Zune is really pushing the advertising on the all you can eat subscription model. With the Zune Pass you can pay $14.99 a month and then have your choice of all the DRM music you can eat.

There are several examples I could use that should discourage even the most ardent music lover from this choice of music purchase. For me, however, the main issue is the way I use and consume music. The DRM tether of the Zune Pass means that you are only renting (or leasing) the music. As soon as you stop paying you stop playing!

My problem with buying music is not the fact that I cannot get lots of it, but that I cannot find lots of quality music that I enjoy. So for me the quantity is less important than quality. Usually when I find a great musician\artist I will enjoy it for several months at a time and then that music becomes part of my history ... the play list of my life if you will ;)

I am willing to admit that others may not have such an organic relationship to music and that treating music like chewing gum and moving to the next piece is a reasonable paradigm. Or indeed, gorging on as much music as possible regardless of the quality may seem like a fine way to dine. Or simply paying the $14.99 to test the music and then maybe purchase what you really like later ... isn't that rent to buy ... no thank you! I prefer my music à la carte not buffet!

Unfortunately I am the only person in our group from the Dublin office, its like working from home except there are a lot of people around. This does means that I spend a lot of time on the phone for conference meetings, training sessions, one on one calls, you name it and I am on the phone communicating it. In order to help navigate this phone support I have been given a nice headset that allows me to keep my hands free while I spend my 2 hours per day (average) on the phone.

One thing that is beginning to really grate my nerves during meetings is the lack of awareness, on the side of the speaker\trainer, of microphone placement. Usually conferences I am involved with go well, right up until the question and answer session. It usually goes like this:

SPEAKER: "... I hope that was helpful to you guys. Are there any questions at this point? ... yes ... you in the back."
VOICE 1: "mumble ... mumble ... mumble ... mumble ... and ... mumble ... mumble ... mumble?"
SPEAKER: "Good question and the answer is yes, yes we should!"

Aaaaahhhh! I am left helpless, having no idea what the question was, and only occasionally can I discern the nature of the question from the answer. It is starting to get really old! In small groups this is not an issue, but large groups tend to consume the thoughts of the speaker and we phone prisoners get no joy.

So what is the solution? The main moderator\speaker should always repeat the question for people that are at a distance from the phone. For example:

SPEAKER: "... I hope that was helpful to you guys. Are there any questions at this point? ... yes ... you in the back."
VOICE 1: "mumble ... mumble ... mumble ... mumble ... and ... mumble ... mumble ... mumble?"
SPEAKER: "So the question was 'Should we be preparing for next quarter and the following year?'. The answer is yes, yes we should!"

By simply repeating the question you easily ensure everyone knows where the conversation is headed. Just simple common sense.

This is the Zune update that I have really been waiting for, TV shows are here at last! It really helps lessen the gap between iTunes and and the Marketplace. I am not sure I really want to buy TV shows for casual viewing, that is why I have a 50" TV and a DVR, but at least if I decide to go to England later this year I can watch a bucket load of shows during the 8+ hour flight.

Some of the other key features are listed here.

A More Integrated Way to Manage and Enjoy Entertainment

Responding directly to customer feedback, Zune has updated and added features and functionality to address better integration between the software, the online music community and the store. In addition, the updates include frequently requested features such as the ability to sync multiple Zune players at once. Specific feature updates include the following:

• Auto playlists. Users can create an auto playlist that updates itself automatically as new music is added.

• Browsing videos. Consumers can browse their video collection by genre and series, plus they can preview videos before they play them on full screen.

• Editing album and track information. Users are able to edit track or album information (metadata) quickly via multi-select and drag-and-drop. The advanced metadata editing features make it easy to edit multiple tracks or survey albums and artist information.

• Organizing collections. In addition to sorting by artist or album, consumers can now sort by genre. While browsing by genre they can further sort music by artist, album or release year.

• Gapless playback. Consumers will now be able to listen to an album without the brief gap between tracks, both on their Zune and in the Zune software. This is a must-have for live-concert recordings and compilation albums.

• Syncing groups. Zune software now syncs to multiple Zune players simultaneously. Users can prepare which content on their computer to sync even when their Zune isn’t connected. Consumers can create custom sync groups for music, pictures and videos.

• Zune reminders. Experience is improved when a Zune player’s memory is nearing capacity, via an easy-to-use tool.

I still believe my initial reaction for U-verse was justified and that they provide a pretty awesome service with a very advanced feature set . However there are a couple of things that I was misled about.

Firstly, there is no UPnP, you simply cannot access resources on your network ;( ... What they do have is a widget that allows you to access photos via Flickr, but that is hardly the same thing, to be clear this is a feature of Microsoft Media Room, just not U-verse.

My initial reaction to only having bandwidth for a maximum one HD channel at a time was a simple shrug and a smile. However, now that I am fully enjoying the benefits of HD the fact that I cannot record 1 HD channel while viewing another is starting to really grate my nerves. I have a wonderful 50" Samsung that took me many months to save for, my set top box (Motorola VIP1216) has 160GB hard drive and I am simply not recording as much HD as I would.

So what does the future hold for U-verse? It should start with making good on the promises of Media Room, however, the major updates for 2008 are as follows:

• Introduce the ability to watch or record two HD programs simultaneously (2nd-3rd quarter 2008).
• Plans to begin introducing Whole-Home DVR (2nd half 2008).

I am going to treat myself to the best restaurant east of the Mississippi ... Taco Bell ;)

I was greeted by a friendly message box from FolderShare today informing me of what turns out to be the first major update since being acquired by Microsoft. I had to dig around for a list of what actually changed, but I find the following on the FolderShare blog site.

Thanks for your patience while we roll out our first major update. Some users have reported having problems with the new website and the new version of FolderShare for Windows. We’re happy to anounce that we've posted updates to address the majority of those concerns.

What we've addressed

• The problem some users had with Windows Vista and Windows XP failing to respond.
• All known website sign-in and library management problems.
• The version number typo on the download webpage.
• The difficulties that users of the IOMEGA external hard drive had with the website. Users may need to re-sync their PC libraries now that we've fixed that. (By the way, syncing with the actual devices isn't supported anymore, which we warned about in the previous blog post.)

FolderShare has been a great addition to the backup and file redundancy strategy of our house, and it is very light weight addition to the system tray ;) Download here.