#theres no real meaning to that i just wanted to reuse the name since i think its cute. a little easter egg 4 the mayuheads out there

[wewerebornsextuplets]

you gottaaa maaaaaake your own kind of musiiiiic

[slothcritic1]

Moana (2016)

Amazing Hair: The Movie. Moana is a tale of Hawaiian/Polynesian folklore centering around Dwayne The Maui Johnson and brand new talent (Auli'i Cravalho) as the titular character.

As someone who grew up with Toy Story, it’s funny to think about what this movie represents from a technical standpoint. Toy Story purposefully did not have an explositions or exposed liquids due to the limitations of technology at the time. And now we have a movie that takes place 90% of the time in the middle of a huge ocean.

The movie has some genuinely good songs, thanks to the singing talents of Ms Cravalho and, surprisingly, Dwayne Johnson himself. Yes, The Rock can sing, and while it’s semi-obvious that he doesn’t have the range of some other singers, he works within his means and knocks it out of the park in the song You’re Welcome

The plot structure itself is very formulaic however, which is a shame as everything else holds up so wonderfully. The focal girl has a duty to uphold, but instead decides to “follow her destiny” and choose a life of adventure over the life she’s expected to live (you know, like Brave, Frozen, Mulan, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan… you get the point). She then meets up with the wacky, street wise (or ocean wise), reluctant helper that she goads into helping on her journey. They become friends and bond, then theres the third act break up where the helper separates for no good reason, and the fourth act triumphant return at the ending climax for even less of a good reason.

With that out of the way, the movie rocks. Some people completely judge a movie only on plot, but I think it’s more about how it makes you feel. A movie is a vessel for emotion and intrigue.

Aside from the stunning visuals (which, lets face it, are now a standard practise for Disney Pixar films) and a catchy song (songs however are much easier to screw up, and this movie has a lot of good ones), the opening scene is bland. It sets up Moana to be the next village chief and her journey into leaving the island. The scene doesn’t really have anything for itself, but rather is used to carry the impact of when she actually disembarks. It’s necessary for backstory (no one ever leaves the island), exposition (Moana is the daughter of the village chief, etc) and the premise (find Maui and have him restore Heart of Te Fiti to stop a black virus from consuming all life), but doesnt do too much on its own.

The disembarkment scene however is wicked powerful. My friends thought I was alien for not crying or tearing up during it, but I will admit it did give me a good *pang* in the heart. Magical spirit stingray!

Two things should also be mentioned at this point. 1) A rooster named Hei Hei has snuck aboard Moana’s boat. It’s a very special rooster that my friends would not stop comparing to me. And B) The ocean is a sentient character of sorts, and provides some of the comedy for the movie.

Moana follows the constellation of the fish hook to where Maui is, since thats his dealio. At some point however, the lovable ocean gets triggered and decides to unleash its torrential stormy wrath upon Moana. I mean, it does get her to Maui’s island, but I’m sure there were less dickish ways of accomplishing that. Though I don’t think ocean cares since it killed Moana’s dad’s best friend. Oh, ocean, you little scamp.

Maui pops in and drops my favorite song of the movie, then steals the boat and leaves Moana to… I dunno, die? But she makes it back to Maui and explains that he needs to help her because, guess what, she’s the Disney Princess of this movie. And yes - She is. Her father is chief, which is like a king. She’s the chief’s daughter, which is like a king’s daughter, aka princess.

Maui responds by throwing the Heart of Te Fiti several miles away. This almost works out for Maui until p̶l̶o̶t̶ the ocean interferes by throwing it back, railroading him into a whole new world.

Maui however is at a disadvantage in his current state; He’s missing his hook. No hook, no powers. So when tribal coconuts show up on a HUGE ship, armed to the coconuts with poison blow darts, they’re kind of fucked, especially when they steal the Heart of Te Fiti, which is… currently inside Hei Hei.

