The New Zune 2.0: Now An Attractive Alternative to iPod

The newest generation Zune players were launched just this last Tuesday, November 13.

As an original Zune 1.0 user, I was very interested to see what would happen with this latest iteration of Microsoft’s iPod competitor. If you heard anything at all about the Zune when it first launched, it probably wasn’t praise. While the device itself worked great, the software was borderline terrible and it just didn’t seem like it was ready for release.

With the release of the new 2.0 Zune players, the reaction and buzz is decidedly different. Both Amazon and Buy.com both sold out of their original stock within a day, and the word on the street is that the newest addition to the Zune line is indeed a viable alternative to the venerable iPod. Don’t take my word for it though… checkout what Cnet has to say as well as this review from Wired.

The new player is thinner, with more storage capacity and a new little brother to go with the main 80GB player. The Flash Zune players offer both a 4GB and 8GB size and a smaller price tag to boot. Among the best of the new features is wireless sync, which allows you to synchronize your song library wirelessly with your desktop software. As with the original Zune, owners can still send/share files with other Zune players. There are many new features and improvements which I don’t care to go into detail about here. The well written reviews I’ve linked to in the previous paragraph give you all you need to know. In my opinion, if you’re not already drinking Apple’s kool-aid with the iPod, then you might want to consider this as your media device.

Keep Internet Radio Free

If you’ve ever listened to music over the internet via Shoutcast, Slacker, the new Jango, or Pandora (my personal favorite), then you might be concerned to know that we might lose free Internet radio altogether. Back in March of this year, the RIAA introduced new royalty payout guidelines that will make free Internet radio and thing of the past. To get an overview of the issue, read this great article in the Wall Street Journal by Jason Fry.

The Internet Radio Equality Act, HR 2060 was introduced earlier this year by Jay Inslee and Dan Manzullo, but it’s certainly no slam dunk and it has not been passed yet. There is plenty of support for Internet radio, but we need to get our lawmakers behind it in order to keep it free. I urge you to get behind this issue by participating on SaveNetRadio.org. Please fill out and print this petition started by the owners of Pandora and send it in. We need to do all we can to save this or we can lose it for good.

For those yet to discover Internet radio, I suggest you try Pandora or Slacker. Both have easy, attractive interfaces that allow you to quickly customize your own stations based on the styles of songs or artists. You can also listen to all kinds of existing stations if you don’t want to go through the trouble of making your own, but that is part of why it’s great. You can fine-tune your stations to play exactly what you like. That’s what the music genome project is all about. Slacker employs a similar method of figuring out what to play, based on what you say you like and don’t like. Aside from just enjoying the music you know you love, it’s one of the best ways to discover new music that you might have otherwise never heard. Both of these sites work with just a web browser.

One of the oldest free Internet radio sources, Shoutcast music streams are created and managed by users and commercial organizations. Winamp is the weapon of choice for Shoutcast streams. There is a free version of Winamp on their site, but it’s for Windows only. The Apple kool aid drinkers will have to find another alternative. My recommendation is to stick with the web based services, which comprises the best sites for music anyway.

Enjoy it – but SUPPORT IT too so we can keep it free! Rock on….

Spiff up your photos with flauntR.com

This year seems to be the year of web apps. You can find almost any kind of software that will run from the Internet in your web browser, instead of having to install it on your computer. Image editing is no exception to this, and it’s getting better all the time.

Adobe Photoshop has been the preeminent tool for editing photos, but it is very expensive and there is a steep learning curve. Over the last year or two, many web-based image editing programs have emerged that are very useful, and even Adobe is thinking about doing this with Photoshop. Newcomers like flauntR.com are among a wave of “web 2.0″ web based applications that replace those you once had to install on your computer to use. There are many reasons these web 2.0 apps are the way to go: the program is always kept up to date without requiring any action on your part, it’s available to you anywhere you have an internet connection, and there is usually a free option. In the cases where it’s not free, there is usually a pay-for-use arrangement which is better than having to pay the full purchase price, and you are never locked into any long contract.

flauntR.com offers many of the most commonly used features in any professional image editing software, but is designed to be useful to everyone with very little learning curve. It does require a user account, but that is free so all it costs you is your time.

There are many other players out there but another one I would recommend as an option is Wiredness.com. Whatever your choice, either of these web apps will give you some powerful image editing tools, while saving you time and money. Considering the pace at which companies are moving their applications to the web, it’s only going to get better.

Search Google with SearchMash.com

Want to see what Google is thinking of for future search features? Just check out www.searchmash.com/flash. This is an experimental search engine run by Google, which I assume is sort of a test bed for new features. Anyway, it provides all the same search results you’d get on Google.com, but with some extra features not available on Google’s main search engine. Video search is nicely integrated, as is wikipedia results. Also, there are no ads or sponsored links.

There is also an older version of Searchmash.com that works quite well too which you might be interested to try. It’s just www.searchmash.com.

San Diego Fires

Well, everyone knows about the fires around San Diego. After being evacuated from Monday afternoon to Tuesday, we have been back home and things are settling down. It’s been quite the experience to say the least.

Here’s a few photos >