Overall I like it, but there’s still some slightly rough edges that will hopefully be addressed via minor updates.

Until I’m able to write further on the subject, I’ll leave you with the swank “Now Playing” screen:

7:52 pm Update: If you’re having album art troubles (where some of the album art doesn’t match properly), check out this workaround from Microsoft. I had a few that were off, but are now fixed.

Found a flickr account with this photo from inside Microsoft’s Zune department, of an “Amnesty” bucket with some iPods in it. Reading the comments is hilarious.

I love how Apple supporters are so defensive. God forbid there should be competition in the marketplace! Or that the Zune team should poke fun at Apple. Because Apple never does that.

<sarcasm>Yes, we should all own an iPod and do the exact same thing. Clearly iTunes is the best software out there.</sarcasm>

Ugh. This is the sort of fanboy-ism that I hate. It’s the same thing that drives Mac vs. PC debates. Look, use whatever OS/platform you want. I don’t care. What’s ironic is that Apple totally advertises that you can run Windows on your Mac, yet makes fun of Windows/PCs constantly. Which is it, Apple?

If you follow my blog, you know I sold my iPod a while back and bought a Zune. I did this because I was fed up with iTunes being a complete performance joke. Argue with me all you want, but plenty of other people are running into similiar problems with iTunes on Windows. I really like my Zune, but it isn’t without its faults. I wish the Zune team was a little more “open” to communication about their software, as there are some fairly simple tweaks they could make that would help immensely (see my post for some examples.) I have even more bulletpoint items that I don’t like about the Zune, but overall, I’m more happy with it than I was with my iPod.

And one thing I noticed when I first listened to my Zune was how crisp/fuller songs sounded. These were the same format (AAC) being played on my iPod and my Zune.. and the Zune would almost always sound better. According to this YouTube video and this forum post, maybe I’m not crazy. It appears the Zune does have better sound quality in general than the iPod. Yay Zune.

I am looking forward to what the future holds for both Zune and iPod… competition can only be a good thing in this area. Do you really only want Apple-based digital audio players out there on the market? (And before someone mentions Creative and the other companies with DAPs… yeah, right, like they’re even in the same league as iPod/Zune.)

Now playing: Tom Petty - Yer So Bad

Here’s a strange bug I was pulling my hair out trying to diagnose. My Zune media player, as well as Windows Media Player, were taking forever to start playing tracks. I would see “media changing” in the lower left corner for almost 30 seconds or so, then the song would start. That really stinks when you want to jump around different tracks and listen to them.

You’ll never guess what’s causing this delay. It’s the audio enhancements I blogged about before. Poopie. If the “Disable all enhancements” checkbox is not checked, my media players will be slow in starting any song. Check that box, and bam, back to normal.

No idea if this affects iTunes’ playback… I’ll have to give it a try I suppose.

Gah. What the heck could the two have in common? Anyway, I’m blogging about it in the hopes that someone else running into the same problem can find out how to fix it.

So much to go over… hrm. Let’s see.

Well, I bought a new car, a 2007 Nissan Altima 3.5SL, fully loaded. It’s dark blue. Yep yep yep.

I love it so far, no complaints. And it gets great gas mileage.

Life is busy, but good. My review is any day now, so cross your fingers, pray, or do whatever it is you do to impart good wishes upon someone else, please!

I returned my Zune, but not for the reason(s) you think. I did so in order to help pay my down payment on my car. I’m also selling some other things.. debated selling my XBox360, but decided to keep it for now. I plan on buying the HD-DVD drive later on to enjoy movies on… and I’m sure by the time I get around to it, it will be cheaper than the current $200 price tag.

And now, for some completely random stuff that I think is way cool.