Luckily, Moana does some badass shit while Maui handles the boat and the three of them get out fine. Next stop, Maui’s hook. But before that, Moana wants to drive the boat. Maui says no, and the ocean pricks him with a stray poison dart. Now he cant drive. But he can pee in the water just as he tells Moana to check for a “warm current”

I can get on board with that level of petty.

They arrive at Monster Island, which is where Maui’s hook is. Maui tells her to stay on the boat and do nothing like a good woman while macho man demi-dude saves the whole day. It has little success. I should also mention, this entire time they’ve been traveling from Casa de Maui to Mount Doom, Maui has just been roasting Moana for being a Disney princess. To summarize:

“Oh look at me. I’m the chosen one. I’m like 8 years old and never sailed a boat in my life, but here I am thinking the ocean chose ME, with my bleeding heart spiel and animal companion to try and save the world.”

To be fair, large bodies of water have never been good at chosing leaders - Ask Monty Python.

Regardless, Moana and Maui both climb what is basically a 90 degree incline to the top of the Dread Spire. It is at this point Maui informs Moana that the door to the monster realm can only be opened with a human sacrifice. Before Moana can protest, Maui ritually disembowels her with his own hands to appease the ancient blood gods.

Kidding. He chants a few words and the gateway opens. The two jump in, and Moana is almost eaten or killed numerous times with the first few moments of being in the realm of the monsters.

Maui’s hook is resting upon a mountain of gold. Seems innocent enough to Moana, but Maui insists she wears a bright and gaudy disguise to draw the attention of… something.

The mountain of gold rises up. Turns out thats just its back. Meet the British Crab. He sings a song about how he loves shiny things and then nearly eats Moana, until Maui reveals he retrieved his hook from the British Crab’s back.

But he’s a little rusty and it, uh, doesn’t work right. So Maui gets his shit stomped by BC. Moana saves the day by painting a rock with bioluminescent algae to make it look like the Heart of Te Fiti, which is shiny, and BC is all about the shiny.

They escape, and Maui learns to reuse his hook. Everythings looking swell until they try and take on the great evil of the story, Te Ka. He uses fireball and Maui presses E to deflect with his hook, only instead the hook gets mad cracked. It sparks like its somehow made of electricity, which I find weird. Maui is now done with life since his hook is nearly toast and he fucks off, leaving chosen girl all by herself, depressed as fuck in the middle of nowhere, ocean.

One drug trip and amazing song later, she regains her confidence and tried to take on Te Ka by herself. It surprisingly works, because now she knows how to drive a boat. Hei Hei comes in clutch and stops the Heart of Te Fiti from falling off the boat, and they make it through the border islands towards their main goal.

Te Ka is still rather pissed, being a giant lava demon and all, so he keeps trying to kill Moana. And for no real reason, here comes Maui to save the day - or at least to stall Te Ka until Moana can do the thing. His hook gets completely totalled but its okay, because he learned a valuable lesson off-screen that he’s still Maui, hook or no hook.

Moana realizes that the Heart actually goes into Te Ka. So she pulls a Moses, lets Te Ka come at her bro, and puts the Heart into her chest. This turns her from the red Lava Groot to the green Mother Nature Jemima, and everything is better forever. And hey, she gives Maui a brand new hook after he apologises for being the literal cause of ALL of this. Maui does his own thing and Moana becomes the leader of a brand new generation of voyagers.

I do have to applaud Disney for NOT having the two of them kiss at the end. Its always nice to see a platonic m/f duo in movies and the romance subplot sells so well to resist sometimes.

Overall, very stunning. I often cite “movie feel” as a reason why movies with plot/cliche/logistic problems can still make good movies, and this movie does a wonderful job of sweeping you off your feet. Though honestly, the writing on this movie is not bad. Rather, I would say its poorly structured. Think of it like a support beam a beanstalk might grow up. The characters were amazing; Full of life, personality and moderately complex emotions, the animation is so good the whole movie is like a humble brag about how awesome the DisneyTech is, a lot (i’d say 80%) of the script is bang on, and an astounding amount of the songs are really good - Songs are easy to screw up and I’d say that’s this movies second biggest strength (behind hair/water animation). It just struggles with the standard “winning formula” plot structure that was honestly ill-fitting in parts and did not impart a wholesome explanation or comprehensive rationale behind certain scenes.

