Ok, I have been running sites for a few years now (since like 1998) and I have known this Canadian named Jason Dunn for 4-5 years now. He's a great guy and he happens to run the great resource I am referring to... Zune Thoughts.

Zune Thoughts is a Zune Community that has reviews, news, and forums. In fact, the very best coverage of the New Zunes were found at Zune Thoughts.

If you've read our About Page, Jason's great job at Zune Thoughts almost prevented this site from happening. I decided to go ahead and join the social though...

Well, unless you are a Zune Team Member. Remember the orange and magenta Zunes with the Zune 1 launch? Well, these Citron (or yellow) Zunes are in that unique category.

Any Zune Team Member want to sell theirs? Call me! Tyler has my number.

Anyhow, ZuneGuy has the official word on these...

I've seen a few posts today about the Yellow (or Citron) Zunes. I've also seen a lot of speculation as to whether this is a "hidden" product. I'll shed a little light on this. They do exist. They are the ship-gifts given to the team for launching the product. Just like last year when we gave out Magenta and Orange devices, these are a special run just for us. There you have it, mystery solved.

P.S. I have to say, I really, really like mine. Good job manufacturing team!

Source : Zune Thoughts

This LunarLocal's Mini Review of the Premium Earbuds. His text is in black, mine is in blue. Keep in mind that I am assuming the one you can buy are the same as the ones that come included with the Zune 80.

So I found extra money in my bank account and went for the headphones. I thought they were going to be 49.99 like last year's, but Walmart had them (i got the only pair) for like 40 dollars.

PROS:

• The cloth cord cover is AMAZING. It feels great, looks unique, and prevents tangling like nothing I have ever seen. I agree 100%, the cloth is so nice and slide easily over you clothing.
• The slider around the two cords of the headphone end are much easier to slide than the previous model, probably to its greatly reduced size.
• The magnets on the headphones are much easier to align and attract each other perfectly. This is a really nice feature and helps keeping these things from getting all bunched up in your bag.
• Instead of the felt looking cloth over the speakers under the rubber inserts, it is a metal mesh. Probably much more durable. The metal is nice, but I am most impressed with the rubber inserts. Getting a good seal is much easier and helps the overall sound a ton.
• And of course, the sound quality is the best I've ever had in a pair of headphones. (I refuse to buy any headphones for over a hundred dollars.)  I'll buy high end stuff, but that's because I can and I love to buy gadgets. But yes, these things sound AWESOME. By far the best earbuds that COME WITH a device.
• The original models came with three sizes of inserts to choose from. The new ones come with four.
• These came with a little cord thing with a pink elastic loop. I have NO idea as to what this is for.

CONS:

• The only thing I do not like is the removal of the little magnetic pin from the first model. It let me find the Right and Left headphones with great ease, but now I have to look for the little letters. However, along with the removal of the pin came the ease in aligning the magnets and I guess not having the pin is the lesser of two evils.

When you pick a song to listen to in the Zune software on your desktop, you can click a little EQ looking icon in the lower right of the screen and get a really cool screen... This works in your library or even browsing and sampling in the marketplace.

click to enlarge

Here is what you have when you click it...

click to englarge

This screen uses album art from your collection as the background. Really Slick!

To get back, hit the backspace on your keyboard, the back button on your mouse, or click exit in the same place the EQ icon was.

I wanted to a) remind everyone reading about the Contest and b) remind those that are commenting for a chance to win that comment spam will get you disqualified. We've had and removed a couple waves of this already.

Anyhow, if you want to win... follow the rules. Thanks!

To kick off Got Zune, we are giving away a Black 80GB Zune 2.  This contest couldn’t be any easier, well it could be easier, but… ya know.

Read more about the contest!

...expect more coverage soon

This is what Ryan Block at Engadget is saying today.

So yesterday I posted a look at the new Zune device and software, which caused quite a stir with the Microsoft faithful in the house (as I suspected it might). Ok, I'm sugarcoating it. Some Zune fans went ballistic over my criticisms of the new products -- and took it out on me, often personally.

