Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

Quick reminder, contest for the Gomadic 2-in-1 Charger ends this Friday. You can check out the details and the thread here. DO NOT reply to this posting as your entry won't count unless it is to the original contest thread. Thanks!

The Gomadic chargers are very slick, and we recently did a Quick Look on the 2-in-1 Charger pictured above. If you aren't familiar, the system uses what they call "Tip Exchange" so all you need is one cable and a tip for each device, instead of having to carry around separate charging cables. They pretty much cover every device know to man, or at least it seems that way (the brand list is here).

Now the folks at Gomadic are being generous enough to give away four (4) of their 2-in-1 Charging cables as well as two tips to be chosen by each winner. Since Gomadic has such wide coverage on devices, this is a network-wide contest. To win, all you have to do is go to the Tip Exchange page and pick two of the charging tips you want to go with your 2-in-1 Charger. Post the two numbers along with a reply to this post and you are entered. You MUST post the two tip numbers in your reply or your entry won't be counted.

One post per person, and the contest closes on Friday the 19th of March at 12pm Pacific time, GMT -7. This contest is world-wide with Gomadic providing the shipping. Remember that all first posts in our system are held in moderation, so if this contest entry is your first post, please wait up to 48 hours before getting concerned if your post hasn't shown up yet - it will. Winners will be contacted via private forum message, so have email notifications turned on. Winners will have 72 hours to claim their prize.

Congrats to HueMan, andrew_lee, txa1265 and dlindman, our winners in the XO Skins contest. Their products shipped out last week so depending on where you are, you should see something in your mailbox this week. Again, congrats and thanks for entering! 

Just a reminder, it isn't too late to enter the XO Skins contest so head on over to the forum thread to get in on the action! Contest ends January 1st 2010. Replies to this message do NOT count as an entry, you must reply to the forum thread located here.

I just posted a review of the XO Skin for the iPhone over at Apple Thoughts, and the kind folks from XO Skin decided to give away some of their products to our lucky readers! They cover a wide variety of products, from Apple MacBooks to Dell Laptops to Palm to Blackberry to, well, you get the idea. Since they do cover a wide variety of products, we are going to make this a network-wide contest, four winners total! So, all you have to do to enter is post a message in the discussion thread telling us what type of device you would cover with an XO Skin. One skin per person (your choice of what skin you want) and the contest closes at 12pm on January 1st, 2010, which is UTC/GMT -8. This contest is world-wide. Winners will be contacted via private message in the forum and will have 72 hours to claim their prize from time of notification. Good luck!

UPDATE: There is only one contest thread, so if it is your first post, it may take up to 72 hours for it to show up.

Also, if you want to get $2.00 USD off of any product that XO Skins sells, they have generously provided a coupon code to use: applethoughts2off

We've got another great contest for you, and this time because it's an accessory that works with so many different products, it's a network-wide contest. The prizes? I'm giving away three pairs of SHURE SE210 Earphones (MSRP $179.99 USD), courtesy of the generous folks at Shure. Our very own David Tucker reviewed this earphones back in September, and he loved them - so I'm sure the three winners will as well. The SE210's feature a noise-isolating sleeves that block 90 percent of the ambient noise, and the more noise you can block out, the more you can enjoy your tunes.

What do you have to do to win? Simply post a message in this discussion thread telling me which type of device (or devices) you'd use the headphones with. A Windows Mobile smartphone? A Zune? An iPod? An iPhone? A netbook or laptop? That's it - one post per person, and the contest closes on Tuesday the 15th of December at 12pm GMT -7. This contest is world-wide; I'll be shipping you the prizes myself.

Remember that all first posts in our system are held in moderation, so if this contest entry is your first post, please wait up to 48 hours before getting concerned if your post hasn't shown up yet - it will. Winners will be contacted via private forum message, so ensure that you have email notifications turned on. Winners will have 72 hours to claim their prize.

Let's see those entries!

UPDATE:The contest is now closed, and the three winners are GqSkrub, webguy248, and deenoo. Thanks to everyone for entering - it was great to see so many entries! And big thanks to SHURE for donating the prizes!

Hey everyone! This is a quick heads-up for you to check Digital Home Thoughts if you're interested in winning some free stuff. It's by far our #1 site when it comes to contests, largely because it covers a broad spectrum of topics which makes it easier to get giveaway items. We've been running a hard drive giveaway (3350 GB in total storage) for the past five weeks, giving away a variety of hard drives, and this week we're giving away a 500 GB Western Digital hard drive. Also going on is a giveaway for a Skooba Design Checkthrough Brief bag, and on Monday we're launching a contest giving away 10 copies of Corel Digital Studio 2010. Watch for it!

