Hosting websites is not rocket science but it seems like lots of web hosting companies just cannot get their services straight and we still have trouble with bad hosting companies and unscrupulous business owners.

I received a phone call about a week ago from a man who had a Zune domain he was prepared to build a site on. He got the domain from his web hosting company. He should have done some research on web hosting using one of the many web host review sites online because his hosting company cost him dearly.

The company offered free domains with hosting packages and this guy prepaid for two years on a great Zune domain (soon to be released as our new hacks site) but somehow never used it. He had the account and was told he needed to renew his domain. He paid the hosting company who I assume was supposed to pay the domain fees but they failed to do so and ended up going out of business before this guy could get his domain back.

I bought the domain on the domain aftermarket and he contacted me rather upset that he had lost his domain. I told him I was going to build the site and use the domain in conjunction with my plans to expand this site. He says he’s going to sue his web host for the money they charged his credit card but he is no longer looking for his domain.

If you find yourself in similar circumstances it may pay to find a better web hosting service using review sites like WebHostingGeeks.com

Popularity: 11% [?]

Here is the RSS link to mp3 and mp4 files from the ZuneInsider podcast. These Zune downloads are available for free to anyone looking for free downloads for their Zune or even their iPod.

Just click on the link below and you can either subscribe with your Zune player using the settings you have in your Zune software. You can also use your favorite RSS reader such as Google Reader or my favorite Firefox.

http://zuneinsider.feeds.zune.net/rss

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A special edition Gears of War II Zune 120 has been announced. The new Zune 3 device is being released along with the latest edition of the gory Xbox game. Gears of War fans who want to show their pride with a new mp3 player will be able to order the special edition Zunes online for a limited time.

Gears of War 2 canvasses special-edition Zune - Engadget

Microsoft couldn’t let the gory, highly-anticipated launch of Gears of War 2 (chainsaw duels! Rhhhahaararggg!) pass without bloodying a Zune or three in the process, Halo 3-style. Specifically, Microsoft has laser-etched that pesky little “Crimson Omen” onto a glossy black Zune 120, pre-loaded the device with 244 pieces of “Gears of War” media — the soundtrack, concept art, behind-the-scenes vids and so forth, nothing you won’t be able to find elsewhere — and squeezed it all into some “collectible” Gears packaging, featuring our testosterone-addled protagonist pondering the meaning of life.

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Seems Zune originals is the only place you can get Blue, Green, Pink and Red Zune players. Along with the custom engraved Zune players you can buy from Microsoft their online store is the only place to get any other color besides black which is what is being released to stores for the holidays.

What color Zune do you want?

Zune updates Originals store with new designs | Crave, the gadget blog - CNET

It may be worth it, however, since Microsoft is stating that the only way for customers to currently get their hands on red, green, pink, and blue versions of the new 16GB Zune is to order directly through the Zune Originals online storefront. Brick and mortar stores will only be seeing the black versions of the new 16GB and 120GB third-generation Zunes (at least, for now).

Technorati Tags: zune, zune original, red zune, blue zune, pink zune, green zune

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Nokia and Microsoft working to bring Zune marketplace to Nokia handsets?

If the majority of new products and services from wireless carriers and handset manufacturers recently seems to be an answer to something from Apple, it’s probably because it is. Sure, Apple’s iPhone, iPhone 3G, iTunes integration, and AppStore may not be directly responsible for all of the wireless industry’s recent advancements, but Cupertino’s entry in to the mobile space certainly sparked a new appreciation among manufacturers and service providers for sleek and integrated user interfaces that deliver a user experience to be desired.

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Recordnet.com: “Zune-Arts.net” website review

By Michael Jimenez
Middle College High School
March 06, 2008 6:00 AMZune-Arts.net

This is a friendly Web campaign focused on promoting emerging artists. The page contains the collaborated works of individuals taking advantage of the advertising the site provides.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Zune.net | The Good, The Bad & The Queen - Artist Profile Page

The Good, The Bad & The Queen began life in the Aphrodisia Studios in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2004. Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) and guitarist Simon Tong (The Verve) had travelled to Lagos to record with veteran drummer and Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen (Africa 70, Fela Kuti). Working with local musicians, the trio recorded an album’s worth of material. Back in England, Damon was finishing off Gorillaz’ Demon Days album and the project went on the back burner.

