Announcing: Tip Tuesdays! (And Play Music Through Your Speakers)

[Adam Krebs]

Last week, I ran a number of tips intended to boost usability, usefulness, and most importantly, fun, in the device, software, and Social aspects of the Zune experience. These were ideas I'd either heard about recently or had been kicking around for some time, and I hope at least some of you found them useful. If not, thanks for not making a stink about it in the comments.

In any event, I liked the idea so much that I've decided to make it a weekly topic: I dig through blogs, forums, and the Zune products, and you sit back and reap the benefits. Sound good? All I ask is that you give me feedback on tips you have, what you find useful, and conversely, what you'd like to see less of. I won't get offended, I promise.

Now onto the question of: Why Tuesdays? Besides the obvious (I like the alliteration—Tip Saturdays didn't sound as nice), Monday and Friday were already taken. So let's kick this off in style, shall we? Starting with a great tip from On10's Sarah Perez. Sarah's recent and amazing selection of Zune Hacks could and very well may serve as filler if this doesn't go as planned. Many have requested a way of playing their on-Zune music through computer speakers, and, just as with Hard Drive support, the answer lies in the Registry.

As with all registry changes, you should make sure to back up beforehand, and generally know what you're doing. But hey, "manuals shmanuals," right? Head on to On10 for the full low-down, but it's mostly straightforward: create a key at [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlClass{ 4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}�000SettingsfilterSpeakerHp] and then a binary value "EnableInputMonitor"=hex:01

Just reboot, enable the input monitor, and you've got a fully-functioning Zune-Music playing machine! Very cool.

If you don't know exactly how to do this, I'd hold off until someone inevitably releases an easy-to-use and feature-rich version. Just keep watching this space, and I'll write if and when it happens.

Tip Tuesdays will be running weekly. Got a great tip you're just dying to share with the world? Post it in the comments or add it to the forums. See you next week!

[Adam Krebs]

Last week, I ran a number of tips intended to boost usability, usefulness, and most importantly, fun, in the device, software, and Social aspects of the Zune experience. These were ideas I'd either heard about recently or had been kicking around for some time, and I hope at least some of you found them useful. If not, thanks for not making a stink about it in the comments.

In any event, I liked the idea so much that I've decided to make it a weekly topic: I dig through blogs, forums, and the Zune products, and you sit back and reap the benefits. Sound good? All I ask is that you give me feedback on tips you have, what you find useful, and conversely, what you'd like to see less of. I won't get offended, I promise.

Now onto the question of: Why Tuesdays? Besides the obvious (I like the alliteration—Tip Saturdays didn't sound as nice), Monday and Friday were already taken. So let's kick this off in style, shall we? Starting with a great tip from On10's Sarah Perez. Sarah's recent and amazing selection of Zune Hacks could and very well may serve as filler if this doesn't go as planned. Many have requested a way of playing their on-Zune music through computer speakers, and, just as with Hard Drive support, the answer lies in the Registry.

As with all registry changes, you should make sure to back up beforehand, and generally know what you're doing. But hey, "manuals shmanuals," right? Head on to On10 for the full low-down, but it's mostly straightforward: create a key at [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlClass{ 4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}�000SettingsfilterSpeakerHp] and then a binary value "EnableInputMonitor"=hex:01

Just reboot, enable the input monitor, and you've got a fully-functioning Zune-Music playing machine! Very cool.

If you don't know exactly how to do this, I'd hold off until someone inevitably releases an easy-to-use and feature-rich version. Just keep watching this space, and I'll write if and when it happens.

Tip Tuesdays will be running weekly. Got a great tip you're just dying to share with the world? Post it in the comments or add it to the forums. See you next week!

[Paul Martin]

I just used a splitter and the output from my Zune. :^) You might want to put a tip for those interested in trying this to go to the forum version as the frontpage version off the first long line of code.

Paul