Trixter of the Moon CouncilTonight I've been messing around with this new open-source cross-platform rebuild of the Zune app, and it's working great on my MacBook! It's got built-in encoding to WMA Lossless (a format literally nobody but Zune freaks care about) and it's tackled my FLAC and ALAC files with no complaints.
I've noticed in the Zune subreddit that there are, like, *a lot* of people who were all-in on the Zune back in the day but have since moved to Linux or Mac, but the desktop client doesn't run well in Wine or a VM. I've been running a Windows 10 install on a backwater partition of my home media server just to sync music to my beloved Zune HD. Being able to buy an album off Bandcamp, download it to my laptop, and then pop it onto my Zune without having to deal with booting to that Windows install and moving the files over is huge for me.
And now I am putting my Zune away and getting ready for #monsterdon. :3
Aw yeah time for lots and lots of scuba footage
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
Nobody's named Jules anymore. It's a good name.
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
I too am extremely salty.
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
That's some pretty great horrified reaction there.
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
Making personal calls on the office phone? What is she, my last Least Favorite Coworker?
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
We're doing SCIENCE!
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
Heck yeah giant mutant ladybug incoming
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
Oh these two are about to die.
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
"I've got a reading of some numbers that totally mean things."
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
AND WE HAVE MONSTER
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
Oh shit not a CREATURE!
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
EW NO NOT ITS EYE
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
Welp, that's it, movie's over!
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
I wanna be in a Radio Shack. :(
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
Pretty sure that flesh is a melon.
#monsterdon #TheMonsterThatChallengedTheWorld #ChallengedTheWorld1957
🤖Robot Enby Xero🤖What could possibly go wrong?
The Witch of Crow Briar@trixter Just as long as it happens before we have to see le petit Mort >_<
SamsaG@trixter he really put a lot into it #monsterdon
Cactuar Joe@trixter Eyes like two minute eggs #Monsterdon
I realize “Someone open-sourced a Zune client!” is one of those “Heartwarming: Kids Raise Thousands of Dollars to Help with Friend’s Chemo” things, being excited for a fix for a problem that never should have existed in the first place, but it’s still pretty great considering how objectively good the hardware was and how objectively toxic Windows is.
Oooo, the Xune app for Zune actually fixes some functionality that's been broken in the original for ages, like the artist background images.
Honestly the game-changer about the new Xune app for me is the on-the-fly conversion to WMA Lossless. My library of recent purchases and rips are almost all ALAC with a little FLAC and being able to have lossless files on the Zune without maintaining a second set of files -- especially as storage space is becoming more of a problem -- is a tremendous help.
yequari
Isaac Ji Kuo@trixter I was slightly confused by this. Every MP3 player I've ever had was just ... I copy mp3s onto the media (or burn it, in the case of mp3 CD players). And ... that's it.
But then I remembered proprietary stuff oh well.
Sigh ... for a while, Google Music or whatever it was called was a thing, and I could just buy music and download the mp3s.
I'd like to say I'm an ideological hipster, but no I'm just too lazy to learn new ways to do stuff when what I've got works okay.
@isaackuo Yeah, the Zune is otherwise a great little device, but the proprietary stuff has been a pain for ages. For the longest time, you had to just maintain a Windows 8 install somewhere to sync to it. You can add files to it from a Mac using a program called Android to Linux, despite nothing involved being either an Android device or a Linux device, but it's a little messy and hard to manage.
@trixter For my specific situation, that wouldn't be a hard ask. I have a Windows 10 laptop that I need to remote into work anyway. And since I need it for work, it's on 100% of the time anyway.
It has Cisco VPN on it, tax software on it, and that's it. If I HAD to install Zune on it, no big deal.
For me, it's all about keeping my computing headaches to a minimum. And since I need this Windows machine up and running anyway ... shrug.
Jury Nullification@trixter wait, it doesn't work on VMs?? Like, if you spin up an XP instance on a VM, the zune software won't work right? That is wild.
Kudos to Microsoft for not just figuring out how to make the user experience worse back in the day, but having the foresight to ensure people in the future can't have good things either.
('Kudos', is of course given with much sarcasm. Many air quotes. Lots of the above text is to be read in Daria Morgendorfer's voice)
@GabeReal The app technically works, but it doesn’t like recognizing the device via USB.
@trixter Oh yeah, I can see that. I have to go out of my way to get storage data into a VM.
I usually have to take whatever data I am trying to move into the VM and turn it into an ISO file and then put it into a datastore and then have the VM mount the ISO as if it were a disc.
And I don't think that route would work for a portable music player.... :/
I usually have to take whatever data I am trying to move into the VM and turn it into an ISO file and then put it into a datastore and then have the VM mount the ISO as if it were a disc.
And I don't think that route would work for a portable music player.... :/