Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

This is a quick reminder that our giveaway of three pairs of SHURE SE210 headphones ends on the 15th of this month, so if you haven't already entered, you'd better do so quickly!

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!

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Amazon.com has some great deals today (Fuji Finepix camera for $79 anyone?), so if you're going to do some online shopping at Amazon, do me a favour and use our affiliate link. It costs you nothing, but gives back a bit to the sites that you enjoy. Thanks! :-)

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!

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.

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...

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...