If you want free Zune Downloads, Zune Movies, Zune Music, and more then you've come to the right place!

I update this page every day with the best place that I've found to get unlimited free zune downloads from.

Currently my favorite place is iZuneAccess.com - which has just a small one time fee - and then unlimited downloads for life. 

What is really cool is that they have over 95 Million files available right now. Which is just unbelievably cool if you want to fill your Zune with movies, music, and other stuff.

Another reason why I really love this site is because there are no hidden charges or monthly fee's.

A lot of people don't realize that "cheap monthly fee's" end up costing hundreds of dollars each year. Which is important to remember when you compare the price of unlimited downloading membership sites.

I would never join one which costs money each month! I don't want to waste all of my hard earned cash!

Anyway, go here to check out iZuneAccess and see what you think about it - And then send me a thank you note for showing you the best website on the internet for Zune owners! 

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Regulars to this site will have noticed some terse remarks concerning how Apple is currently behaving in the market place!! So it will not surprise you that I just had to post the following image. Big thumbs up to wheresthebeef.co.uk for this great image!  It shows that we at WOWZUNE are not the only ones taken aback by Apple's current aggressive marketing ploys. We just wonder how they are getting away with tactics that make Microsoft (past Machiavellian tricks) look like an Angel?? 

Nuf said!

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Check out Belkin's latest iPhone cases! Look a bit familiar?

Now every iPhone that has one will be "unintentionally" promoting our favorite!

Now, we would never want to suggest that Apple has become a tad mercenary in recent months (where have all those independent software producers disappeared to? - oh yeah, that's right, they can now be found sucking at Apple's SDK teat (no more free software for them!). And where did those competing iPhone and iPod membership sites disappear to? oh yeah,that's right, Apple got them shut down (Click the links on this review site to see some of the one's that got gunned down!)

So we wonder how long it will be before Belkin is politely "requested" to remove the design now proudly taking center stage on it's front page: 

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I don't own that many Zune Marketplace tracks, perhaps a dozen in total, because I loathe DRM. I really, really dislike it and I'll do almost anything to avoid having to deal with the hassle of authorization because there's always something that goes wrong. As I was browsing through the Zune Marketplace the other way, looking up an artist so I could add her CD to my Amazon.ca wish list, it occurred to me that the Zune Marketplace could add a feature for people like me: an MP3 filter. Meaning, a software toggle that would filter out all the DRM'd music, showing me only the tracks in the Zune Marketplace that are in DRM-free MP3 format. Sure, the catalog would be incredibly small at first, but I'd really enjoy browsing the marketplace and only see music offered that I don't have to think twice about buying. Right now when I see a song I want, and it's not tagged with the little "MP3" icon shown above, I always have a little internal struggle as to how badly I really want the song - and it's never about the cost in points, it's always about the hassles of the DRM.

I just reinstalled the Zune desktop software a couple of days ago (after my install of Windows Vista went belly-up forcing a complete re-format and re-install) and after it scanned my music, videos, and pictures, I was reminded of the truly useless way the Zune software organizes my videos. There are only two sorting options: by Name, or by Date Added. Over a period of months, Date Added starts to actually work (just a little bit), but when you first install the software every single video, regardless of how old it is, it stamped with the same date - which effectively gives you no sorting option at all. Why did the Zune team think this would be useful to the user?


Figure 1: The above videos were created more than three years ago, yet are at the top of my video list as the first videos shown.

What would make much more sense would be to list the files by the created date - because that's the real date of the video, similar to a photo. Sure, it's not entirely perfect because if you digitize a video today of your family holiday from ten years ago, it will be stamped with today's date, but at least the date is relevant to the file: the date you digitized it (and the Created Date can be manipulated via software if you want to really get accurate). The date that the Zune software scanned it has no practical use that I can think of - because even if we're talking about TV shows & movies recorded via Windows Media Center, the file creation date will be the date it was recorded, so those will show up as being newer than most of your other videos.

I'd also like to see a folder-based approach for organizing videos, rather than having a single flat-file approach. Thinking about how your organize and access your videos, how would you like to see the Zune desktop software improved?

One of the new features we got in the second go-around of the Zune was the ability to wirelessly sync your library with your Zune. I really like the addition of this feature even if its not something that I use much. Not at the moment at any rate. I really wouldn't mind setting up stereo dock elsewhere in my house and since I have several floors to my house it would be a pain to have to go get my Zune just to put new music on it. So I appreciate the utility of this feature.

The wireless sync, however, wasn't what some people wanted. No, some people wanted a wireless store. Now, at the time of release I was ok with not having it available. I didn't think WiFi networks were pervasive enough to make it really worth it. I still don't think they really are and I think the Zune team was smart to focus on more usable features for the moment. So why do I bring this up then? Here's a conversation I had at work last week:

Co-Worker: "So can you download music on it?"

Me: "Well, no, but I can wirelessly sync it down from my computer."

Co-Worker: "Ah, that's cool. Too bad you can't buy music on it."

Me: "Yeah..."

I honestly felt a bit stupid since when you say it out loud you realize how much better being able to actually buy music right there would be. I really hope that this is a feature the Zune team can work into Zune firmware 3.0.

