Posted 10/02/2009 at 10:50:15am

That was the best Podcast I've heard from MaxPC in years.  Lloyd Case lends serious credence and authority to a lot of the stuff you guys talk about.  I used to listen to him religiously on ExtremeTech.  I daresay I learned more from him on PC's than from MaxPC (I'm not a gamer and that's what you guys tend to focus 80% of the time on).

After Lloyd was let go from that other computer mag company filled with bozos and egomaniacs who offered nothing except their whiny off-base opinions, I was very sad and feared for the computer journalism industry.  I immediately stopped listening to their podcast, and buying their stupid magazine when he left.  You seriously need to consider hiring Lloyd!!!

Oh, and when are you guys going to list your podcast on the Zune Marketplace???  You promised that over a year ago with no results.  (All BS?)  I'm surprised Gordon hasn't ranted about your podcast only being on ITunes?

Posted 09/15/2009 at 10:13:02pm

I tried buying the Zune HD with the coupon code above.  No good.  Dell says something about the item not meeting the coupon criteria.

Once again, this MaxPC website has led me astray....

Posted 05/12/2009 at 04:31:02pm

Does this mean no more stupid Sony Memory Stick formats?  I refused to buy any Sony cameras, MP3 players etc. because of their stubborn insistence on selling a proprietary format that (was supposed to) lined their pockets but did not offer any advantage over SD cards?

Posted 03/26/2009 at 05:04:34pm

Pretty soon, there will be NO good jobs in the USA.  How do we put a stop to this outsourcing to overseas?  Let's Boycott anyone who lays off, and then turns around and hires overseas people.  I have nothing against other people and countries, but when is enough enough? 

Posted 02/07/2009 at 11:16:25am

I'm ticked at you guys for having the "Read More" button click (The stupid "jump") with nothing on the next page.  Or the lame one more sentence or whatever.  It happens way too frequently.  You may want to stop always putting the "jump" in there no matter what.

By the way, what is your "very good reason" to doubt Windows XP Home installed on this computer?   And no wild ass guess as to what OS will be installed?

Posted 01/28/2009 at 09:00:06pm

Why is the writer of this article so against the Zune (see comments like "How much longer can Zune hoodwink it's fate"?)  Please only REPORT the news.  Your opinion should be clearly stated, instead of writing like it's a fact.  Don't you realize that the way you write is biased, and can cause damage to a good unit?  Your opinion might be creating a bigger monopoly than the Ipod already is if your writing kills off the Zune.

My Zune 80 is my 6th MP3 player. I've owned recent Ipods (big and little) Creative Zen, and Creative Zen Micro.  I feel the Zune 80GB player is the best player I've ever had, and I love it.  The Zune PC software is a little weird (although easy to use), but the player itself is wonderful.  After owning it for 14 months of using it every day for 4-6 hours, I'm still extremely happy with it.  It's a wonderful video player and FM radio also.

By the way, the Zunes you are showing above are the ancient Zune 30GB players.  Is that what you were writing about?  Or have you even tried the Zune?  The newer Zunes have been out for over a year and are much better.  They have been getting rave reviews by competing computer magazines.  Let's get current, and stop being an Apple fanboy simply because Steve Jobs wants you to be!

Posted 10/02/2008 at 09:10:54am

Food for thought people.... this royalty price hike will affect all downloaded music sources, including Amazon, Zune store, etc.  I hope Apple wins in their bold "brinksmanship" stand with the MPAA, as they are usually unreasonable Aholes as we all know.

 The article mentions a 66% royalty increase.  That does NOT mean that songs will go from say $1 per song to $1.66.  The article should have mentioned what the royalty is NOW in real dollars to see how "unreasonable" a 66% increase would be.  Is the current royalty 1 cent? 5 cents?  10 cents out of a $1 purchased song??  We NEED to know, otherwise you are acting as Apple's mouthpiece in your article.  If it's only a few cents, then Apple most likely will not go broke, and we most likely won't pay much more per song.

I personally like Amazon MP3 downloads over Zune or iTunes, as Amazon songs are DRM free (don't cause problems with hardware) and a reasonable price.  I DO NOT STEAL MUSIC and neither should you.  Stealing music (filesharing), hurts the artists, and hurts your integrity. 

If this royalty increase goes to the artists, then it might be OK if the increase is a few more cents.  If it goes mostly to the MPAA and their legal lackeys, then heck with that.  I'll start buying CD's again and ripping the (non DRM) songs to my Zune and iPod again.  If CD prices go up too much too, then I'll just stop buying them and listen to the radio!

Posted 09/04/2008 at 09:43:19pm

Hi guys,

I'm usually a big fan of the Podcast and the Magazine, but I've noticed a steady decline in both in the last few months.  This last podcast was ALL BS.  Hardly any real content.  Not real entertaining either.

Are you guys spending 90% of your work day playing games and going to non-events like Comic Con?  You're supposed to be a PC magazine, not a gaming magazine for teens!  Let's get real here.

Posted 08/19/2008 at 10:24:24pm

I've been using Sync Toy for about a year now on XP.  It's got to be one of the best pieces of software to come out of Microsoft -- probably because a few guys wrote it as a side project without all the beureaucratic bozos ruining it. I'm glad they added the functions of folder pair renaming and dynamic drive letter re-assigning, as they were my only minor gripes with the beta versions.

I have thousands of photographs, podcasts and MP3 files in a lot of places on my main system and going to/from my Zune.  I would go crazy if I had to find them manually and take them to work.   To make sure they are all "synced", with my work computer every week I use Sync Toy to quickly sync my portable WD Passport drive.  Then I do another sync from the WD Passport drive to my work computer.  Then I have 3 sets of file all synced, with just a few keystrokes!

For really important files that I can't lose, I don't do a 2 way sync, but do a "Contribute" (a one way sync without deletions).  That prevents deleting any important files during a 2 way sync, if one was accidentally deleted. 

 Sync Toy is not a Toy.  It's really a great program.  And it's free!

Posted 07/09/2008 at 09:05:38pm

I'm no Microsoft fanboy, but maybe Zone Alarm may have caused part of the problem?  ZA completely borked my AMD XP Windows install about a year ago when ZA pushed an update.  ZA software goes so deep into the inner workings of windows at the system level, I couldn't even uninstall ZA adequately so it would save the Windows install.  I spent about 20 hours rebuilding. (Now I have Acronis to prevent a similar debacle).

I found out on some forums that a small percentage of other Asus AMD 939 board owners had similar problems, and ZA acknowledged they had a problem after a few weeks of hearing from very pissed off people. Their suggested "fix" did nothing.

ZA never did come up with an adequate solution,  so I stopped using their software.  I don't trust their programming prowess anymore.