Considering the rhythm of the music theme, I expect a lot of Blake tonight.

Melinda: Great vocal, as always. Not bad performance-wise. A little “cruise ship” feel, but that’s kind of the song itself.

LaKisha: Another great vocal for her… but the performance looked a little out of her “comfort zone”. Not a “home run”.

Chris: Good performance. But I don’t think he kept the key where he was told, and it seemed a little too low… and a little dragging.

Haley: A lot of rough spots. She seems to depend on her legs a lot. She’s in real danger this week.

Phil: Vocally it was pretty solid (couple “breaks” in the voice near the end), but it was pretty boring. For some reason he arranged so he was singing the same lines over and over again.

Jordin: So far the best of the night. She had fun with it, but it was still a little cabaret.

Blake: Best guy vocal so far. For me, it’s the best overall performance of the evening, so far.

Sanjaya: I’ll let my daughter Keona give her opinion… “Sanjaya stinks on ice”. Pretty much sums it up.

It’s getting pretty sad that every time Ryan introduces Sanjaya, he makes it clear that he’s the show’s “inside joke”.

I still think Sanjaya is going to be safe (please prove me wrong). Haley and Chris in the bottom two, if they do a bottom three, then add Phil.

Zune Cronicles Part 5……..
Intro (part 1)
Charging (Part 2)
The First Sync (Part 3)
First Impressions (Part 4)

Long title: “Did we say you could do that? Even if we did, I can’t believe that you really thought we were serious.”

Since the Zune sync’d everything from the PC without asking (see The First Sync), it was a little low on space. I decided to go back and remove some of the music and videos from it, just to test that functionality out. Good thing is that you can remove items from the Zune without removing them from the local library. WARNING, this is NOT the default behavior. You need to change the default behavior in the options.

As I mentioned before, I was, um, slightly unimpressed by the music that was “pre-loaded” on the Zune… but I’m a bit of a music hoarder, so I don’t like just getting rid of music that I have. So, I figured that - if possible - I would archive these files on the PC, just in case. I don’t want to violate any DRM rules, so I needed to verify that they were DRM free first. The Zune software allows you to check the properties of files on the Zune, and they all said that they had no DRM… Cool!

Now to sync them to the PC so I retained a copy, and then remove them from the Zune. Not too difficult. According to Microsoft, it’s a drag and drop. (When looking at the files on the Zune, a panel on the right says to drag and drop any files you wish to sync to the PC from the Zune.) So I do just that, selected several of these pre-loaded files and put them in the “sync to PC” cue. Next, click on the “start sync” button. How easy is that!

Hold it. What’s up? Each and every file transfer on the status page shows an error. Huh? Well, lets check the logs to see what went wrong - maybe a communication error. Oops. No logs. Right clicking on the file transfer line shows no option for more information. Ugh. Well, maybe the cable connection is a little flakey. So I unplug the Zune, wait a couple seconds, and re-connect it. Once the Zune is showing in the sync software, I navigate to those files again, cue them up for transfer, click on sync. Error! What?! So, I just start moving my mouse over parts of the transfer list. As it came over a little red “x in a ball” icon on the left of the status line, an information box popped up saying… wait for it… that I wasn’t allowed to transfer files from the Zune to the PC.

So, let’s recap shall we? The files are DRM free. They came with the Zune with no restrictions. The sync software says that I can transfer files from the Zune to the PC, and happily let’s me cue the files up for transfer. Then it fails to do the transfer because it won’t allow transfer from the Zune.

Now that makes sense.

Well, I was almost right about the bottom three. Sub Haley for Chris, and there you are. So, Gina, one of my personal favorites - who I knew didn’t have a chance to win - is now gone…. and Sanjaya survives yet again. I really wonder what would happen if he actually won. Would the record company be required to release an album with him?

Tony Bennett night on Idol. I noticed that almost no one took any advice he gave.

Blake: I like him. Got that nice laid back jazz feel. Right up his alley vocally. A little lame on the “performance” part though.

Phil: Really dull, boring. Unlike Eric, I’m not under his alien spell.

Melinda: Love that girl. If it has a melody, she can sing it.

Chris: Not generally one of my favorite singers, but he did a real nice job tonight.

Jordin: Just OK for me. It was good, but it still seemed a little “eh, whatever”.

Gina: OK. Generally, I love her hair, but this was just wrong. Performance was a little restrained but good.

Sanjaya: Funny thing is that it didn’t totally suck. This is the style that could work for him. Still the weakest link, but not painful to listen to. It’s too bad that he’s the laughing stock of the show, and knows it. Personally, if I were him, I would bow out and save what little dignity I had left.

Haley: I figured out her place in music. USO tours. The look, catiness and “Miss America” of her style would make a lot of soldiers happy.

Lakisha: One word - Diva. She owns the stage. She had better watch out though, Melinda is closing up tighter.

I’m afraid that Howard Stern will make sure that Sanjaya is not at risk again, so I put Phil, Chris and Gina in the bottom three.

Zune Cronicles Part 4 (notes from 3/30,31)……..
Intro (part 1)
Charging (Part 2)
The First Sync (Part 3)

Overall Look:
The Zune is a little boxier than the iPod, and just a bit bigger in every direction… but I like it just as well.

Sound Quality:
Using the exact same ear buds, playing the same song, at the same volume, with the EQs off (I tend to leave the EQ off since I use my iPod for either sound gigs - where I want all the “color” to come from the system - or in my car - where I want the car stereo to deal with the EQ) - the Zune seems to have a little bit “fuller” sound. Don’t know if it’s a quality thing, or if their “no EQ” setting still colors the sound a little.

BTW, the pre-loaded songs on the Zune kind of, um, suck.

Display:
Very nice. The Zune’s display is much larger than my video iPod’s, and the sideways “flip” it does for videos gives a nicer aspect ratio. I don’t think the colors were any better, or that the picture was sharper, but just the size difference is big (pun intended).

User Interface:
The navigation, while a little different from the iPod, is easy to pick up and fairly intuitive. There are only two issues I came up with (both related to the same thing). Since they don’t have the “wheel” like the iPod, the Zune uses “clicking” for every adjustment. This means much less control of the volume - you can quite easily end up where one click is just a little too quiet, and the next a little too loud. Livable, but could be better. Also, for the same reason, moving through a track or video is much harder. You press and hold to FF and then hope to go far enough without going too far. The iPod is hands down the winner here, since you can go into seek mode and dial your way to the exact place you want.

Bonus:
The radio is really nice. Good sound quality and locks on stations solidly. It could use a better interface for dealing with your programmed favorites, but considering that the iPod doesn’t even have a radio, this is still a nice thing to have.

The firmware updates provided by MS is a Real Good Thing™. It allows them to fix issues or add new features. Good planning. With the iPod, upgrading means buying a new one.