Although the recent 2.3 software update included a long list of fixes, I'm seeing things that still need looking after. One of them is the way the Zune software seem to struggle with having an accurate index of the content - either that, or it's an oversight in the user interface. If I type "Jars of Clay", this is the research result I get:



I have 15 Jars of Clay albums, yet it only shows me three. Either the Zune software doesn't realize that there are more than three albums, or the user interface designer forgot to add an "Expand" button next to albums to show the user that there are more than three albums. The latter is somewhat unlikely because it says "(3)" after the word albums, meaning there are only three found.

If I look up the artist manually, I see the correct result of 15 albums:



So...this needs to get fixed!

Well, Tip Tuesday sure fell off hard. I guess there just aren't enough good tips at this stage in the Zune's life (in other words I was too lazy to keep it going), but rest assured that we'll keep posting tips as we receive them. For now, enjoy this set of 10 great tips from Zune.net forum member khu.

Including such classic hits as:

1. Store content on Zune but not on PC
2. Drag and drop from explorer to Collection
3. Copy by Playlist
4. Import playlist
5. View your playcount
6. Shuffle...then shuffle more...
7. Zoom for that closeup
8. Use quicklist to repeat a single song
9. RDS and the FM Radio
10. Find location of file

Props and much love to khu for the detailed explanations. Got any more tips? Post 'em in our forums or the Zune.net forums.

I like speakers that sound good, speakers that have a bit of muscle; that's why I just wasn't all that impressed with the Altec Lansing M604. I've written about the zKICK ZK500 from Kicker before, but since it was hard to make out much detail about the unit from the video I took at CES (YouTube and their low-res quality), I thought I'd upload some sweet high-resolution images.


[click the image above for the 2000 pixel wide JPEG, 879 KB]


[click the image above for the 2000 pixel wide JPEG, 802 KB]

I can't wait to check one of these out when they start shipping!

"In the first two weeks of 2008 the number of people consuming my personal podcast with the Zune is WAY up. Over all my show download numbers are up about 15%. This is the largest growth my show has seen in a very long time. What this proves is that when you put Podcast front and center in the Zune Interface like the Zune team has, and make it a integral part of the Zune MarketPlace people are bound to check podcast out. Where Apple has largely failed in iTunes is that they have made podcast hard to find and a buried feature within the iTunes Interface. Today it is nearly impossible to find content that is fresh, the iTunes podcast interface is a wasteland of thousands of podfaded shows and huge numbers of single podcast episodes put up by network marketer’s."


(Sorry about the tiny image, I couldn't find anything bigger!)

Over at RawVoice, there is an incredibly interesting article up about recent podcasting trends and the Zune. In this instance users of the Zune and Zune Marketplace software make up 21.3% of their listeners! This might not seem like a lot, but take iTunes for instance, whose user base makes up only 38.7% of their listeners. Now seeing how the new Zune software and hardware has only been on the streets for a few months now, compared to the many years iTunes has been around, it appears that Apple might have to start taking the "little media player that could" a bit more seriously. Who knows, old Stevie might just take a look at this and declare that all of the Zune Marketplace users have joined good old Robbie Bach in a round a drinks, since you know, being a drunk is the only reason why anyone would want a Zune.
Now before we all start celebrating here, there is a very serious question that hopefully someone at Microsoft will be kind enough to answer for us. What's next? If the Zune has shown us anything it has above all else shown us that consumers of Microsoft products love their media (minus Jerry ;)). Does this mean that we can expect Microsoft to finally stop neglecting their other platforms, especially our much loved Windows Mobile devices? I hope so! Before the new software for the Zune came out, I listened to a majority of my podcasts via my Windows Mobile Standard device. Sure I could have used my first generation Zune, but to be honest, it would have been to difficult as I would have had to mix my podcasts in with all of my actual albums, which would have been incredibly messy and not to mention tiresome to track down and find in my mess of media. At least with my old Samsung Blackjack, I could download whatever podcast I wanted to listen to, throw it on my microSD card, and after a bit of fiddling get it up and running in Windows Media Player streaming through to my Motorola MOTOROKR S9 Stereo Bluetooth headset. It might have been a huge pain in the rear to do, but it was the lesser of two evils.

Microsoft wouldn't even have to try very hard to integrate something like a separate podcasting category into Windows Media Player as they have for audio, video and TV shows. In fact, there is no reason why they couldn't put a little bit of elbow grease into the project and rip Windows Media Player from all Windows Mobile devices and replace it with a stripped down Zune like application, or something similar that would sync up via the Zune Marketplace. Don't get me wrong, ActiveSync and Windows Mobile Device Center are fantastic applications (that was pure sarcasm for whoever missed it,) but Zune Marketplace, while flawed in some ways, is a gigantic step in the right direction for syncing our media with our devices.

The sheer simplicity of Zune Marketplace has made it so that even my mother could get it up and running with no problems, something that is almost nonexistent in the Windows Mobile world and in my opinion keeps a lot of would be users at bay. Right now Microsoft might be a very distant second in the race for portable media players, but that could all change if someone over there in Redmond woke up and realized that they already have millions upon millions of portable devices already out their in our pockets and we are just dying to get some user friendly media features. We don’t need a Zune phone, we just some dang integration for crying out loud! If Apple has shown us anything, it is that we can have our cake and eat it too.