By the time they came back to it−and when Damon gave the recordings to producer Brian ‘Danger Mouse’ Burton−feelings about the record had changed. “When Brian came on board it really started to become, The Good, The Bad & The Queen. I started writing about this area−West London−and coming to define here and why I think it’s such a special place to live,” said Albarn.

The final collaborator to come in to the studio was Clash bassist−and West London native−Paul Simonon, and the album was finished by early summer 2006.

The result is a record specific to a place and a time but with a background that is geographically wide-ranging and stretches far back into a glittering musical past. The Good, The Bad & The Queen traces a journey from the English music hall tradition, over to West Africa for Afrobeat, zigzagging through the West Indies and its reggae and dub, back to England and London’s punk scene, all the while taking in a strand of British beat music from the ’50s right through to Britpop.

Preview and download their self-titled album, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, on Zune Marketplace today.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Zune.net | Animal Collective - Artist Profile Page

Friends and musical partners since 1992, core members Avey Tare (a.k.a. David Porter) and Panda Bear (a.k.a. Noah Lennox) came together in 2000 with the intention of moving pop music in a direction that would place heavy emphasis on sonic experience. Soon after this, they began operating as Animal Collective, an umbrella name now used for a grouping of four people.

Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist (a.k.a. Brian Weitz), and Deaken (a.k.a. Conrad Deaken) play together under different names and in different configurations. Their releases are always prone to continual musical change: from beautifully skewed pop ballads to fiercely ruptured noise-squalls to tribal rhythmic work-outs to simple folk songs, to who knows where; from fully orchestrated group freak-outs to the intimacy of an acoustic duo.

In whatever formation, Animal Collective is a genuinely thrilling live unit, passionately committed and unafraid to put themselves on the line.

The Collective’s first offering was a stunning collaboration between Avey Tare and Panda Bear called Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, released on their own label Animal in August of 2000. A second album, Danse Manatee was released by Catsup Plate in July 2001, which was accompanied by a month-long U.S. tour with their friends Black Dice. The next year they released a limited-edition, vinyl-only on St.Ives (a sub-label of Secretly Canadian) called Hollinndagain, which was made up of recordings from live shows.

In 2003, they released Campfire Songs, a collection of songs recorded live on a screened-in porch in rural Maryland on Catsup Plate, Here Comes the Indian on Carpark’s imprint label Paw Tracks, and three tracks from Avey Tare also appeared on a Split 12″ shared with David Grubbs. The next year, the group released their twisted yet masterly pop album, Sung Tongs, and followed it with the album Feels, which was released in October of 2005.

The group’s first release of 2007, People, features three previously unreleased tracks (plus one live version), which were recorded at the same sessions as the band’s hugely successful Feels album.

Preview and download Animal Collective’s songs on Zune Marketplace today.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Zune.net | Rodrigo y Gabriela - Artist Profile Page

Rodrigo (Sanchez) and Gabriela (Quintero) are two fast-fingered, Dublin-based, Mexicans with a unique sound created on acoustic guitars. Their music is difficult to define, straddling both world and rock, and often filled with timeless Hispano−classical influences. The fire in it comes from their life-long passion for metal music.

The duo’s repertoire flies beyond familiar Latin folk guitarists’ styles because of the metal connection: their re-workings of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Metallica’s “Orion,” and the presence, on “Ixtapa,” of the fiery Hungarian gypsy violinist, Roby Lakatos.

