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!

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.

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...

Want to win a free Zune? Sure you do. Jump on over to visit our friends at Inside the Circle and enter their "Jazz 101: The Great Giveaway" contest. They've been focusing on exploring jazz music over the past while, and they're capping off their coverage with the giveaway of a red 4 GB Zune. All you have to do is leave a comment on their site (in the contest thread) sharing your Zune tag and your personal view on jazz music (like it, dislike it, etc.). Easy as pie!

Well, I was hoping to give it a read through first but with how the week's going, that's just not going to happen! Our friend Harvey Chute over at Zunerama has just posted up the 2009 Zune Guide. It seems like a nice recap of the developments throughout the past year. The 40 page guide is full of links to accessories and gift ideas as well. I'm looking forward to actually getting through it myself!

And if the Zune giveaway from Engadget isn't good enough for you, then page 14 of the guide has details about how you can win a 16 GB Zune from Zunerama!

"Included in this podcast is a first-ever (for Engadget at least) on-air unboxing. That's right, hear the sounds of a Gears of War 2 Zune getting ripped open. As a treat to our faithful listeners, we'll be giving away that very special edition 120GB Zune! Follow the instructions after the break to learn how to make it yours."

Engadget unboxed the Gears of War 2 Zune on their recent podcast. That’s not the best part though. Engadget decided they’d rather give it away than keep it for themselves so if you want one, now is the time to act! This is, unfortunately, only a contest available to people in the United States but if you’re a Gears of War fan then this is definitely a contest for you!

Follow this link for all the contest details! Act quickly though since you only have until Friday, November 14th.

"Tomorrow is our second birthday, and we're adding to the celebration with more quality Zune products to give you! Thanks to the following Zune accessory makers for being part of our celebration with these giveaways: DLO: DLO leather HipCases for Zune 80, to five Zunerama members! Griffin: a Zune accessory bundle made up of an iClear, iTrip Auto Universal, and Power Duo! Incipio: a Zune two-case bundle - your choice of Incipio leather case and silicone case! Proporta: an Alu-Leather case of your choice!"

Raise your hand if you like prizes! Yeah, I thought so - head on over to Zunerama to check out their birthday giveaways. Congrats on two years Harvey!

"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!

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!

Finding it hard to keep track of all our contests over on Digital Home Thoughts? Here are the contests we've done so far:

• Re-Launch Contest #1: NTI Backup Now 5
• Re-Launch Contest #2: Proporta Mobile Device Chargers
• Re-Launch Contest #3: Corel DVD Copy 6 Plus
• Re-Launch Contest #4: Pinnacle Dazzle Video Creator Platinum
• Re-Launch Contest #5: Roxio Crunch
• Re-Launch Contest #6: Intervideo WinDVD 8 Platinum
• Re-Launch Contest #7: AudioEngine's AW1 Wireless Adapter

Remember all the contests are open for entries until the whole thing shuts down on April 7th (or maybe a bit later if I get more prizes...stay tuned for that!).

There are some disadvantages of being a Zune site staffed, at the moment, by a guy from Canada and a guy from Australia. The first major problem is that because there's no Zune launching here (yet!) there are no events here. I was invited to go to the Zune launch event in Los Angeles that was held a couple of days ago, but after looking at what would be offered, and what wouldn't, I decided to take John Starkweather, a Group Product Manager at Microsoft in the Windows Mobile group, up on his offer to have me come down for a day-long Microsoft campus visit where I'll get a chance to meet with some members of the Zune team, look at some new Windows Mobile stuff, and hopefully chat with someone on the Windows Media team about their massively dysfunctional approach to the Windows Media Video world.

I purchased a last-minute plane ticket (damn those get expensive) and am flying into Seattle on the evening of the 13th. On the morning of the 14th, I'll be going to a retail store to purchased several Zunes (right now it's looking like five or six units). That's something I couldn't have done if I went to the event in LA on the 9th - the invite didn't include a Zune, not even a loaner for review. So it was imperative that I be in the USA on the 14th. I'll spend the remainder of the day on the 14th working on my Zune review, hopefully posting it by that evening. I don't mind saying that it's a little frustrating publishing my first hands-on experience so long after (seemingly) everyone else on the planet has had hands-on time with the Zune, but that's the cards I was dealt. On the 15th, I'll be hitting the Microsoft campus and will hopefully learn some good stuff.

Now here's the part that impacts you: I'll be purchasing one Zune to give away in a contest right here on Zune Thoughts. So if you haven't already registered a user account and posted once to get your account authenticated, do so now so you're ready for the contest. I've also been contacting vendors of Zune accessories, and several have offered up products for review and giveaways. So things are going to start to heat up here at Zune Thoughts - the best is yet to come!