. It's amazing to see that the first version of the player has been released in December 2008.

The downside of including a lot of features is that the application might look cluttered and some features are difficult to find, but that's a small price to pay.

Google Music OneBox 2.0

Google updated the music search OneBox, which used to include song titles, album names and some other information licensed from AllMusic. The new music search OneBox is only focused on finding music, previewing songs and easily buying them.

Search for an artist, an album name or even some lyrics and Google returns a list of songs that can be played with one click. Full music previews are provided by iLike and Lala, but Google also links to other music sites: Pandora, Rhapsody and imeem. When you click on a music result, Google opens a player in a pop-up window, which isn't very user-friendly.

"With Lala, you can hear one full length preview per song. Each subsequent play will be a 0:30 clip," explains Lala. This limitation is very easy to bypass: just clear the cookies for lala.com.

The OneBox is limited to the US, probably because the music sites that partnered with Google can provide full previews only in the US. I didn't manage to trigger the OneBox, not even using a US proxy. The sample searches provided by Google include some additional parameters that need to be added to a Google URL:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Bob+Dylan&esrch=MusicOneboxDemoOptin::LaunchDemoOptIn

Google says it will be "rolling this feature out gradually to users across the U.S. over the next day".




Not wanting to feel left out, Yahoo reminds users that it launched a similar feature last year. "Since launching a partnership with Rhapsody in September 2008 and launching the FoxyPlayer last year, music has been an integral part of the Yahoo! Search experience as well. We have found that nearly 6 percent of all Yahoo! searches are music-related."

Enhanced Google Music Search

Google has a small music search engine that shows information about artists, albums and songs. You can use the music: operator in Google's search box to access the service. Unfortunately, the information is outdated, the links to reviews are broken and there's not much to see.

After many years of decay, Google decided to improve the service. CNet reports that Google will launch the new version of Google Music Search next week, in partnership with Lala and iLike. "The way One Box will work is that a person who keys in the names U2 or Coldplay, for example, will find a thumbnail photo of the artists, background information, as well as a listing of the music that they can preview."

"The new Google music offering will allow users to stream an entire song via a link from La La Media Inc.'s Lala.com, or a sample from MySpace's music site iLike.com. The Lala link on the Google page will let users listen to a song once free of charge. In addition to offering a free streaming link, the new arrangement will offer options to pay 10 cents for an online-only version or about $1 to download an MP3," says the Wall Street Journal.

TechCrunch has some screenshots of the OneBox and the interface resembles Yahoo's music artist shortcut. Last year, Yahoo partnered with Rhapsody to allow users to play up to 25 full songs a month.

Here are some screenshots of Google Music Search as it looks today:




Google's most popular music-related service is YouTube and it's surprising that YouTube doesn't offer a better experience for watching music videos. YouTube could easily add information about music artists, lyrics, album arts, music charts. Later this year, YouTube will launch Vevo, a site that will feature Universal's music videos.

If Google Made A Media Player

If Google made a media player, how it would be different?

* The media player would be small and dockable. It would have four buttons: play, pause, stop, shuffle and a search box.

* Google Media Player would find lyrics for your songs using Google search engine.

* It would fill the tags with the artist, the song, the album and the genre of each song.

* Each song would have a mood (like sad, happy, romantic, sleepy).

* Google Media Player's equalizer would adjust according to song's genre.

* You would be able to share your media library, playlists or stats with your Gmail contacts or the whole world.

* Google Media Player would suggest what other songs to listen.

* Google Media Player could play contextual music: let's say you read a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez on your computer. Feed Google Media Player a fragment from the novel and let it find the most appropriate songs from your computer or from online streams.

* Google Media Player would show the latest news from the artist that plays the current song, images from Google Images or what other people think about this song.

* Google Media Player's search functionality would be complex. If you search for "Bjork", you'll also find artists with similar music or artists influenced by her music.

Related:
Google Music Store?
Windows Media Player 11
Google Music Box

Windows Media Player 11

Nothing new from Windows Media Player 11. The glass design doesn't look good, it's black, it has too many button scattered all around the place. It has an inline search feature that works well for large media libraries, it doesn't lists artists and songs in trees - the new media player uses a similar approach to Windows Explorer.

But there are people that say Windows Media Player 11 has many new features. Let's see:

"Some of the unique features of Media Player 11 are a deeply integrated music library for both online and offline content, a new and improved interface, the ability to connect to additional hardware easily, and integrated, easy-to-use tools for following the process of any task (downloading music, burning CDs, synching music, or streaming video, just to name a few). Media Player 11 has a new integrated feel, too — one that makes online, network, and offline content indistinguishable. Many of the improvements are due to the redesigned interface, which includes simplified trees, helpful shortcuts on the menus and menu bars, and an advanced and improved media library. There are now Back and Forward buttons, giving Media Player a web-browser feel; a lightning-fast WordWheel search tool for getting through the library; and Xbox 360 support."

You can download WMP 11 from Softpedia (Windows 2000/ XP - download size: 22MB).

Listen To Pandora In Winamp

If you have the latest version of Winamp (namely, Winamp 5.32), you can add Pandora, a great online personalized radio, to Media Library so you can listen to the music without opening Pandora in a browser.

Close Winamp, then open this file in Notepad:
C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\ml\ml_online.ini
(change the location if you've installed Winamp elsewhere).

Replace this line

ElementID11=-1

with

ElementID11=11000
ElementIcon11=11007
ElementSubbed11=1
ElementName11=Pandora
ElementURL11=http://www.pandora.com?cmd=mini
ElementID12=-1

In fact, you should find the last line that contains ElementID[number]=-1, replace it with the code above, where instead of 11 you write [number].

Save the file, then right-click on it in Explorer, select Properties and check "Read-only" in the Attributes section.

When you open Winamp again, go to Media Library/Online Services/Pandora. If you don't have a Pandora account, you should make one. You can close Media Library and still listen to the radio.

Google Music Store?

Last week, Google met with a group of music industry executives. While Google denied they're planning to launch a Music Store, some analysts suspect that Google is getting ready to rival Apple iTunes.

"We have no plans at this time to develop a music store. Google offers a music search feature to provide users faster access to music-related information they are searching for. We offer users links to third-party sites where they can purchase music if they'd like to." Google explained.

"The music industry is broadly unhappy with the fixed pricing and lack of subscription options at the market-leading iTunes Music Store and likely to support alternative services," writes Mark Stahlman, an analyst from Caris.

Google already has a Video Store that doesn't prove too successful, due to the low amount of quality videos to purchase.

Pandora - free music discovery service

Can you help me discover more music that I'll like?

Pandora is a great website that creates a streaming audio playlist of music based on any artist or track you suggest. Every artist, every song, every genre has some attributes that build interesting connections.

"On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever. Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. "

Similar services are: Yahoo! Launchcast (you can find it in Yahoo! Messenger) and Last.fm.