I’m a big fan of the 3.0 release of the Zune software, and the new 120 GB device. But the best thing about them is that today I can use them in public without having to make sure no-one is watching ;)

For the last couple of months I’ve been dogfooding both the new Zune 120 (great screen, great battery life and, in case you missed it, 120GB of storage!) and various iterations of the new new desktop app and device firmware.

Rather than list all the features head over to Zune.Net and check out the update – it’s free for any Zune device. The official feature list is here.

My personal favorites though are over-the-air access to the Marketplace at Macdonald's (it even works in the drive-through queue!), Purchase from FM (hear a song you like… don’t need to remember it, just add it to your cart) and the games :) The feature that’s been there since day #1 that I still love – WiFi sync… let’s me plug the Zune into my car and update music from the driveway.

So I made my choice.

I got a Black Zune 8GB rather than an iPod Nano.

There were a lot of factors in the decision (I probably spent way too many cycles thinking about this purchase!)

Initial impression out of the box is good. Nice packaging and the battery had enough charge to play while the software was installing and configuring.

It feels nice in the hand, though (like my Shadow which is bears a resemblance to) it does show fingerprints - the black gloss and the glass screen need some texture! Given the shiny nature I'd expected to find a cloth case in the box but it's pretty minimal - and the official case was brown!

Build quality seems pretty high on the unit. It feels quite solid, especially compared to the rather plastic nano. There's one seam (the small silver insert at the top) that's not quite flush but I don't think that'll be a problem.

I've had a lot of problems getting it to do a WiFi sync. I was impressed that it was able to connect to my protected network, but it's proven to be a little unreliable staying connected - I've yet to manage a sync unless it's cabled.

Sound quality is great. Even on the pretty nasty earbuds in comes with it's clear and crisp. Certainly better than the iPod I had before. The earbuds themselves are a let down - pretty cheap feel (though I like the magnetic attraction to reduce tangle.. though could be stronger). I hate having to wrestle those stupid foam covers onto them though.

I'm not sure I'm sold on the ZunePass. $15/mo for unlimited tunes sounds good, but I've not had much luck browsing round the selection yet. It'll be interesting to see how that market evolves over time. It would be nice if the device came with a months access out of the box as a taster.

I like the fact that the Social tracks what I listened to on the Zune as well as the desktop client but I hate the face I can't scrobble that data (rather anti-social!) and I'm really annoyed that we couldn't sort out my account nickname to move it from AU to US so I've had to create a new identity for Zune and Xbox (to which I have little or no emotional connection).

There's lots of little things I dislike about the desktop app and the device UI but a lot of that may be lack of familiarity. We'll see in a week. I'm hoping Microsoft continue to evolve (in a good way) and keep upgrading the firmware...

Now off to load up some music and videos and have a play!

My trusty old iPod is finally dying on me... battery doesn't even last through a flight to San Francisco any more!

I'm not a huge fan of carrying multiple devices - if I had my way I'd just stick music onto the 4GB microSDHD card in my T-Mo Shadow but the non-standard speaker connection (the phone headset isn't really hi-fi!) and the battery life mean I probably won't want to do that with a full day of travel.

So, the top 2 tiny music players are the iPod Nano and the Zune Flash. Both are 8gb, about the same size and match on a bunch of features (the iPod screen is a bit bigger, the Zune has an FM tuner etc)

iPod means I'm stuck installing iTunes which is a horrible piece of software (I like it on the Mac, but on the PC it just doesn't play well) vs the Zune which has a great desktop client from what folks tell me.

I have iPod accessories (car adapter, home stereo adapter with remote control) but we don't use them that often these days (Satellite radio and a 6 CD stacker in-dash in the car, and Logitech Squeezebox streaming music at home), I don't buy DRM music so iTunes Music Store and MS Marketplace are not really going to be much influence.

Guess I'll have to see which fits the hand better and make a choice. Of check out what Creative and others have

I just got a new set of speakers for the living room. While they're not high end audio for a family room where ease of use is pretty important the Logitech Z-5500 seem to fit right in.

Of course out of the box all the cables are the wrong length and we're going to have to move some stuff around but it was really easy to get it set up and wired into the main audio source via digital co-ax and the Media Center PC via the (supplied) 3x3.5mm adapters. Unfortunately (and if I'd have read the small print) there's no optical links (or co-ax) where supplied so I've got to pick one up tomorrow to finish getting the TV and XBox360 all plugged in.

I love the wireless remote. It's a big step up on what we had in the living room for the first few months.

The Z-5500s are replacing a Z4 2.1 setup (also Logitech) which have now been banished down to the rumpus room where Rhiannon has her PC, the washing machine and my elliptical all live. The main reason for them going down there is to let me not have to reply on the iPod when I'm working out, and let Rhiannon stream music from upstairs when she's doing her homework.

For cheaper, low-end speakers the sound from the Z4s have impressed me over the last few months. The subwoofer makes that little bit of difference over the usual run of the mill "PC" speakers and it's robust enough to have taken a few knocks so I'm hoping they'll do well in the rougher environment downstairs.

So for both the living room and rumpus downstairs music is a pretty important part of the equation. With three of us living here with fairly varied musical tastes (if you look at my Last.FM listing it's very different to Storms!).

We could have solved the problem with CD players and physical disks but it all seemed too messy and low-tech, and with the Windows Home Server sitting upstairs a fairly obvious solution was to install SqueezeCenter and get a couple of SqueezeBoxes.

The SqueezeCenter (frankly I prefer it's previous name of SlimServer, but since Logitech has purchased SlimDevices they've gone through a bit of a re-branding) runs quietly upstairs merrily cataloguing and of our CDs that we rip to the network and allows us to play them back on either Squeezebox (independently if upstairs and downstairs are catering to different people) or synchronized so you can wander around the house and not miss a beat.

You can control the Squeezeboxes either from their own remotes, or a Logitech Harmony remote, via a web browser (the SqueezeCenter has a Web interface to control the players) or various 3rd party utilities. We use all four methods depending on who is doing what where!

Annoyingly even though Logitech have purchased SlimDevices they have not yet released any integrated products. I would love to see the Squeezebox able to control the speakers (on/off, select the correct input source etc) - especially with the top-of-the-line Z-5500s, but both they and the Z4s have control inputs so I hope we'll see something on the market that uses the SqueezeBox IrBlaster connection to directly control the speakers. As it is, when I'm done on the Elliptical I have to turn a couple of things off, instead of just one.

The other annoyance with the Z-5500s is that they're not that smart. When there's no input for (say) a couple of minutes I'd want them to go into standby, and wake up when there is input. They seem to auto-select based on a hierarchy (optical, coax digital then analogue) which is cool but it would be neat for me to be able to pre-define that (say) the coax input should always be Dolby Digital music and the XBo360x/TV optical input should always optimize for TV/Movie. I guess that's another price point though.

Oh, and while I love the Squeezebox because when it's off the screen dims (or goes completely blank - that's user configurable) both the speakers display a garish blue light when they are on, and the Z-5500s have a red glow when they are in standby mode.

As I've mentioned before I'm a fan of Pandora and I've been following some of the issues around the SoundExchange Royalty Rate battle.

Initially I thought that the only option was for Federal Govt to rein in SoundExchange to ensure any increase was fair and equitable but thanks to a strong proponent of Objectivism I'm finding out that there's more to the story and more ways to solve this problem.

I suspect the answer lies somewhere between the two extremes, but I certainly feel some form of facilitator is needed simply to ensure the process can scale. How the facilitator would be funded and overseen... that's a whole new can of worms!

Thanks to Darren for the perspective, and thanks to AppScout for pointing me his way.