• Chris Pirillo’s wedding reception music. I like the list, and it’s sometimes hard to find a well-thought out selection. I’m keeping it for ideas on my own wedding..
• Vanishing Point, an online challenge/game by Microsoft, for a buttload of prizes. Microsoft started it off in Las Vegas, taking over the Bellagio’s fountains to give away clues to solving the first “box” of puzzles. Check out the video from that event! Crazy. I love how they synchronized everything.. the lights, the water, the projections.. heh.
• BauerCount.com, a website that aims to list every person that Jack Bauer kills while saving our country’s butt. The details are amazing, listing the weapon and method used, as well as including video and pictures. Almost a bit too fanatic, hrm? But awesome.
• Disneyland now has a special “night-time” mode for the Space Mountain and California Screamin’ coasters. Who doesn’t want to rock out to the Red Hot Chili Peppers while riding a coaster? “Higher Ground” is supposedly on Space Mountain, and California Screamin’ plays “Around The World”, kind of like the Disneyland commercials are now…
• Speaking of Disneyland, I found a site detailing Club 33 in its entirety. It’s that door next to the Blue Bayou, with the “33” plaque next to it. Maybe you never noticed it?
• Bruce Campbell smells good, thanks to Old Spice. If you have it, you don’t need it. If you need it, you don’t have it. If you have it, you need more of it. If you have more of it, you don’t need less of it. You need it, to get it. And you certaintly need it to get more of it. Just watch. Bruce is awesome.
• Season 3 Battlestar Galactica bloopers! (PG-13 rated) I don’t get the random Bush stuff thrown in there, but whatever. Pretty funny if you’re a fan of the show.
• If you’re making minimum payments on your loans/credit cards, you’re dumb. Use this online calculator to see just how much money you’re throwing away. Really opened my eyes a bit. Even paying just $10 more a month will help lots in the long run.
• JkDefrag — one of the best freeware defragmentation programs for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista that I’ve ever come across. It’s now replaced Microsoft’s defragmenter on all of my machines. Why buy a product like Diskeeper (which helps fund Scientology, by the way) when you can get something better for free?

I’m having a dispute right now with someone on eBay about a knock-off Zune cable I bought. When I had my iPod, I had bought similiar “third-party” connectors for it and had no problems. This particular cable though is not wide enough on the connector end. The pins are correct, so if you line it up centered exactly and force it in, it will connect. But then of course it’s not locked in, because the side locks don’t reach where they’re supposed to. Anyway, I e-mailed the seller, and he got pretty defensive, saying that the supplier tested it with a Zune and assured him it worked, and that he’s had many others buy this cable without complaints. I don’t see how that’s even remotely possible. I’ve sent him the pic to the right (which I snapped this morning and colored in to show the differences) and we’ll see what he comes back with next.

Just, ugh. Next time I’ll spring the $20 or whatever and get an official cable instead.

Okay, so I’ve had the Zune for a while now. Here’s some more thoughts:

• The official 1.2 version is out, supporting Vista fully. I probably shouldn’t have hacked together an installation earlier, because installing the official 1.2 version just forced me to re-do my library. Oh well, my dumb fault. Other than that, smooth sailing on the upgrade.
• There’s no way to easily define what “type” of video you’re putting on the Zune. For example, in iTunes, you could right click on a video and specify that it’s a  TV show, or a music video, or movie, etc… but not so in the Zune software, at least not yet. Microsoft has an overly-technical writeup on the Zune site on how to provide content for the Zune with the proper metadata, but this won’t be helpful to consumers at all; just those mass-producing content for the Zune. Here’s hoping a newer version fixes this problem. Also, please, let us mass-set this categorization across numerous files! In iTunes, you couldn’t just select a bunch of videos and set them all as music videos.. you had to go through them one-by-one. Ugh.
• Microsoft is fully onboard with the Zune, it seems. This is good news, and hopefully they stick to it, to keep a strong competition going with Apple.
• The software reminds me too much of Windows Media Player. It obviously was based on the WMP codebase, but there’s just some design decisions I really disagree with, such as the sidebar to the right that tries to contain a playlist editor, sync list, burn list, and “what’s playing” functionality, swapable by clicking icons above the sidebar. I just hate that sidebar, and almost always want it closed.
• Playlists do not remember what order you sort them in! This was a feature in iTunes that I used all the time, and really miss it on my Zune. In iTunes, it would remember specific sorting rules for each playlist, even smart playlists. It would also transfer this sorting to your iPod. I found a way to sort of hack-it in the Zune interface, by using the sidebar’s playlist editor, and forcing it to sort by album, etc. — but that has problems of it’s own, leading me to my next point:
• When you choose to order by “album” in the interface, you get a smart sort based on album, then track number. Good. But if you do this while making an auto playlist, like so:
  
