Cheap Crap from China: Zune 120/80 Crystal Clear Case

Often times there are sites for a certain products (take the iPod or Zune for instance) that have massive review sections of every accessory you can think of. They take a real serious look at things like cases, FM transmitters and other random things you never knew you need. Unforgettably, something always gets left out. The cheap crap from China. You know the stuff. You can find millions of pieces of cheap crap from China on eBay and even in same cases on Amazon. Here is one such piece of cheap crap, the Crystal Clear case for the Zune 120 or Zune 80.

I wanted a case after I got my Zune just because I always like having a little extra protection on my music player. From my days as an iPoder I always had to have a case because the iPod got scratched if you looked at it the wrong way. While the Zune is no where near as fragile as the iPod classic is, I still thought a case wasn’t a bad idea. So here was my first purchase. I got this off eBay for 8 dollars with shipping included. Compared to the $30 dollars I would waste on an iPod case (sorry, I just thought iSkin made great stuff) this seemed like a deal.

Screenshot Tutorial: Using Zuse to scrobble Zune software plays to Last.fm

A little while back, I did a screen shot tutorial on how to use Zenses.  Zenses is a program that will scan your Microsoft Zune (and other media players not named iPod) and scrobble listened tracks to your Last.fm profile.  Zuse all scrobbles tracks to your profile, but Zuse is used with the Zune 3.0 (or 3.1) software to scrobble software plays.  Just to clarify the difference so everyone can understand… Hardware plays are the plays that have taken place on your actual media player while not hooked up to a PC.  Software plays are plays counted from software that was used to play music on your PC.  Window’s Media Player and iTunes easily support the Last.fm plug-in so they scrobble plays very easily.  Unfortunately Microsoft has not opened the Zune software for use with plug-ins so the Zune software does not have an official Last.fm plug-in to use to scrobble plays that take place in the Zune software.

Thankfully, there are people smart enough and motivated enough to create software to get around these obstacles us non-iPoders face.  Zenses works flawlessly for most people, and in my short amount of time with Zuse I feel that we have a valid solution for both the software and hardware plays we want on our profiles.  All credit for creating the software goes to Zach Howe who has developed the software.  The best resource for the software is a tie between the Google Code page (that is where you should download the latest version) and the Last.fm group page.  I am doing this tutorial on my own, no one else has, so I figured someone should.

Screenshot Tutorial: Using Zenses to Scrobble Zune Tracks to Last.fm

Since the Zune has become a more complete media player it has gained in popularity, though still not even close to competing with Apple’s line of personal media players.  Now that the Zune is finding its way into more people hands, more people want the thing to work with Last.fm.  For some reason Microsoft has no problem allowing plug-ins for Windows Media Player (which easily supports Last.fm) but has kept the Zune software closed.  Thankfully there are a lot of smart people out there who want to make this work no matter what the obstacles.  One such person is Last.fm member Machiventa who maintains the Zenses group at Last.fm (program developed by Daryl Rowland).  To download Zenses please go to the Last.fm group.  For the purpose of this tutorial I am using Zenses version 0.2 and Zune software 3.1.  If you follow this step by step you should be able to scrobble all tracks played on your Zune.  All credit for the program and instructions go to the original creator, I am merely adding screen shots for visual learners.  All images below can be clicked on so that you can see the full shot for easier viewing.  Click to read on…

Fight To the Death: iPod Classic (6g) vs. Zune 120

This dude likes the Zune a bit too much

So I am in the market for a new MP3 player and I have been using an Apple iPod for the past 6 years.  First I got a 40gb 4th generation right upon release and then upgraded it about a year ago to a 30gb 5.5 generation.  The 5g I have has had a battery problem and unfortunately was not under warranty (thanks to Amazon selling me a refurbished model without me knowing) so I have to constantly keep it on a charger as the battery drains in about 4 hours whether I am using it or not.  It’s probably a firmware problem and I’m not smart enough to backdate firmware.  So this means I am in the market for a new media player.

If this was 2 or 3 years ago, there would be no argument here.  It’d be the iPod all the way.  Zunedidn’t really show up as an honest competitor until September of last year, when it released the Zune 80, 2nd generation.  Now that the Zune is one year older it continues to bring the heat to Apple’s only large hard drive based player.  One other thing to keep in mind, if Apple would stick a 120gb HD in the Touch, there would be no argument.  It would be the Touch all the way.  But for users like me, with a large collection, these are the two best options.