Rotundus.com

I've had my Zen for close to a week now, so I figured that I'd share with you some thoughts on my initial experience with the unit.

• Any software supplied by Creative for this was worthless. To initially sync with this device I held my nose for a bit and fired up Windows Media Player. Syncing with this thing was terrible enough, that I quickly started searching for a 3rd party solution. At the moment I'm using Winamp's Media Library, which isn't perfect but also isn't too bad.
• No more annoying iPod cable. This thing syncs fine using a standard USB cable.
• Downloadable audiobooks sort of work. I downloaded a few books from NetLibrary. Thus far I tried to play 2 of them on the device. One worked, the other didn't. I wonder if this device is limited in terms of the number of DRMed files that it can support at any one point in time - I think that the Rio Carbon was limited to 2 or 3 titles at once. I'll have to see what I can do about this.
• Support for play counts and last played dates is a little bit goofy. Winamp reads the play count information stored by the Zen, but Windows Media Player doesn't. One oddity with WinAmp, if you try to sort based on playcounts, it appears to do nothing. If you sort by rating, it seems to end up sorting by the play count field. Go figure!
  The Zen also doesn't appear to store last played dates, which is somewhat unfortunate.
• Extra storage space is nice. Yup, it's chock full already ... and, nope, there's no music on this one either. Current content includes some lectures on US history, an audiobook on the Mayflower story, and Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner amongst other things.
• FM radio works well. I'm a little annoyed that they didn't also include AM radio, but that seems to be a common problem with MP3 players. For anything other than music, usually stuff is easier to find on the AM dial.
• iTune's lack of support for copying files back from an iPod is annoying consider the lack of each access to the files otherwise. I used PodCheat to copy my files back: it wasn't elegant but it worked. Some folks with their preloaded iPod distribution method just don't seem to get it.

Has anyone tried using a decent LCD HDTV as a primary monitor? I'm thinking of something like this a 32" 1080p (1920x1080) display. An HDMI to DVI cable should allow me to output to something like that, but I'm wondering what to expect in terms of picture quality and any potential eyestrain issues.

One downside that I can already see with this - if I were to use it as my primary monitor I'd have to replace my desk. The desk just isn't big enough.

Since the passing of some legislation creating new penalties in the criminal code for videotaping in the movie theatres, some theatre chains have begun searches of customers on their way into the theatre. This has resulted in some grumbling from movie patrons, and also recently to a lawsuit against a Quebec-based theatre chain (also covered on Slashdot). The demand for a $60,000 settlement seems more than a bit excessive, but I agree with the point that the complainants are making.

Does anyone know if any western-Canadian theatre chains are doing anything like this?

What do think of the system described in the following clip? The system captures all license plates visible from cameras mounted on a police car and runs the plate numbers. Numbers given as to the capability of the system are up to 3000 plates per hour.

(HT: Slashdot)