I’m not a big Disney buff (unless you count the Star Wars acquisition), so I’m not qualified to say how this ranks compared to other movies (disregarding modern tech advancements and focusing more on storytelling) - However I will say that it’s better than Frozen.

[lyncnews]

Ever since I first was introduced to the Smartdock during Microsoft Ignite last year I have been anxious to get my hands on one. Our company has been heavy on collaboration since Live Communications Server 2005, mostly with desktop users using audio and screen sharing. Lately the use of video enabled meeting rooms have been asked for, and for someone that thinks traditional Skype Room Systems are too expensive (at least for company wide implementation) the Logitech solution looks really promising.

This week the Smartdock finally arrived, and here are my initial thoughts on it.

The concept of the Smartdock solution is actually something I have been close to setting up myself – I even have a draft for a “DYI Lync Room System” blog post lying around! A couple of years ago I did set up a Surface Pro 2 as a “team room Lync System” where I would utilize the Lync modern UI app to achieve most of the Skype Meeting Room experience, further customizing the Start Screen so it would only have a tile for joining booked meetings and another for starting a new one yourself. The problem was that users could easily screw things up by messing around with the computer, even viewing the desktop would throw some users off. The idea was reluctantly abandoned.

The Logitech Smartdock takes this concept a few steps further. First of all it locks down the computer so that the only way to end the Skype Room System app is by restarting the computer. Second, it contains an HDMI “capture device” that will let you connect the sharing computer via HDMI cable. Since you will most likely bring your own computer to share meeting content I personally find presenting the content directly (via Skype) to be just as easy. With the Smartdock, however, the advantage is that the presenter does not even need to have Skype for Business installed on his or her computer.

Smartdock unboxed – contents of the package

The Smartdock ships in a compact box along with a power supply, a 10 feet network cable and two 10 feet HDMI cables. At the moment it only supports one external monitor but it is announced that dual monitor support is coming. So for now you have all the cables for both HDMI input as well as output. The Smartdock even ships with a small torx screwdriver needed for the Surface and cable attachment within the dock! For hired consultants setting this up at a customer site it is nice to know that you can actually leave your tool kit at home.

Smartdock unboxed – Surface mounting

Apart from the Smartdock you will need a Surface Pro 4. It has to be a Core i5 CPU version, and sadly you will have to install Windows 10 Enterprise instead of just being able to use the preinstalled Windows 10 Pro that ships with the Surface. The latter can be a pain, because PXE booting a Surface Pro 4 turned out such big a problem I had to go on using USB bootable media instead. Microsoft has a guide for creating a USB media including drivers and the Skype Room System application package. The installation is kind of clever, as it takes you through the whole part of installing the OS and application, sysprepping the computer as well as the following “perks”:

Creates an administrator account and a separate console account named “Skype”

Locks down the “Skype” user account so that all interaction besides what you do with the SRS application is disabled

Installs maintainance task that will automatically update the SRS

Adjusts power settings so that the Surface will never shut down, but it will turn the touch screen dark after some time. Along with the proximity sensor in the docking that “wake up” the screen when you get close to it that is kind of a cool feature. This will even make the HDMI output turn off and on, so if you (like me) are having the meeting room screen/projector automatically turn off and on based on source input it will work fine with the Smartdock!

Sets the Smartdock to automatically sign in with the “Skype” user account as well as start the Skype Room System app automatically.

Make sure that you just leave the sysprep autounattend file as it is instead of changing it into what the Technet article says, that is: instead of making it into “silent.xml” just stick with the default “audit.xml” config file. Otherwise the SRS app and several other settings will not be installed.

Smartdock unboxed – room system account login

After the installation is complete you can “dock the Surface”, power it on, provide the login credentials for your Skype Room System account and enjoy the fun. Of course, I am assuming that you have provided the SRS account in advance, but that is well explained here. In my case I have been reusing an existing Exchange room resource account already used with an Evoko Room panel for meeting room booking – and they both seem to play along nicely.

