Karaoke Forums

Not to mention you get a bitter competitor with good computer/hacking skills, that notebook could be rendered useless pretty quick.  You going to keep an eye on ALL the notebooks that are out?  I know I can't watch all my regular books at the same time.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Ooops, dup post.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Why would you have both anyway?  Everybody jumps on the computer bandwagon because it's cool or something.  Computers are very useful but not in all situations.  I agree electronics and alcohol or any liquid is asking for disaster.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I have been thinking about this route myself. That way the song list is always current and can have instant update to song queue by signing up for songs remotely using local wirelss network. This would be great but as others have pointed out, the dangers of spilt liquid and theft are too much.

One thing I thought it may be better is using a Palm device instead of laptop. They are small and even cheaper than laptops. You can buy a Palm for about $100 each or lot less for used ones on ebay. Just need some custom code for it. They are a lot more spill resistent than laptops but you still have a danger of people walking off with it. You can have wireless network option on these Palm devices as well for signing up for songs. Maybe attach a securty device that goes off if you wander off more than x feet from the network would solve the theft problem but no method is foolproof.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

No custom code needed.  Just use something like karaoke-go-round that uses a web site to post the songs from the end user.  You only need to be able to run a browser to make it work.

And if you consider some of the early Windows CE devices could do this and nearly any laptop - including some old 386/486 laptop running windows 3.1 (and trumpet winsock - how's that for old!) or even Windows 95.  With windows 95 and later you can actually set internet exploder to run as the interface which would really limit the ability of the machine to be used for something else.  Or replace the hard drive with a small compact flash card that boots to linux with a full screen browser.

The possibilities are endless but you have to be able to keep an eye on them or they might walk!  That's the only real issue I have at this point - I could chain them to a table but that limits the ability to hand them around the room.

If you are the owner of the club may be a pc based book may work. Just set 10 or more of them 486 around the club. Even a drunk won't want to carry them away and you can get those 486 and even p1 for free.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

I haven't found ANY pcs for FREE! !

Yall are all absolutely nuts to think that drunks should be issued palm pilots!!

The only situation involving a computer instead of books that I could see working is setting up some sort of wireless kiosk computer that is stationary (i.e. BOLTED DOWN) and having peeps wait in line there to make requests that then feed into your system. Of course I don't see this as any more efficient than using books and slips, and it may even be a bigger pain in the arse, but i suppose the novelty value is pretty good.

You may be better off hiring a psychic. Think about it. For less than the cost of replacing 2-3 palm pilots every night a certified psychic friend could stand up at the karoake table, look at people in the audience, and write down the songs that they are thinking of. That's the utmost in convenience!!

You know what, why don't you KJs out there NOT focus on automating the karoake process, because if you get good enough at it, you are going to find yourself replaced by the automation you created!!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

ANY type of evolution creates change.

I'm not afraid of what my job will do by merely going to computer! !

Personally I think the BOOK is all part of the "karaoke experiance"

I think people enjoy browing the books for new songs to sing or OLD sings they forgot about .  It a converstaion piece for NON singers too.  I always see non singers looking through the books and commenting too one another.  

A well put together and mainteded book is an important aspect of the image that many KJS portray.   Likewise a dirty smelly sticky falling apart book just shouts
LOOK AT ME... I really don't care about the singers -  just here for the money

And as far as handing out electronic books of any sort ----Maybe someday in the future that would be feasable.  But today it would be a very risky and costly scenario.  It could be COOL in the right venue with the right clientele but in your AVERAGE BAR in America - Not a chance - By 1:00am your laptop or palm pilot if it didn't break or take a walk would be used as a weapon in some beer muscle altercation......

AHHHH.....Forgot about the WEAPONRY ANGLE!! Gooooooooooooood TAKE!!  8)

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Welll I guess in that respect a book could be used as a weapon as well.  Rip the cover off the binder & fling it like a shingle.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Is it not possible to reduce cost of printing the BOOK by putting advertisement in it ? Will the beer people buy space? Just a thinking loud.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Theft concerns aside, given the number of spills and drops, I wouldn't pass out any laptops, palm pilots, etc.   Books often take a beating and get drenched - and yes flung like shingles!   I don't think the bars I've worked are ready for this, but maybe this is just me.

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Sounds Great! Entertainment
Bartlett, Illinois

Actually, I thought about coming up with a basic video interface using a touch screen.  Think something like what you see in a kiosk at a variety of stores that sell CD's or books.

Tie this into a thin client pc and things start getting REAL easy.  You just have to put a touch screen on each table.  They touch away to get the songs and you can even do a 'browse' mode to let them page through the different songs.

That seems like a better solution than the pc on each table but you could always use a wireles network to offer someone that's more technically savvy to use a palm type device to connect and browse.

There are ways to make this work but it will take time to make it cost effecient.  BTW, thin clients are as cheap as $100-$149 each - and that's BRAND NEW.  Use the roll up style keyboards that you can spill liquid on and things start to look better.

No, it's not as cheap as a book but a permanent installation would make these much more practical.  You could even use those same screens to pipe the lyrics to if they weren't being used for browsing at the time!

I'd still have a couple books though... just in case!

Looking at you looking through a book would give me ideas :)

So what is your status, Deb?  Are you available yet?  How long will us guys have to wait?

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I only date Karaoke singers.

Thought about this myself.  Has the possibility of making the cost of reprinting your karaoke books a whole lot cheaper.  Anyone out there have advertisements in their books?

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---wallyd

I used to use KJ Pro for printing my books but you have to enter every disc you own.  Now that everything is converted to MP3+G and I'm getting single songs from the internet, it's becoming a pain to keep track of what I have.  I switched to a program called Song List Creator 2.0 (the one by Latshaw Systems, not the one from Airwer) and it simply reads the songs I have and makes the books in any size font and any amount of columns.

How anyone can have an excuse to not have decent books is beyond me.  If you can spend a couple thousand dollars on your equipment, the least you can do is spend fifty bucks or so on a program that can whip you up a decent song book!

I agree with the comment that people need something to read while they wait.  The book also gives the singers ideas.  There's a hundred songs you won't think of until you see them right in front of you.

We've been "book-less" for almost 2 years and it's great.  We didn't know if it would work or not before I wrote the software, but I'm glad I did.

And I'm working on the touch-screen interface.

Here's the scoop:
http://karaokesongfinder.com

I live in Nashville. There are a couple of places I've been to that is computerized and only has one book that is on a stand. People were standing in line waiting to look at it. I didn't go back. The sound was bad on top of that.

I used to run a karaoke business with my ex-husband and we had 8 books that we updated every few months. It was a lot of work to keep them updated but the expense of it was a tax write-off as were the CD+G's. I'm not sold on the computerized system yet.