The musicians met as teenagers at the Casa de Cultura (Culture House) in Mexico City. Rodrigo was playing drums in a band that changed its name to Tierra Acida (Acid Earth) when Gabriela joined them on guitar. Tierra Acida played in Mexico City’s roughest clubs and lived off day jobs. They recorded an album but wouldn’t sign the record contract, planning instead to concentrate on learning more guitar styles. In fact, they just hung out with friends and survived by playing bossa nova, a style of Brazilian music, in hotel bars before they decided to travel to Europe.

Their first port of call was Dublin, Ireland, in 1999. The city was booming with new music venues, galleries, and a thriving rock scene. The two Mexicans found themselves jamming with local folk musicians in the bars. Next, they moved to Denmark, which inspired two numbers on their album, “Diablo Rojo,” a scary roller-coaster ride in the city, and “Viking Man,” their nickname for a homeless man they befriended, and then to Barcelona before returning to Dublin after they were asked to play the newly opened Sugar Club. Damian Rice, then a busking friend, invited them to support his shows, and in 2003, they released Re-Foc, and a year later, Live Manchester and Dublin, which both launched them onto the World Music circuit.

The duo’s influences range from family salsa records to Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Queen, and Led Zeppelin. But, crucially, they grew up during Mexico’s “metal era.”

Mentions of flamenco influences raise sharp responses: “To many music fans, it sounds like flamenco, and we’re great flamenco fans, but we don’t play it,” says Gabriela. “The only similarity is that our music is guitar music and it’s very rhythmic.”

Rodrigo and Gabriela describe their style as “Fusion music.” “It’s mainly got Latin harmonies and rhythms but the structure is rock. It’s not jazz because it’s structured, and we don’t improvise; our solos are exactly what’s on the record, as a metal fan and guitarist you always want to hear the same solo,” the groups says.

Check out the duo’s latest album, Rodrigo y Gabriela, on Zune Marketplace!

Popularity: 41% [?]

Zune.net | Every Move a Picture - Artist Profile Page

Childhood friends Brent Messenger (singer/guitar) and Joey Fredrick (bass) had been playing in various bands throughout the early 2000s (at times with drummer Dan Aquino), but Every Move a Picture wasn’t officially born until early 2004 when Allen Davis (guitar/keyboard) joined the band through a Craigslist posting.

Setting up in a friend’s rehearsal space and spending a grand total of $290, the band recorded three songs: “Signs of Life,” “Chemical Burns” and “12AM.” Suddenly they were blaring out of the radio in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The songs also filtered across the Atlantic to the U.K.−with XFM spinning the band’s tracks and Steve Lamacq playing “Signs of Life” on Radio 1.

Back home, the Every Move a Picture fan base was rapidly growing as they played various underground dance parties in lofts and bars, before moving on to San Francisco’s prestigious Popscene club, and support slots with the Kaiser Chiefs and Louis XIV.

Soon after, the band released the five-song EP Blink and You’ll Miss It, with those original three tracks along with two others (”You’re So Predictable” and “St. John’s Night.”) This made it into the hands of leading tastemaker Nic Harcourt on L.A.’s uber-hip KCRW station, who immediately took to the band’s energy, offering them their first live radio session. Next up, a slew of licenses for the band’s music, from TV shows such as One Tree Hill, to various computer games, as the band’s dance punk grooves were compared favorably to everyone from Interpol and The Rapture, to The Killers.

Before any official release appeared overseas, Every Move a Picture played their first U.K. gigs to overwhelming response. The London-based label Something in Construction then issued a 7″ containing the songs “Signs of Life” and “Chemical Burns,” which promptly sold out the week of release.

And somewhere amidst all this the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festival called, inviting the band for a slot on the Carling Stage. They also played the Live 105 B.F.D. radio festival in San Francisco alongside Foo Fighters, Hot Hot Heat, and Ash.

In July 2006, Every Move a Picture released their anticipated full-length debut album Heart=Weapon that you can preview and download on Zune Marketplace. You can also listen to their song “Signs of Life,” which is preloaded into every Zune.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Zune.net | The Pierces - Artist Profile Page

Born and raised in Alabama but currently residing in New York, Allison and Catherine Pierce are the harmonizing sisters behind the duo The Pierces. Homeschooled by their painter mother and guitar-wielding father, the two girls were encouraged in the arts from a young age, and quickly learned to play guitar and harmonize.

