The First Sync (Zune Chronicles 3)
posted in Sound and Music |Zune Cronicles Part 3 (notes from 3/30)……..
Intro (part 1)
Charging (Part 2)
It keeps getting more interesting.
The Zune is pretty much useless without installing the Zune software - unless you just want to listen to the radio. It can’t be used as a disk, and there is absolutely no way to sync anything, unless you install their software.
I only have two windows computers in my house. My wife’s and one for my business (I use it to run virus scans on really messed up disks). They both run Windows 2000…. but the Zune requires XP. Doh!
After a bit, I remembered that I had one older WinXP system here that I was piecing together for a friend of a friend that can’t afford one… and …
- It took 15 minutes (on my 1.2Mbs DSL) to download the software (how big is this - after install I noticed that it was over 50M)
- It took over 5 minutes just to install the sofware
- then it downloaded a firmware update - that only took a little over a minute. A pretty “feature update” notice appeared explaining that with the new firmware, they added a “feature”… the wireless was always on by default…. for my convenience. Of course I always want other Zune users to know that someone as cool as them is around, and why wouldn’t I want it on anyway, what with Microsoft’s great track record in security. Ummm. Note to self: disable the wireless asap.
- then I plugged in the Zune, agreed for the 5th time that I sign away all rights to everything, and the firmware was updated (the Zune rebooted 5 or 6 times to install the firmware - how incredibly MS like)
Then the initialization started…
- “welcome to the social, we’re glad you’re here”… blah, blah - I think they are going for a “club” feel, but it was just annoying to me.
- Please name your Zune so other Zune’s can automatically identify it when you’re around and the wireless is on… so I did. Name: “Waiting for Linux”
- Change settings in the PC software so it doesn’t tell MS what is going on.
- Change settings in the PC software so it doesn’t pull crap off the net for every file I have.
- Change settings so it doesn’t modify all my music files with information it wants stored in them (I already copied them from my server to the PC so any changes would not be reflected back into my music library, just because I expected it to do this).
- Then instead of just being able to use my local music library, I was REQUIRED to set up a Zune Music account linked to my MSN Live ID. Of course it didn’t actually use the ID to log in - that would be too easy. I had to select a Zune Music ID also. I tried “linux”, and it told me “invalid username”. I tried lonnieb, and was told “that username is taken”…. hold it just one minute. lonnieb was valid but taken, linux was invalid? It’s just text, right? I guess they have “bad word” filters, and they don’t like cuss words like linux on their system. So I let the rebel out and chose “wantlinux”, that worked just fine.
- Still not done. I had to give them an email address and phone number, (Why? Don’t know. All I’m going to do is use the music I already own) and agree AGAIN to the terms of “we can do what ever we want, you can’t. niener, niener.”
- Finally, after 35+ minutes, it starts syncing the files.
- Hold it! What’s it syncing. I told it where to look for the files to put into my library, but never told it what to sync…. it just started syncing ALL music, image, video formats I had specified…. because MS knows what I REALLY want to listen to.
- The sync took over 6 hours (USB 1.1 ports only on this computer). Double-Doh!
Summation of this part: Way too long, way too much information given, way too little control.
Oh, well… I made it. So, now let’s see what this puppy can do…. next time.