We'll take a cup of kindness...

In the spirit of the new year, here are the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne to save you the trouble of searching for it yourself. If you're looking for the good rendition of the song and you can find it, I highly suggest the Straight No Chaser version of the song on their "Holiday Spirits" CD.

Should Auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should Auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of Auld Lang Syne

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For Auld Lang Syne

And here's a hand, my trusty friend
And gives a hand of thine
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For Auld Lang Syne

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For Auld Lang Syne

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For Auld Lang Syne

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For Auld Lang Syne

We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year's everone!

I hate itunes!

Now anyone can make a blatant statement. For a statement to have impact, it must have details that back it up. Case in point, I just downloaded a song off of itunes. I then transferred it to the folder that all my music is so that it would sync with my zune. I then checked my zune only to find that it wasn't there. I then checked the file properties only to find out that it was protected which means my zune can't play it. Now I didn't get my major in business in college but one would postulate that the more people that have access to a product, the more revenue there would be to possibly generate. Why would you do something stupid like encode your media so that it would only play on your media player? Some would argue that it is so that apple would sell more ipods but then why would a consumer purchase a media player whose content won't play on anything else besides said media player. Especially since there are other open sourced media players out there (refer to my post on Zune made previously). Anyways, it's a good thing the song I downloaded was free or else I would have been pissed. Unfortunately, this has become way too common an occurance for me though. A couple of months ago, I bought an audiobook off of itunes and then transferred it to my zune. Again, it didn't play. I didn't worry about it too much then because it was, after all, my fault for not checking to see if the file type was compatible with my zune. Fast forward to about a month ago. Microsoft announced that the Zune would support audiobooks from audible.com which was where I purchased my audiobook from (indirectly through the itunes page) so I thought all my problems were solved. All I had to do was download the media organizer and then transfer it to the Zune. Once again, because I had purchased it through the itunes store, it was protected and won't play on my zune so if I want it to play on my Zune and just about any other media player in the world, I have to redownload the audio book. Well, that was a longer rant than I intended it to be. How was your Christmas?

Ipod Killer

I've had my Zune for almost a year now and I think I can honestly give it a decent review. Unlike most reviews though, instead of starting off with the pros, I am going to start off with the cons, mostly because there are so few.
Cons:
-I will start off with my biggest con first. The selection in the Zune Marketplace (the software used to purchase music, videos, etc.) is relatively scant compared to itune at least as far as videos go. They still have a nice selection of video podcasts and music videos but their selection of tv shows and movies is not the greatest.
-TV shows purchased through Microsoft's Zune Marketplace will not, at least as of yet, play through the xbox. This is easily enough remedied if you want to see the videos on your zune player through your tv by a docking station and some component video cables.
-TV shows, movies, audiobooks purchased through itunes will not play on your zune. Mp3s, assuming they are DRM-free, will play just fine. This is because most of itune's media has DRM.
-Digital copies that come with some of the newer DVDs do not, at least currently, transfer to the Zune. They play fine on the Windows Media Player. This is really a big disappointment for me because I recently bought the Digital Copy version of The Dark Knight specifically for the purpose of watching it on my Zune on my business trips.
-Microsoft points do not translate easily into dollars. 99 Microsoft points do not translate into $0.99. Most tracks cost 79 Microsoft points which is approximately $0.99. Because it does not translate easily into dollars, it is VERY easy to spend more money than you think you are.
Hopefully most of these cons will be addressed in the next software upgrade.

Now on to the pros:
-The Zune Marketplace interface ROCKS!!! It it so user-friendly and intuitve. You can sort your music by album, artist, song, date albums are added, etc.
-MixView. Basically, the best way to describe this is to give you an example. Say you're into the Goo Goo Dolls. If you double-click on their profile a collage will show up with artists that inspire them, that they inspire, other listeners who have them as their favorite artists, and other albums they've released. This is great if, you're like me, you enjoy finding new types of music based on stuff you already like.
-Free updates. All updates to the zune software are free of charge.
-Screen size. The screen on the zune is about 3.5" which, I believe is larger than most, if not all, the ipods currently out there.
-$0.99 albums. That's right. You read it right. Not $0.99 tracks. Whole albums for $0.99. Zune has certain artists that it is promoting for the month and they will sell their whole album for 79 Microsoft points which, as stated before, is approximately $0.99.
-Free stuff. Yeah, F-R-E-E. Zune has free songs. Full-length songs. Right now, Zune has a playlist of Christmas songs that you can download for free. Basically, Zune takes one or two songs from the Christmas albums of various R&B artists and puts it into a playlist you can download. They also have a free playlist sampler that you can download just as a thank-you for purchasing a Zune.
-Backwards compatibility. At least so far, Zune has been pretty good at making sure that the software is backwards compatible with all their generation one Zune players.
-Wifi. You can sync your zune to your computer wirelessly. You can also send playlists to people nearby if they also have a Zune. Also, they have an agreement with McDonald's so that if you're in a McDonald's with wifi, you can download music directly through your Zune instead of having to wait to sync with your computer.
-Zune Pass. You can download as much music as you want for $14.99 a month so you can try out different artists and albums. The only downside is that you don't actually get to keep them. If you down renew your pass, you lose all the music you downloaded but didn't purchase. At least that was before the new and improved program. Now, you have the option of keeping up to ten tracks you download each month. They're your's to keep even if you don't renew your Zune Pass.

If you're trying to decide between a Zune and another mp3 player and need some help, feel free to leave a comment. I'm off to enjoy my free music!