In 2000 they released their full-length, self-titled debut album. After a couple of years of struggling with their first record label, the sisters decided it was time for a change. They ended the relationship and moved to New York City where they performed acoustically at clubs and residences around town.

The Pierces released their second album, Light of the Moon, in 2004 under a new label. Produced by Brian Sperber, the record is filled with radio-friendly melodies with touches of folk and country. The duo recently returned from Europe after opening for Albert Hammond, Jr., band member of The Strokes, on a tour for his solo project.

Their upcoming album, Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge, released by Lizard King Records is scheduled to hit stores on March 20, 2007.

Check out the music video for their latest song “Boring.” And download their music on Zune Marketplace today.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Zune.net | Natasha - Artist Profile Page

While working at a sandwich shop during her junior year in high school, Natasha was introduced to Grammy Award-winning super producer Rodney Jerkins.After seeing her sing and dance just once, Jerkins invited Natasha to his Darkchild studio to record what would ultimately become her first two smashes, “So Sick” and “Hey Hey Hey.”A short time later she was signed to Jive Records through Jerkins’ Darkchild Entertainment.

“This is a dream come true for me,” beams Natasha. After years of dancing in the family room of her parents’ home she finally puts her moves to work in her debut video for “Hey Hey Hey.”

Download Natasha’s biggest hit, “So Sick” for free on Zune Marketplace. Hurry up! Offer ends soon.

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It’s true - we have a pink Zune hitting retail stores starting in May. We’re doing a limited run of 100,000 devices, and they’ll be sold in the same retail channels where Zune is sold. Here’s a new photo that one of the designers just sent over:

 
It’s interesting: it seems like technology design is mirroring fashion. We’re looking at trends in the coming fashion seasons as we develop new colors.

<Edit 2:57 PM> - added the group shot.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Zune.net | Bloc Party - Artist Profile Page

Bloc Party is formed by Kele Okereke, Russel Lissack, Gordon Moakes, and Matt Tong. Inspired by Sonic Youth, Joy Division, Gang of Four, and The Cure, the South London art-punkers were once known as Angel Range and Union. Their first demo was released in early 2003. Later that year, they switched their name to Bloc Party.

After playing for a few months, the band started to attract attention from both the press and other musicians. Franz Ferdinand invited them to play at the Domino tenth anniversary party later in 2003. They released their first single, “She’s Hearing Voices” on Trash Aesthetics the next year.

During the spring of 2004, the band signed a contract to release their debut full-length album, Silent Alarm, in the U.K., which arrived in the United States in 2005. The British music weekly NME made it their Album of the Year in 2005 and Silent Alarm was on the U.K. album charts for 69 weeks. Bloc Party’s success has continued to grow ever since.

After being on tour for almost two years, the band has just released their second album, A Weekend in the City, which is an electrifying and staggeringly direct chronicle of post-millennial Britain, with bold lyrics and invigorating music.

Download Bloc Party’s albums from Zune Marketplace today.

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Kudos to Harvey from Zunerama - he just announced today that he’s going to be co-authoring Zune for Dummies. Awesome. I personally can’t think of someone better to write it, albeit my experience w/ Zune is that it’s easy enough to use to not warrant a “for Dummies” book, although there is an Etiquette for Dummies, iPod/iTunes for Dummies, Stretching for Dummies, and way more than you would think.

 (Not only is he writing the book - he’s also posing for the cover!  (I keed, I keed))

In all seriousness, please join me in congratulating Harvey on the book deal. See, it pays to be in the social

In unrelated news, I didn’t do a Free Stuff Monday this week, but you can win a Zune Tank Case from this thread at ‘rama. Go check it out!

Popularity: 13% [?]