Lusting after a Zune HD but don't want to drop down the $210 or $290 needed to purchase one for yourself? Luckily Microsoft is giving away one Zune HD a week for four weeks for your freeloading pleasure. And it won't even take a lot of effort on your part! Just reply to the question "what are you most excited about in the Zune HD" on Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace and you'll be entered to win. Full rules are available at the read link (US residents over 18.) What are you waiting for? Enter already!

Also: For you Twitterphiles out there, you can now "Zuneify" your pic!

Remember the iZel review that I published a few weeks back? Well, the makers of the iZel have offered us three to give away to lucky Thoughts Media readers! This contest is open to anyone in the US or Canada (sorry rest-of-world). Entering the contest is really easy: all you have to do is post a message in this discussion thread telling me what kind of device(s) you'd want to use with the iZel. That's it! I'll randomly select three entries and each person will win an iZel. Nice and easy! The contest is open until the 16th of July, at 12pm (GMT -7). Enter now!

UPDATE: Only one entry per person, and if it's your first post, please allow up to 48 hours for it to show up.

UPDATE #2: The contest is now over and the winners have been randomly selected. iZel has a little consolation prize for everyone though. If you use the coupon code 5OFFIZEL you'll get a $5 discount off the normal price of $24.95 from Amazon.com [Affiliate]. The coupon code is valid until midnight July 31st, 2009.

I've done the drawing for the Zune Swag Bundle contest, and the randomly selected winner is hawkeye107. What's he listening to? Here's his post:

"I recently found a new band called The Airborne Toxic Event. I've had "Sometime Around Midnight" playing on my Zune almost everyday, it's seriously an amazingly written song and suggest for you to at least check it out. Oh, and awesome shirt!"

Thanks to everyone that entered! It was cool seeing the electic music that this community listens to.

Back in March I was visiting with the Zune team for the Microsoft Global MVP Summit, and they gave the MVPs some take-away swag items. I figured I'd pass it along to one lucky reader of Zune Thoughts. The photo above shows what you'll get: a Manhattan Portage shoulder bag, customized with the Zune logo and the "hello from seattle" phrase; a limited-edition grey Zune t-shirt (size large), and a copy of Lost Ones, the Zune-comissioned graphic novel.

So what do you have to do to win? Post a message in this discussion thread telling me one of your favourite songs that's loaded on your Zune right now. What are you grooving out to? What gets your foot tapping? One post (one entry) per person, and the winner will be randomly selected. The contest closes on Monday the 4th of May at 12pm (GMT -7). Yes, that's a longer time line than most of our contests - I wanted to give everyone an opportunity to enter this contest. Photos of each individual item are after the break. Read more...

"Toronto, ON, March 11, 2009 - Beginning today, Zune Canada will conduct a month-long search to find Canada's hottest undiscovered band or artist to perform at the Zune Concert Series, Canada's biggest free outdoor music festival taking place April 17-26 during the 2009 TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival. As part of its commitment to emerging Canadian artists, Zune is supporting musicians working to break out and gain industry exposure with the Zune Concert Series Competition. Bands and artists are invited to upload an original music track at www.zune.ca to enter the competition. Music fans will be able to listen and rate selected tracks from participating bands, and have the chance to win a trip for two to see the selected band play live at the 2009 TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival."

As a former "professional" musician (I got paid for gigs I did when I was in a band, so I can technically say that, hehe) I'm always interested in seeing ways that aspiring bands can make it to the big time - because for all the bluster about the Internet "changing everything", many bands still need the muscle of a record label to get their music out to the general public. I've bought more music from bands I've heard on TV shows than I have of bands that I've discovered purely online. The fact that the winning band gets hooked up with a mentor is also pretty cool! The remainder of the press release is after the break. Read more...

“One of the marketing guys and I came up with an idea for a contest: each week for 12 weeks, we’ll pick two artists, and ask users to submit the shortest path they can find between them. The first person to submit the shortest path by the deadline wins a Zune Home AV Kit.”

It’s pretty simple really. Just find the shortest route between two artists and send the answer to ZContest on the official Zune forums. The first person to send the right answer each week wins the AV kit. It’s important to note that the path has to be between artists and not albums the artist has. This week the artists are Amy Winehouse to Ray Charles. Good luck! All of the official rules are over at Zune Insider.

Psst...just a heads-up that the HP Magic Giveaway contest is now live over on Digital Home Thoughts. If you want to get your hands on $6000 worth of prizes, and share some of it with other people, stop by and enter the contest!

UPDATE: Our contest is now live, post your entry here.

