Keyboard > From the Giant Keyboard in the Movie “Big”, to the Magic of “Piano Wizard”, FAO Schwarz Toyland Continues It’s Landmark Music Making Tradition This Holiday Season

From the Giant Keyboard in the Movie “Big”, to the Magic of “Piano Wizard”, FAO Schwarz Toyland Continues It’s Landmark Music Making Tradition This Holiday Season

(ContentDesk) December 9, 2005 -- The holiday season in New York City means snow-covered sidewalks, ice-skating at Rockefeller Center, and no kids winter experience is complete without a visit to the world famous toy display at FAO Schwarz. The store's guiding principle has not changed since 1862: to provide the world's children with the most extraordinary toys, and this year FAOs Toyland will include one of the hottest new gifts on the market: Piano Wizard".One of the classic movie moments and memories is Tom Hanks hopping across the giant keyboard at FAO Schwarz in the movie Big, said Chris Salter, inventor of Piano Wizard and founder of parent company Allegro Multimedia.
In that moment, he brings out the musical child in all of us, and that is what we have strived to do with Piano Wizard from the outset. To have Piano Wizard as part of that landmark annual toy display is a delight for us and the children, because now they can play real music quickly and easily, almost magically, the way they did in the movie, Salter added.Piano Wizard, which is experiencing strong sales at FAOs New York and Las Vegas Toylands is rapidly gaining popularity everywhere, because it combines the fun of a video game with the fundamentals of piano lessons. That means children can sit at a keyboard and instantly play music. What once felt like practice now feels like play, and the sky is the limit when kids are engaged and enthusiastic.To ensure that children never tire of the game, and thereby continue to learn, Piano Wizard lets children choose from hundreds of songs and play with a dozen game characters in four different fantasy worlds.

They can change the speed, the instrument sounds, the skill levels, and more. And in addition to the MIDI songs that come standard with Piano Wizards Easy Mode version, a Premier version enables thousands of songs to be downloaded from internet libraries. So children can download and play any MIDI song, from virtually any artist, whether the music style is classical, pop, rock, country, or alternative-- making it a game to be enjoyed for life, for kids of any age.Piano Wizard includes a CD containing its proprietary computer game, color-coded stickers, and is bundled with or without an electronic MIDI keyboard.
The Piano Wizard software allows kids to simply and quickly hit the correct note at the correct time, letting the user play actual songs immediately, and in the process, learn music logic, theory and notation while playing a game.The game, which won Creative Child Magazines prestigious Top Toy of The Year 2005 Award, will be on display in FAOs New York and Las Vegas stores until Christmas Eve, and as is the case with most of the toys in the FAO Schwarz display, it will allow shoppers to play the game at the display. Piano Wizard is also available at FAOs online store under Electronics
(Educational Electronics) at www.fao.com.About Allegro MultimediaAllegro Multimedia, Inc.

(dba Allegro Rainbow, maker of Piano Wizard) is a leading provider of music gaming software and musical educational tools that teach both young and old alike how to play the piano and read music. Allegro Multimedia's mission is to;
increase music literacy and the ability to play and read music among all classes of people; to provide an answer for parents and educators as well as religious groups and government agencies to combat the onslaught of mind-numbing violence and destruction that has traditionally dominated the video game industry; and to build long-term relationships with customers by providing quality products, training, support and additional exciting gaming products that continue to move this mission forward in a fun, safe, exciting, and yet non-violent and yet exciting way. Allegro Multimedia seeks to create a tidal wave of interest in music making and achieve universal musical literacy among all people regardless of age, through fun and exciting non-violent, music training video games. About FAO SchwarzFAO Schwarz has been enchanting children since 1862, when a Westphalian goldsmith's son named Frederick August Otto Schwarz began importing fine toys from Europe and selling them through his fancy-goods shop in Baltimore. In 1870, he opened the Schwarz Toy Bazaar on Broadway in lower Manhattan; the store issued its first catalogue six years later.

The Companys flagship store opened at its current location at the corner of 58th Street and Fifth Avenue in 1986 and was joined in 1997 by its sister store in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Today, FAO Schwarz is not only the oldest toy store in the United States, but one of the oldest retail establishments of any kind. FAO Schwarz has been an essential part of any visit to New York for generations of childrenand adultsfrom every corner of the globe. The store's guiding principle has not changed since 1862: to provide the world's children with the world's most extraordinary toys.For More Information, contact:Brian MetcalfAccount ExecutiveMax Borges Marketing Solutions, Incwww.MaxBorges.com 3550 Biscayne Blvd. Suite 501Miami, Florida 33137T: 305-576-1171 Ext 11F: 305-402-6373.