Lots of commenters - in this site and others - have observed that the Zune team needs to have more advertising. And that the advertising needs to showcase differentiating features like the large screen, customization and wireless. Well, starting next month, we’re launching a second wave of advertising. Read more about the upcoming campaign in this article in The Street.

As always, when the ads are final, I’ll post them here for you to see. Hope everybody had a great weekend!

Popularity: 13% [?]

Zune.net | Vieux Farka Touré - Artist Profile Page

Since his childhood, Vieux Farka Touré has been deeply inspired by the music of his father, the two-time Grammy Award-winner Ali Farka Touré. Growing up in Mali’s capital, Bamako, as well as in his father’s hometown of Niafunké in the Sahara desert, Touré proved himself a precocious talent as a drummer and calabash player.

But, having long suffered in the music industry before finally finding a home with World Circuit Records, his father did not want him to face the same hardships. He forbid Touré to play music and decided that his son should become a soldier instead.

In 1999, Touré decided to take his destiny into his own hands. He enrolled in the National Arts Institute in Bamako, Mali, openly defying his father’s wishes. It was there that he truly discovered his musical calling, picking up the guitar and beginning to compose his own music. By the time he left the school, he was already a locally celebrated guitar virtuoso.

A few years later, Touré and producer Eric Herman started working on his solo, self-entitled debut album, released in early 2007 by Modiba Productions. The album also features the only existing recordings of father and son playing together, and is amongst the final recorded material of Ali Farka Touré before his death.

Touré has crafted a global-minded style all his own. With flourishes of rock and reggae amidst Saharan blues and traditional Malian melodies, the musician ushers in the next generation of Mali blues.

Download the debut album from Vieux Farka Touré on Zune Marketplace today.
Written by Alfred @ Zune MAX - Visit my Zune Card in the Zune forums now!

Popularity: 14% [?]

Tags: Music, The Zune, Zune, Zune Artist, Zune.net, zune, zune artist

Zune.net | Thomas Dolby - Artist Profile Page

For over two decades Thomas Dolby Robertson has combined music and technology to great effect. The advent of MTV brought Dolby his initial exposure in the early 1980’s. His intelligent videos stood out from the pack, and his songs “She Blinded Me with Science” and “Hyperactive” became huge hits that have stood the test of time. His keyboard and production work put him in the studio with the likes of David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Foreigner, Joni Mitchell, and George Clinton. Numerous awards and five Grammy nominations later, Dolby had achieved worldwide recognition as an artist.

Recognizing the opportunities for digital distribution of music via the Internet as early as 1994, Thomas became a spokesman for a generation of musicians eager to change the entrenched business models of the music industry. He was determined to make music a core component of the emerging World Wide Web. His startup company Beatnik wrote the audio layer of Java and created the first interactive music sites on the Web.

Now retired from Beatnik, Dolby is musical director of the annual Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference, and has returned to the stage taking his one-man Sole Inhabitant Tour around the U.S. and Europe. He released a live DVD and CD of the tour on Nov. 14, 2006. Dolby will play the famous SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2007, while preparing material for his next studio album.

Download the music of Thomas Dolby on Zune Marketplace today. Check his tour dates and watch him live at SXSW.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Looks like a few Zune websites I visit regularly have some cool contests going on right now. Here goes:

• 
  
  First up, ‘Max is doing a drawing for a Zune player. If you already have a Zune, tell a friend!


• 
  
  You can also win a Zune player by mentioning Zune in your blogsite, and then leaving a comment on A Yoga Coffee Outlook.


• 
  
  Generation Zune and IWAPZ are teaming up to bring you The Pink Power Challenge: 2.




• 
  
  I had previously linked to the PPC Part 1, which was also cool.


• 
  
  And last but certainly not least, our buddies at Zunecorps want to give away a Speck case.

Did I miss any? Let me know; I’ll edit the post. Who knows, if there are enough of these, I’ll maybe create a weekly post called “Free stuff monday” (or something more clever.)

Popularity: 18% [?]