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Friday, May 16, 2008

Free Music Friday: NIN - "The Slip"

Posted by Tim Williamson in "Digital Home News" @ 01:05 AM

http://dl.nin.com/theslip/signup

"as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com. the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits. for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon."



Nine Inch Nails (NIN) has released their latest album for free download from their web site, with the official CD release coming up in July. This release comes in a variety of digital formats (MP3, FLAC, M4A, and WAVE) and is DRM-free (whoo hoo!). Our source (Steve The Yaz) wonders if this could start a trend of promoting album releases in the future. This trend would definitely be great for consumers, but I'm not sure how this would benefit the band. Now that I've downloaded the album, I don't know how inclined I'd be to go out and purchase the CD. Would you pay for a CD if you could get the album for free? For a band that makes their money from CD sales, I don't know if offering your album for free download is a good thing, but for a band that makes their money from concerts, then this could be a really great way of promoting the band. So if you're into industrial rock (or even if it's not really your thing) head over the NIN's site and check out their latest free album!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Sennheiser HD 600's Sure to Please

Posted by Chris Gohlke in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 11:00 PM

http://reviews.cnet.com/headphones/..._Search+Results

"When Steve Guttenberg reviewed the Sennheiser HD 650 headphones, he rightfully called them "fit for a king"--while noting that they retail for a correspondingly princely sum of $500. Thankfully, the HD 650s aren't the only model in Sennheiser's high-end audiophile line. The Sennheiser HD 600s can be bought at a 40 percent discount to their big brother. Yes, you'll be substituting a grey and black plastic finish for the 650s' fancy titanium metallic housing, but you'll still be getting a high-end pair of open-air headphones while saving enough money to buy a really nice bottle of vintage wine to sip as you listen to your music of choice."



I've never tried a pair of open-air headphones, but you usually can't go wrong with a pair of Sennheiser's. I've been very pleased with the earbuds I have from them.

Duran Duran Podcast Coming to Zune

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Zune Media" @ 10:30 AM

http://Zune.net/DuranDuran

Those Duran Duran fans out there (you know who you are) will be pleased to hear that your favorite not-quite-dead 80s pop band is launching a video podcast exclusively through Zune Marketplace. The series explores the making of Red Carpet Masacre and its first single, Falling Down. Additionally, episode six of the currently ten-part series features a Zune-exclusive interview with keyboardist Nick Rhodes about the original concept, how they got to working with Timbaland, and the creative process.

One thing I noticed about Duran Duran's Zune Social page was the inclusion of a tour description and dates. Up to this point I've only seen tour details on pages for On the Road artists, but I'd like to see it expanded to other currently touring artists who are in the Social database. It'd be cool to have the ability to put shows I'm attending or have recently seen on my Social page, and have the ability to get recommendations based on my music habbits. But maybe this is encroaching a little too much on the iLike scene...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Problems Updating Your Zune?

Posted by David Tucker in "Zune News" @ 08:07 PM

http://www.geekstogo.com/2008/05/13...ndows-firewall/

“Trying to update your Zune software to the latest release (Version 2.5.447.0) and getting an “Installation Failed” message? If you are, try turning the Windows Firewall on. Yes, that’s right folks, you have to turn on a firewall to update a media player. Those power users who choose to use an alternative firewall, or an external firewall are being forced to enable the built-in Windows Firewall before the software will install.”

While the article was dripping in sarcasm, it is very useful for anyone who is having trouble updating their Zune software. I do agree, as well, that the fact that Microsoft makes you enable your Windows Firewall to update is really a poor decision. To make this decision worse, the error message itself is entirely too cryptic for the average user to successfully figure out how to fix it.

Microsoft, you either need to get rid of this requirement or at least let people know how to fix it!

- ADVERTISING -

Zune 101: Creating and Using Sync Groups (Auto-playlists)

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Software" @ 03:00 AM



One of the new features in the 2.5 spring update for the Zune is the ability to create sync groups, which are auto playlists - easy ways for you to get the music, photos, and videos you want onto your Zune, automatically. This video shows you how to do that.

One important note though: because the Zune software uses the "date added" as the primary attribute for sync groups, if you've just installed the Zune software, or if you have to reset your Zune collection to fix metadata issues (which is what I had to do), sync groups are a complete and total disaster. Let me explain: rather than using the EXIF date taken attribute of a photo to determine the date when the photo was taken, or the file creation date of an MP3 to determine when the MP3 was ripped, the Zune software uses "date added" which means when you create a sync group for "all photos from the last 90 days" you might get every photo on your hard drive. That's exactly what happened to me - right now I can't use any date-based sync groups, which completely sucks. I don't know what the Zune team was thinking when they did it this way, but the results are ugly. There has to be a better way!