  You do not get this smart sorting method. You instead get an album title sort, with no secondary sorts thrown in. Your tracknumbers are random, but your albums are clumped together. Huh?
• The Zune marketplace has about the same timeout problems as the iTunes store. You may double click a song to preview it, and a few seconds later get a time out message. Really annoying. Also happens if you’re downloading/buying content from the Marketplace.
• The protected Zune marketplace files are sometimes too “picky” about being re-synched to a Zune. The rules may be different for non-ZunePass files, but on mine, after 3 syncs (add it to the Zune, then remove it, etc.) to the Zune, the file will no longer transfer, and you have to re-download it. I ran into this a lot, when I first reset my Zune and re-added all of the songs… most people probably won’t run into this problem, though.
• There’s no way to select files in an auto-playlist and be able to delete them from the hard drive. If you select files when just looking at a normal playlist, or your “library” view, you can select any number of files, right click and select “delete”. You get asked if you just want to remove the files from your library, or if you want them removed from your library and hard drive as well. It would be nice to be able to do this directly from an auto-playlist. I believe I could, in iTunes.

More bulletpoints to follow as I find them. I still stick with my decision to go with the Zune, and haven’t run into any dealbreakers for me yet. Don’t take my criticism as negative press! Just small complaints.

After having so much fun with the iTunes software in Windows (especially Vista), I decided a change needed to happen. On Friday on bought a Zune. So far my experience has been most enjoyable, despite the fact that the Zune software isn’t even supported on Vista yet. But there are workarounds.

Here’s some reasons why I’m digging the Zune over the iPod right now:

• On setup, the Zune software found all of my iTunes music and imported it. It even imported my playlists and song ratings, thankfully. I’d hate to have to re-rate all my songs (it took me months!) The import process took a while, but that was to be expected, since I have nearly 20,000 songs.
• The Zune plays all the same formats of the iPod and more (Windows Media Audio.) I was worried that the Zune would have to convert the MPEG4/AAC (.m4a) files that iTunes ripped into a format that it could play… but no, it just works!
• I had to re-create my “smart playlists” (Zune’s software calls them Auto Playlists.) No biggie. The rule engine looks a little different than smart playlists, but it works the same. I was able to set my few smart playlists back up in minutes.
• The sync speed is crazy fast. To sync around 2000 songs, it only took about 10 minutes. If I hook it back up and sync it again (with no changes), it syncs in less than a second. Woot. On my iPod, iTunes would sit there for minutes trying to sync up all the data, even if nothing changed.
• For some reason, the Zune software wants to convert most of my music videos/movies to a Zune-compatable format. I suspect this is because I did not encode the MPEG-4 video in the proper resolution/bitrate that the Zune supports. I’ll have to do more research on this to see exactly what’s up.
• The Zune interface blows the iPod’s away. It’s way more graphical, and the “sideways menus” are much more friendly than having to go “up” a menu on an iPod. For example, when I choose “music” from the main menu, I’m taking to a series of menus at the top (selectable by using the left and right keys), and the list of the currently selected menu item. Hitting left and right, I can switch between artists, albums, playlists, genres and songs. On the iPod, I would have had to go “up” in the menu structure to change what category to search by.
• When music is playing, the album art takes up about 80% of the screen. Hitting the center button “zooms in” on the artwork and overlays a menu allowing you to change the song’s rating, turn shuffle and repeat on/off, send the file to a friend, or flag the song. The “flag” feature lets you set aside some songs for whatever purpose you wish. Maybe you just really dig those tracks, or you want to flag them to be deleted, whatever.
• Photos and video look great. You turn the Zune sideways to watch them. There is a small indentation in the back of the Zune (underneath the controls) so your hand can more comfortably grip the Zune when it’s sideways. Neat.

And to be fair, here are some of my gripes thus far:

• The Zune software “monitors” folders for changes, which I kinda dig, but at the same time, I’m used to how iTunes does it. Maybe I haven’t found out how to do this yet, but I don’t think there’s a way to just import a single song/picture/video into your library. You have to put it into one of your monitored folders. I want to be able to just drag something onto the Zune software, and have it imported/copied to my library.
• Can’t rip directly to AAC/MPEG4 format. You have to choose between WMA, WMA lossless and MP3. The MP3 encoder they use isn’t the best (LAME would be much better.) So I’m stuck using WMA at 192kbps, which sounds great, by the way. Just a different format to get used to, I guess.
• More to come in time…