Remember that if you decide not to domain join your newly born Skype room you will require a root certificate trusting the certificates assigned to the Skype server, or else you will not be able to log in. This is well described in the Technet article along with a tip on how to make it happen during initial setup.

One thing I was anxious about was whether the Skype Room System app would be conforming to the locale used on the Surface. Of course I would prefer that the user interface would be in my (users) local language, for maximum ease-of-use. Luckily this is the case. When I set up a Crestron RL system I seem to recall that it was all in English, but that was years ago and may have changed – or may even be false.

Smartdock unboxed – docking pedestal cable connection panel

Another thing to notice is that the Smartdock, even though it is running a fully functional Surface Pro 4 inside, will require an Ethernet connection for the Skype Room app to work. For some this might sound like a downside, but for me assuring that Skype media will run on the best network available is nothing but the right thing to do. Also, remember that to take full advantage of the HDMI input device you will have to change into the administrator account and adjust audio device settings

The thing I love most about the Smartdock is that you can connect whatever kind of USB audio and video solution you like. I have been testing it with the Logitech GROUP system, a solution we have deployed to several meeting rooms already and one that I really find giving you bang for the buck. So with a Smartdock (MSRP $599), a Surface Pro 4 (about $1,000) and the Logitech GROUP (MSRP $999) you have your Skype Room system going for less than $2,600! That is way off any other Skype Room System out there, at least to my knowledge. If you want to go with other vendors that is possible too, for example; if you have a really large meeting room you could use Vaddio EasyUSB ceiling mounted microphones and the Altia PanaCast 2 panoramic camera for full sonic and visual coverage – That is flexibility to me!

Smartdock unboxed – home screen

The Smartdock is operated the same way as the other Skype Room systems on the market. On the touch screen you have the choices of starting your own ad-hoc meeting or simply presenting an HDMI connected computer screen if the meeting is only for people physically present. There is also the “Invite this room” choice which will simply give you the instrictions on how to invite the room into a conference call. If you have already created a meeting up front which the Skype Meeting Room was invited into then the click-to-join button is readily available.

Smartdock unboxed – in-meeting controls

During a Skype conference call theres is a layout control button. This gives you the choice to view only the content, only the video gallery or content view with a compact sidebar of video gallery attendants. All in all this is everything you would expect from a Skype Room System, and it both looks and runs real smooth. If you enable the Skype Meeting Room  account for voice it will let you use it as a phone as well, and with Skype for Business server the voice policy applied will always be that of the Meeting Room instead of the meeting organizer.

Last, but not least, one thing I am awaiting with some anxiety is how the system will handle upcoming Windows updates. Back at Ignite the Logitech representative gave some promises that the Skype Room software would automatically handle this, and – at least how I interpreted it – would make sure that only Logitech “certified” updates (meaning tested and proven) would be applied. As I have already mentioned there is a “maintainance task” that will take care of updates, but I seem to recall that the anniversary update for Windows 10 actually broke some Logitech webcams, and that is something I would rather not experience.

Summing up I have the following pros for Logitech’s Smartdock:

Reasonably priced – a basic solution including camera and microphone is available for under $2,600

Quite easy to set up, you will only need to create the install media once, and from there the installation is straight forward.

Flexibility to use your preferred or needed camera and/or microphone solution, as well as your existing or preferred screen or projector.

The same great and easy user interface of the much more expensive Skype Room systems already on the market.

Uses Ethernet network connection only – which is preferrable.

Now, there are also some points to take into consideration, maybe even considered cons:

The Surface Pro 4 will need to be provisioned via PXE boot or USB media. The first I was unable to get working, the latter can be cumbersome if you plan to deploy many of them.

How will the system handle updates?

All in all I have to say that Logitech are onto something here. I already have their meeting room solutions for audio and video set up in several facilities, and they are delivering good quality at a reasonable cost. The Smartdock looks much like the same story!

Smartdock complete install along with the Logitech GROUP