Got 8 Minutes? Get Games On Your Zune

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Articles & Resources" @ 12:12 AM

http://www.zunerama.com/articles_03...513_zune2_story

"Uncertain how to get games loaded on your Zune player? Games are in beta, so at present it's a quasi-technical exercise. But if you're willing to do it, Spidermonkey6719 has posted a video tutorial. In eight minutes, he walks you real-time through the steps involved in installing games on your Zune player. Click the vid below to see the steps."



Not surprisingly, there's a lot of buzz about games on the Zune - but because it's essentially all still in the developer's preview phase, the steps involved are a bit convoluted. Any Zune Thoughts readers tried this yet? I haven't, frankly because I don't need/want games on my Zune enough to jump through all the hoops. But surely some of you are more adventurous than I am - share your stories!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Canadian Launch Parties for the Zune

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Events" @ 09:15 AM

http://www.zunerama.com/articles_03...0510_zune_story

"ZuneWidow and I attended the first Canadian launch party for Zune, in Vancouver last night. We're not a natural fit for the edgy crowd that this party attracted, but we shared a Red Stripe stubby while we milled around. Some friendly spokesladies were talking up the Zune 8s and 80s, and handing out demo players for people to try. The reps were all Canadian - I checked - so it appears that no Canadian-content rules were violated."



Yes, I find it deeply ironic that I'm just learning about Zune Canadian launch parties by reading about it on a US-based site - although Harvey from Zunerama used to live in Canada, so I'll give him that. ;-) There's a Canadian launch site (complete with the old "Coming Zune" gag) which mentions parties in six Canadian cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. Alberta gets two - woo! But guess when the Calgary launch party is? The 15th, when I'm still in Seattle for the Microsoft Mobius event - boo! I'm pondering whether I feel like driving six hours round-trip to Edmonton to check out the party on the evening of the 16th. Probably not. But if you're a Zune Thoughts reader and live in any of those cities, I'd like you to be our event reporter - post a comment if you can attend one of the parties.

Monday, May 12, 2008

The Zune 2.5 Spring Update: It's The Little Things

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Articles & Resources" @ 02:59 PM

http://gotzune.com/2008/05/zune-25-...e-little-things

"With the new Videos section, auto-playlists, metadata improvements and a more social Social, there’s a lot of big changes to love about the 2.5 spring update. But what I appreciate just as much from the Zune team is the little interface and usability touches that make the experience of using the Zune software that much more enjoyable. The great thing about them is that they’re never realize publicized or explained, you have to explore and find them on your own (or read blogs like this one). When the 2.0 software was released, I was amazed when I found the “Now Playing” screen when I clicked the little equalizer-looking icon by the play controls. This release doesn’t have as many surprises as last time, but there’s still a few gems to be found. Here’s just a few I’ve come across so far."

Jonathan Flowers from Got Zune has put together a great article that delves into some of the lesser-known improvements in the Zune 2.5 software. I was given a reviewer's guide prior to the update being released, and I swear that only a small fraction of what's in the update was in the reviewer's guide - there are just so many little improvements. The software isn't perfect, but it's a big step forward in almost every way - the Zune team did a good job on it.

We're Giving Away a $5000 Computer: The HP HDX9200 (Dragon)

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Thoughts Media Off Topic" @ 01:00 AM

http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/...5500-value.html


In case you didn't check Digital Home Thoughts over the weekend, we've launched our 31 Days of the Dragon contest where we're giving away an HP Pavilion HDX9200 notebook PC, and a software bundle that if purchased at retail, would total up to a bit over $5500 USD. This is a huge contest where 31 Web sites are taking part, each giving away their own Dragon prize bundle - you can check out all the details over on the 31 Days of the Dragon Web site.

The contest officially launched on the 10th, and will end on the 17th of May. Check out the contest details and enter to win!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

What’s Really Happening with the Zune

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Zune Talk" @ 05:30 PM

http://linne.wordpress.com/2008/05/...-with-the-zune/

"I bought a zune because I saw the vision Microsoft had for the XBox 360, and I fully understood the direction they were going to take the zune. and now, with the software version 2.5, they are oh so close to being there."

Aaron Linne wrote a great piece on the direction of the Zune brand. He brings up the common arguments against Zune and the Social, but rebuts them by bringing up a scenario in which Cesar Menendez sent him (and everyone else on Cesar's friend list) a link to the new Tokyo Police album. What differentiates this scenario in the Zune ecosystem from other social network/audio scrobbling services is that Zune not only features a tighter integration between the different services (e.g. one-click downloads of other peoples' recommended songs), but also the unlimited download Zune Pass. Using a Pass, I can download as many tracks as I want without any extra cost. The ones I don't like I just get rid of; I don't have to worry about wasting $20 on songs I don't really like. This is a huge value to me as a music consumer, and makes the Zune ecosystem that much stronger.

I think Linne sums up the Zune brand perfectly: "iTunes is for people who like certain musicians. Zune is for people like music."

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