I’m not attempting to make light of a serious situation but we just ran across this and had to report on it. Today the Currier News (Member of the Sun-Times News Group) reported a burglary. Here a snippet of that report.

• PlayStations, Zune taken in break-in: Two Sony PlayStations and a Microsoft Zune 80 media player were reported missing from a house on the 50 block of Alameda Drive between 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday. Homeowners also said leftover pizza in the refrigerator had been eaten and five empty Coke cans left in a trash can, although no one in the house drinks Coke. Police reported no signs of forced entry, although there were indications a vehicle may have pulled into the backyard.

Hmm… Pizza, 5 Coke cans, I’m starting to suspect, nah, I better not make allegations. But, I know a few suspects, let’s just put it that way.

Wouldn’t it be great if the owner could just Squirt the perpetrator the death? Just kidding.

Be Cool my Babies…

This isn’t actually software but rather a shell extension (plugin) that allows you to change your cover art using Windows Explorer. We’ve heard a lot of people asking for something to allow them to choose their own specific cover art and we think this is the perfect program to do so. It’s called AudioShell, I know what you’re thinking…But, this also handles Video files too (whay else would we say it did?), so this should be just what the doctor ordered if you’re looking for a cover art editor.

Heres a link to the download here Hope this is helpful to you!

[Via ZuneTips]

Be Cool my Babies…

I keep coming across dozens of new articles, websites, posts and comments they have the heading “Free DVD to Zune Software” somewhere in the title, only to click on it (not because I’m looking for more software for myself but rather because I’m always interested in new software for out visitors), and wouldn’t you know? Its a bunch of links to affiliate websites or direct downloads for trial software that will cost between $30 and $40 to get full use of.

Listen, I understand that people have to earn a living (why else would I have contextual ads on this site?), but it just appears a bit cheesy to me that there are so many people looking to get free advertising in this way. Here’s an example, I’m a member of TechnologyQuestions.com forum (BTW, this is a great site run by some pretty sharp people, you should check it out), I’m mostly interested in, what else? Their Zune forum located here. However, when I first visited I noticed that virtually every post was an advertisment.

Heres a screencap: [More after the jump]

Not by management, mind you, but rather by members whom it would appear have only registered to make a few passing posts and then to start a thread with titles like, “how to convert DVD and Video to Zune” which contain links to their affiliate software, that you have to pay for, of course. They list them like so many others do with words such as “Free and Share” but all the software they list is not fully functional unless you pay.

There will always be this type of underhanded activity on the net but it it irks me sometimes and I hust had to write about it.

Rant out my Babies…

If you’re a fan of HD (High-Definition) then you’ve probably heard of EngadgetHD.com the sister site of the immensely popular Engadget.com technology blog.  But perhaps you didn’t know about their ready made Zunecasts (podcast) downloads direct from Microsoft’s Zune website.

You can download them here. Note: you must have Zune Software installed for this direct link to work.

The shows are hosted by Ben Drawbaugh and Steve Kim who supply us with some witty, always entertaining and very insightful information regarding all things High Definition. And, if you haven’t checked out EngadgetHD.com yet, we suggest you do, it’s a great place for Hi-Def enthusiasts as well as anyone else interested in going Hi-Def.

We have found a solid piece of software which allows you to download Youtube videos and music and automatically convert them to .wmv, which in turn aill not only allow one to view them in Windows Media Player but also on their Zune or even an iPod/iPhone (get out of here with that kind of talk!). The software comes in a small package of only 2.8mb (small by todays comparison), and comes free of any spyware/malware/virus etc. [More after the jump]

Using the software was a breeze as the interface is virtually fool proof, as you can see from this scree capture below. {More after the jump]

Here’s a brief explanation of how to get any video file from Youtube and how to convert them into a playable format for Zune.

Get the url for the specific .flv from Youtube, in this case were going to get Everlong by the Foo Fighters. Every url looks something like this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4H0BMfqFP9c. Note each file has the defined url of “http://youtube.com/watch?v=” (without quotes) and then the id, which in this case is “4H0BMfqFP9c”.