There are lots of things I'd like to remind these people of. Like, besides the fact that it's just a product, I (and Engadget) have been a vocal advocate of Microsoft's entry into the space since before the Zune was ever announced. We led the charge in press coverage of the Zune last (and for a while the Apple fans even called us Zune fanboys). Nothing's changed though, we're critical of all this stuff, and whether some people believe it, we don't easily let Apple off the hook either (read our iPhone review and iPod touch review if you want to dig in). If we didn't care about -- or hated -- the new Zune we wouldn't waste our time telling Microsoft how to get it right, we'd just ignore the thing and you wouldn't see any risky, critical editorial. (Believe it or not, PR agencies by far prefer negative reviews than having their product ignored.)

Read the Rest of Ryan's post.

My thoughts from yesterday still stand. Mainly the critisism about the lack of Mac Support. Apple making iTunes PC compatible was a necessity for Apple. PC Users outnumber Mac users by ~10:1. Getting the iTunes going with MOST of the computer users is a must. Like I said yesterday, development cost to make Zune Mac Compatible may not be feasible based on the small percentage of Mac users that would actually buy a Microsoft product other than Office. I may be wrong here, but I am fairly sure economics drive this choice.

I used to play Everquest on and off for more than 6 years. I have played several MMORPGS before. With Everquest I, there was basicly a website external to SOE that was member run for each server and there were also general forums too. The server forums were great because you could arrange event, chit chat, etc.

With Everquest II, SOE came with there own forums. These ended up washing out the server forums. World of Warcraft's official forums are the only truely popular forums as well.

Now Microsoft's Zune.net is the "Official Zune Forums", so where does that leave the other great forum communities like Zune Thoughts, ZuneBoards, and Zunerama? Chances are that forum traffic will stay ok, but I fear that they may not grow much since new users are going to a) catch Zune.net #1 in search engines for Zune terms eventually, b) Microsoft has you go to Zune.net to sign up so new users are already there and c) the Zune Team Members are posting there.

I run forum communities as well and I have seen how things work with these type things.

I don't think this will happen overnight and checking in on the Zune forums I read, the traffic has increased this week. What will it be like in 1 month, 3 months, etc...

I understand companies doing their own Forums, but I don't like it at all. I guess I am being greedy, but I think 3rd party forums really help in more than one way, but I won't get into my theories on the subject here.

I am wishing the great Zune Forum Communities all the best!

The 2.2 release apparently broke the hacks that allowed users to use the Zune 30 as an external HD for storage and such.

Some folks over at Zunerama have already come up with a work around.

First, it's based on the registry hack from before - (described at this link: http://zunerama.com/forum/index.php?topic=970.0)
The difference with the new firmware is that the registry keys have changed. The new registry keys to be modified are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\USB\VID_####&PID_####\########-####-####-####-############\Device
Parameters
Modify the same three keys as before, and your Zune will serve as an external drive. A different icon will display in the shell, but you'll have the same functionality.

Source :Zunerama via Crunch Gear

Simple explanation from me is, the Zune Card is to Zune what the Xbox Tag is to Xbox. Plain and Simple. The Zune card shows your last played songs, etc and the Xbox 360 tag shows last played games, etc...

This is my Zune Card above...

Signing up for the Zune Social is easy but using it is much more fun with a little understanding of what is happening behind the scenes. Your Zune Card can display all the tracks and artists you've been listening too. The Zune software sends the tracks you've played to your Zune Card every 15 mintues. So don't worry if after playing a few songs, you don't instantly see them on your Zune Card. But what about songs that you listen to on your Zune? Those are transmitted soon after you sync your device.

If your tracks aren't showing up on your Zune Card, even after 15 min, it is probably a good idea to make sure you are logged into your account in the Zune software. Also, tracks that you stream from within the marketplace won't show on your Zune Card.

Read more over at I Want a Pink Zune.

Crappy Music, Great Demo... Zunerama does an impressive speed test comparing the Zune 30 with and without the 2.2 patch.

Check out the post over at Zunerama...