scooblog by josh ledgard : zune

5 Things You May Not Know About Me

jledgard — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 02:31:00 GMT

I’ve been tagged by Brain Harry in the 5 things you may not know about me meme.

1. I love cooking… and not just because Gretchen leaves the kitchen looking like a tornado hit after producing grilled cheese sandwiches. Her Christmas gifts to me included subscriptions to Cooking Light & Food and Wine magazine. I find shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef America inspiring and love trying to come up with themes for new tasty meals.

2. I grew up in New England outside of Providence, attended school in Nashville because Vanderbilt sent me the most mail, and moved to Seattle after graduating. I miss the New England fish and chips on Fridays, the southern BBQ any day of the week, and inexpensive ice coffee. I do love the weather out here… unless the road leading up to our house is a skating rink.

3. My uncle, Henry Ledgard, was on the team that created the Ada programming language. I hadn’t really thought anything of it until I interviewed for an internship at a small software shop in R.I. that developed testing and code coverage software for the Ada systems in use at Raytheon and Electric Boat. Towards the end of the interview they pulled out his "Ada: A First Introduction" book and asked if I could have it signed. I did get the job. Henry’s best book, however, is probably "Programming Proverbs". It demonstrates, ahead of it’s time for 1975, the importance of writing readable code.

4. You could say I had my first blog at the age of 12. My friends and I published a few issues of a video game magazine that was distributed at local video stores. We didn’t make much (any) money on the project, but I learned that I enjoyed having people read my rantings.

5. I recently realized how much I would love subscription music with my Zune Pass. Until someone decides they want to lose money giving away free unrestricted mp3s… this is they way to go. Sure, I don’t get to keep the music, but there is also no false belief that the music I download is mine since I view it more like Netflix. I’ll just keep buying my favorite tracks in CD form and rent all the music I want in the meantime.

Because this works like a chain letter I’ll tag Joe, Sara, Bertan, Jeremy, and Gretchen.

I don't get the iPhone love

jledgard — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:12:00 GMT

I work for Microsoft. So that probably discredits everything I'm about to say despite the fact that our family has 2 iPods and has bought hundreds of dollars worth of music from iTunes. Here are some of the things I would have expected from the iPhone that would have been more tempting to me as an i-<Insert here> consumer.

If it's a wireless world why not sexy wireless bluetooth headsets? Looks like they are packaging with standard headphones + a mic. I was hoping that those Apple folks would have come up with the first ever good looking pair of wireless stereo headphones that would have resparked that "white ear-bud envy".
I didn't want a Moto-Q or blackjack from cingular because of the size and this thing is slightly bigger than both. For that size I would have expected a 20-40GB model in return... good storage for all those videos they want me to pay for.
They put in the wi-fi, but why not 3g for music downloads anywhere?
Just like Zune, they don't let you sync with your iTunes wirelessly. We (Microsoft) get hated on for the lack of features like this, but Apple gets a break for it. It's feels missing on the Zune and it will feel missing from the iPhone.
500-600 dollars! With a 2-year contract? My 3125 from cingular was free with a 2-year contract and a data plan. $50 dollars later I added 2 gb of memory and have a nice portable music player with my phone. Grand total... $50. That screen had better be worth 10x as much.
Web browsing. I'm sorry, but web browsing is a bad expereince with anything less than 640x480 and a keyboard. I just don't get very excited by web browsing on a small device with the limited exception of local searches that give me phone numbers. I really just don't get why everyone wants a web browser in thier toasters. Browsing is bad on my smartphone without a real keyboard and bigger screen. It's bad on the Wii with opera because of the poor resoluton and lack of a keyboard. And it's not going to be much better just because you get a touchscreen. The best thing my phone (or any device of that size) does for web browsing is let me tether it as a modem through bluetooth so I can use my laptop.

The devices I was hoping for was a real video ipod with video ipod storage (80gb) and a seperate phone with the design of the iPod nano + bluetooth and the phone stuff. The current iPhone just looks like the Newton I lusted over in High School.

Questions about the Zune… Let’s Fix the Internet

jledgard — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:12:00 GMT

I’ve been tempted to get one or two Zune’s for the Ledgard family, but there are some questions that I haven’t been able to find answers to on the internet.

I don’t have the answers, but with the slew of zune posts around the internet I have a feeling that someone with the device can answer these for everyone. Help me patch these holes in the internet and make a more informed buying decision. :-)

About Windows Media Center Integration

Q. Can Zune Marketplace purchased songs be streamed through media center extenders? What about songs from the subscription service?

A. (potential) I've been told by people that zune purchased files work in WMP11 and therefore inside windows media center, but I haven't seen it confirmed yet.

Does the Zune automatically sync with Media Center video and TV recorded content?
Does the Zune download and properly place Album art for your music libraries (already ripped) so that you can have good album art in Media Center?
Q: Bonus about Xbox 360 Integration: Will we be able to sync videos (and soon TV) that is purchased off of the Xbox Live Marketplace with our Zune? What about Zune purchased videos on xbox?

A: (Partial) Thanks to Ron who found a link to this page that does indeed verify that you'll be able to stream content from the zune software to your xbox 360. Now the only part of this question left is about going the other direction with content purchased off of the Marketplace.

Random

How has importing libraries and playlists form iTunes worked for you?
Can you use windows media connect or the zune software to stream music between multiple computers in the house?
Do you think the Zune.net site itself should actually be more… social? I was surprised that it didn’t duplicate the forums and social networking services ala xbox.com. They could have had playlist sharing, Zunetag pics ala gamertag pics that show the last few bands I’ve played, etc. I can dream right?
How do you like yours so far?

Pointers to Zune Supported File Types

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928191/en-us?sd=zune

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928192/en-us?sd=zune

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928193/en-us?sd=zune