Cut and paste that into the “Video URL” box and click the globe” (take note that we had some difficulties with this as we kept receive an error message clicked on the globe but upon a second attempt it appears to work properly each time, this may or may not be the case with you) to start the download as shown in the screen capture below. [More after the jump]

Once downloading is complete (this process, depending on your connection speed, usually takes around 30 seconds to a minute), you will need to enter a name for the file in the field below the TubeTilla logo. To the right of that you can choose which type of file to convert to, conversion times will vary depending on file size and your system setup. In our case, running a newer Quad core system it took about 10 minutes to convert to a playable Zune video format. And thats it, you’re done.

You have a perfectly good video to play on your Zune or for that matter any other portable media device you may have depending on your choice of conversion.

You can directly download the software by clicking here. Or, you can visit the authors site by clicking here.
We hope you enjoy this free download and as always…
Be Cool my Babies…

We all know that is pretty much a given that installing the official Zune Software is a necessity for us to get the most out of the product but what if you want to uninstall it? Of course, you could use the Control Panel’s remove Add or Remove Programs feature within the Windows environment but as with hundreds of other pieces of software you won’t be removing all of what was installed originally.

However, remove-it.org has a utility “UnZoone” that will. The software currently supports Zune Software 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.2 and 2.3 and promises to clean your registry of any file the software may have originally installed.

UnZoone is a small program, only about 200kb in size and does not need to be installed. You simply download the program and double click on it to begin the installation process for any Zune Software which is currently installed.

You can download the software here.

We are searching all over the internet in an attempt to bring you whatever useful information regarding Zune that we can. Today we noticed Tom Fuller’s blog over at SOSPitstop.com, where he discusses ways to speed up Zune Software by editing a few command-line options. Heres a snippet from his blog:

The command-line options I found:

• -animations:(true|false) Enable or disable fading effects.
• -gdi Use GDI instead of DirectX, seems to disable animations and probably give some legacy support. This is mentioned in the Zune 2.3 release notes.
• -switchtogdi Permanently switch to GDI rendering. makes registry entry change in general settings: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Zune\GeneralSettings\UseGDI=1
• -dx9 Use DirectX9 compatibility? Probably.
• -direction:(rtl|ltr) Use Right-to-Left rendering for languages that require it.

So for example, you want to start by disabling the fancy slide and fade animations to see what effect that has. Create a shortcut to the Zune.exe file, edit the properties of the shortcut and add -animations:false to the end of the command line.

That was nice, but you still have some issues, so you want to drop DirectX and go with a straight GDI application. I don’t know much about Vista, but I have a nagging thought that Vista did away with GDI, so if you’re on Vista, I don’t know what will happen. So you create the shortcut and add -gdi to the end of the command line.

We at FZD have not attempted any of these as of yet (not really sure we’re in the market to try this at the moment), so, if anyone out there has given this a shot, please drop us a line and let us know how it went.

[Via GotZune]

Be Cool my Babies…

I’ve found a pretty solid place for downloading free Zunecasts. Now, a lot of what they allow you to download is just a sampling of the artists music and or video along with an interview. But, if you’re really into the performer, an interview really can’t be a bad thing. They also allow you to subscribe to their rss feeds, so that you will always be notified of any new casts which they have added.

Anyway, it’s a pretty cool site and heres the link to their podcast hub: click here

P.S. Here’s the “Fill Up Your Zune” link which has some additional and very interesting content for your player.

Hope you have fun kids…

This is a great video brought to us by our friends ThoughtsMedia over at Yourtube.com. It shows newcomers to the Zune Software how to easily configure it to find all your videos, it’s simple and pretty straightforward.

It takes a little while (about 40 seconds) for the software to actually find the video file but that’s life, I guess. Anyway, hope this helps those who needed it.

Be Cool my Babies…

This is a very easy and uncomplicated way to bypass Zune’s three play rule, allowing anyone to play any song of their choice a limitless number of times. This was first introduced to us by Zune Scene forums.

There’s really nothing to this tutorial. Simply right-click on your track, at the bottom click “properties”, then click “summary, now all you have to do is change the genre to “podcast” and click “ok”. That’s it! You will now be able to play your shared song a limitless number of times. There is one drawback, of course, all the track you change will now be located in your “podcasts” folder. However, thats a small price to pay for some who cant ante up the 99 cents per sonmg.

Be Cool my Babies…