Remember that awesome 31 Days of the Dragon giveaway contest Digital Home Thoughts was a part of earlier this year? Well this new contest from HP that we've been invited to partake in dwarfs that one on a number of levels. First, the prize pack is even bigger: $6000 in total prizes, consisting of one desktop PC, three laptops, a Media Center extender, a printer, and some software and accessories. Whew! There's some awesome hardware here. The scope is bigger too: there are 50 different blogs involved, and they range from tech blogs like this one, to women's blogs, to student blogs, to Spanish and Portuguese blogs. The complete list is further on in this post. If you do the math, that's $300,000 USD in total prizes, thanks to HP and Microsoft's Windows Live team.

The HP Magic Giveaway is designed around the idea of the magic of sharing, so it's not a coincidence that it's happening as we lead up to the Christmas & holiday season. Each blog is running their own type of contest (and you can enter all of them), but the idea that many of us are focusing on is sharing. One person probably doesn't need four computers all to themselves, so when I kick off my contest later on, it will include some sort of prize-sharing element. Start thinking of who and how you'd share this with others. A contest like this is even more timely when you look around at the financial markets world-wide, and even in your neighbourhood. Stay tuned for more details on my contest.

So what's included in this huge giveaway? Here's the full list:

Hardware

• HP TouchSmart IQ816 PC

• HP HDX 18 series Premium Notebook PC

• HP MediaSmart Connect

• HP Pavilion dv4 series Entertainment Notebook PC (with Windows Live)

• HP Mini 1000 (with XP)

Accessories

• HP Photosmart C6380 Wireless AIO (printer)

• HP 564 Photo Value Pak [thanks for the PDF Gear Diary!]

Software & Entertainment

• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate/Home Premium or Microsoft Windows XP pre-installed on all units (Mini 1000 runs XP)

• Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007 (Student-Teacher Edition) – 1 DVD with 3 licenses

• Microsoft Windows Live

• Corel VideoStudio X2

• Kung Fu Panda (2 widescreen DVDs; 1 widescreen Blu-ray disc)

Read more...

"I get more gadgets and stuff than I can shake a stick at, and frankly, I'm getting run out of my office with it all. So, I'm going to pass them on to you - the GBM reader. I love all of this stuff, but I figured it would be best to spread the love around. Here is the loot: 1 HP TC1100 Tablet PC + Docking Station + rubber flap, 1 Samsung Q1P Ultra-Mobile PC with extended battery and organizer case, 1 BatteryGeek.net Portable Powerstation, 1 HTC Tilt (unlocked), 1 HTC Advantage (unlocked), 1 Vista Ultimate..."



Rob Bushway over at GottaBeMobile has an office full of gear and he's giving much of it away - the complete list of prizes is too long to publish here, so jump over and take a look. The contest is underway, so stop on over and check it out!

In continuing with Zune's support of Bun-B (formerly of UGK), the two have announced a new contest for budding armchair MCs to test their skills atop one of the Texas rapper's high-hat and bass-heavy beats. The skippy, Houston-flavored instrumental currently lacks any real interesting sounds, but that's where you come in! Rap, sing, sample, and drum atop the beat, just make sure you've got a) talent, and b) permission from the owners of your materials.



Interested parties can download the horrendously-titled Rap With Bun B (it sounds like the title of the accompanying CD to Alfonso Ribeiro's breakdance set) from the Marketplace, and add their own flow using any audio recording program. Winners (U.S. residents, 18+, drawn at random) will receive a round-trip ticket to Houston to take part in an upcoming compilation project. Read the press release, submit your tracks to Rap-A-Lot records, and may the best rapper win!

Just a quick reminder: our HP Dragon giveaway ends today. Tonight at 10 PM mountain time (GMT -7) I'll be shutting down the entries and picking the winner. So if for some odd reason you haven't yet entered your name to win this $5500 retail-value laptop and software bundle, today is your last chance to do it.

In case you didn't check Digital Home Thoughts over the weekend, we've launched our 31 Days of the Dragon contest where we're giving away an HP Pavilion HDX9200 notebook PC, and a software bundle that if purchased at retail, would total up to a bit over $5500 USD. This is a huge contest where 31 Web sites are taking part, each giving away their own Dragon prize bundle - you can check out all the details over on the 31 Days of the Dragon Web site.

The contest officially launched on the 10th, and will end on the 17th of May. Check out the contest details and enter to win!

[image courtesy of digitalmediaphile]

Because of the server move we had to do last night and this morning, things are a bit back-logged on me getting the 31 Days of the Dragon contest up on Digital Home Thoughts. It will happen today for sure, but it won't kick off until tonight - sorry about that! Watch for it. In the meantime, here's an updated list on some of the contests that are still going on, and some that are ending very soon:

• www.arstechnica.com (ends today)
  
• www.osnn.net (ends tomorrow)
• www.jkontherun.com
• digitalmediaphile
• Boston Pocket PC
• The Gadgeteer
• The Digital Lifestyle.com