Meant to correspond with the June , 10th release of their DVD Joy Division and Microsoft have teamed up to bring us this limited editions Zune. Complete with etching of cover art from the band's unknown pleasures album (Peter Saville), with it's pulsating ripples. We must admit, we like it  a lot.

[Via Engadget] 

This is pretty cool. Today Giveaway of the Day is giving away Aplus DVD ripping software, now, we've seen many other DVD to Zune software offers before that left a great deal to be desired but this normally sells for $39.99 and they sell a great deal of them I have to let you know. So, if you're in the market for this software to Rip your DVD collection or think you might be down the line, even if you know someone who might be interested. We suggest you head on over to GAOFD and download it at the link here. http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

Remember it's only available today! 

Today we saw an article by Stefan over at IHaveaZune.com, its about his preference in the ongoing batter of words that's been going on of late between tech super-blog's Engadget and Gizmodo. He picks Gizmodo do to their openmindedneess regarding Microsofts little player that could (Zune) over Engadgets typical naysayer attitude regarding the up and coming player.

This doesn't surprise us at all. Gizmodo has been on board with Redmond's answer to the iPod from the start. No matter what their reader's have to say about it, and, some have been pretty critical of Gizmodo's enthusiasm, even so much as to suggest that Microsoft may, in some way, be compensating them for the added exposure from one of the internet's coolest tech blogs.

Some sad news for us in the Zune world. Microsoft has announced that engraving for the Zune over at ZuneOriginals.net is no longer a free service. From this point on it will apparently cost  you $10 for a simple design or $15 for a full “Artist Series” design. Too bad this offer is no longer free, it was one of the reasons Zune appealed so much to some, especially those who like the Zune because it's so different from iPod.

Oh well, I guess the $15 extra is worth it anyway. 

I keep reading hundreds (Literally hundreds) of reports that Microsoft does not plan to release a next gen Zune this Holiday season but rather wait until the next year and have the time frame correspond with the Zune's European emergence. The more I think about this scenario the more ludicrous I think it sounds.

I can't imagine a company that has made great strides into the mp3 player field (You'll notice I didn't state market because I know the numbers are not that great but believe you me this will change very fast, very soon) would wait around while Apple introduces another iPod (Like they do every week - every heard of the iPod InvisiBo "You can't even see it").

I was surfing over at Zuneboards.com today and noticed something interesting, I looked at one of the three polls they currently have running and found a very strange statistic, men apparently prefer Zunes more than women. Perhaps that's a bit confusing, I don't mean to say men prefer them to women but rather more men appear to own a Zune than women. The stats, pictured below:

(Sorry but I can't insert the screencap at this time so I'll just tell you the stats)

Number of voters: 3401. Men: 2951 86.8%. Women: 450 13.2% 

At first I dismissed these numbers as an anomaly, I mean I'm a woman and I have owned a Zune since they were first introduced (I hated my iPods because they would always get scratched up far too quickly or they would just stop working) and I run this website, so Zunes must appeal to women as much as men, right?

Upon further review however I can see that these stats are pretty difficult to refute. I mean they took place over nearly a five month period and with 3400 participants it's kind of hard to just say, well it might be that more men visit this forum or that men are more likely to give their opinion in such polls but no. With those kind of numbers it makes it too difficult to do so. I guess men really do prefer Zunes...