On the Move, in the Office, Wherever You Are, a New Service Promises to Speed Document Creation

(ContentDesk) June 20, 2004 -- Dictation can be up to three times faster than using a keyboard, so for many users there will be substantial cost savings and improvements in productivity and quality.
The service will appeal to many users.
Executives who are travelling and need to file reports to HQ, send letters to clients and prepare contracts can now do so with ease.
Lawyers, business people, academics, journalists, the visually impaired and many others will find the system simple and easy to use.
It can even help save on hiring temporary staff cover.Registration takes a few moments, and new users can be dictating within minutes.

Subscribers to morningpapers.com are allocated an account number and secure password. Once logged in, the easy to use phone keypad controls the recording. Customers can use any telephone to access the service and dictate documents at any time, day or night. These are held on a secure server before transmission to degree-trained...

On the Move, in the Office, Wherever You Are, a New Service Promises to Speed Document Creation

Keyboard > On the Move, in the Office, Wherever You Are, a New Service Promises to Speed Document Creation

CoolSoft LLC Upgrades Speak-to-Mail 1.0, an Email Utility That Lets Users Create and Send Email Entirely By Speech

CoolSoft, LLC (www.CoolSoftLLC.com) announces the re-release of the enhanced Speak-to-Mail 1.0, an email sending utility that enables users to create and send email using voice recognition. Speak-to-Mail 1.0 is a speech to text email utility solution that lets users dictate and send email with Outlook Express, Outlook and Netscape 7.x, without touching a mouse or keyboard. Speak-to-Mail 1.0 reads the contact information from the user's default email program and uses voice recognition to let users select recipients, dictate the subject and body and send the email entirely by speech.
Speak-to-Mail 1.0 also includes natural language modeling technology so users can start and setup an email in a single sentence.
It even lets users ask for and be read a contact's phone numbers.

Like SpeakToText 2.0, CoolSoft's other speech recognition...

CoolSoft LLC Upgrades Speak-to-Mail 1.0, an Email Utility That Lets Users Create and Send Email Entirely By Speech

Keyboard > CoolSoft LLC Upgrades Speak-to-Mail 1.0, an Email Utility That Lets Users Create and Send Email Entirely By Speech

CoolSoft LLC Upgrades Speak-to-Mail 1.0, an Email Utility That Lets Users Create and Send Email Entirely By Speech

Like SpeakToText 2.0, CoolSoft's other speech recognition...

CoolSoft LLC Upgrades Speak-to-Mail 1.0, an Email Utility That Lets Users Create and Send Email Entirely By Speech

Keyboard > CoolSoft LLC Upgrades Speak-to-Mail 1.0, an Email Utility That Lets Users Create and Send Email Entirely By Speech

Working At Home With Bugger And Pesto: A Tale Of Two Kitties

My two cats have taught me many good home office habits. Most of these lessons have been learned the hard way, so maybe I can help you avoid the heartbreak of blank computer screens and other home office disasters by sharing a few tips I have learned along the way. 1. Save your work...again, and again, and again... There are many ways to lose all your computer work.

One of them is if your cat falls off the monitor onto your keyboard. (One for Bugger...) 2. Always treat your cat with the utmost respect (you are allowed to be excessive in this matter; the more subservient you are, and sometimes even downright grovelling, the better). If you toss your cat off your desk out of anger, her first reaction is to take all paperwork with her. (Two for Bugger...) 3.

If anything at all EVER goes wrong with your computer, first check the location of your cat. One day I suddenly could not keep a window open on my computer. No matter what I did, no window would stay open, one would flicker...

Working At Home With Bugger And Pesto: A Tale Of Two Kitties

Keyboard > Working At Home With Bugger And Pesto: A Tale Of Two Kitties

7 Years At The Keyboard

Ok, for those of you still waiting, the Internet won't go away.
Hang up the hopes that it represents a passing fad sharing the fate of the Beanie or the Pet Rock.
With legitimate high-tech stocks finally in the market, regular people doing "real" business online, and consumer acceptance to the point of purchasing movie tickets and homeowners insurance over the Internet, the Web is here to stay. However, many people still get that glassy-eyed, far away dreamer look on their faces when they think of the riches awaiting them on just the other side of their own dot-com. Well, whether your business represents a laptop on a TV tray in the basement, or a mega-corporation with offices all over the world, my last 7 years in the Wild West online has revealed a few "truths" which should last from here until the end of computers.

** There is no get-rich-quick!
** I guess it's in man's nature to desire instant wealth.
Since the dawn of history, people threw...

7 Years At The Keyboard

Keyboard > 7 Years At The Keyboard