Brad Wilson

Best Music of 2014

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Best Music of 2013

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Best Music of 2012

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Best Music of 2011

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Best Music of 2010

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My Video Setup

Bertrand blogged his A/V setup and asked if I would do the same. Keeping with the theme of "semi-geeky", I thought I'd talk about the way everything is installed and wired.

...Of The Decade

All throughout the day yesterday (before and after work), I was tweeting my own personal observation of best stuff of the decade. I collected them all here for your refutation. :)

Music Artist of the Decade: Opeth
Pop Album of the Decade: Discovery by Daft Punk
Rock Album of the Decade: In Absentia by Porcupine Tree
Metal Album of the Decade: Blackwater Park by Opeth

Author of the Decade: Neil Gaiman
Sci-Fi Book of the Decade: Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Fantasy Book of the Decade: A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

Television Show of the Decade: Battlestar Galactica

Movie of the Decade: The Dark Knight

Comedian of the Decade: Patton Oswalt

Gadget of the Decade: iPhone

Board Game of the Decade: Puerto Rico
Video Game of the Decade: Half-Life 2

Music of 2009

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Zune Pass and the Dreaded C00D12EA Error

I had to reinstall Windows on my laptop at work, which is also the machine that I use for listening to music. I have a Zune Pass, which means I can download as much stuff as I want. Unfortunately, I forgot to back up my downloads last time, so I’m re-downloading the things I listen to the most (which is okay, because this machine isn’t meant for lots of music, given its small hard drive).

The very first thing I went to download was the new album from Dååth, The Concealers. Mmm, Dååth. Instead of downloading the album, I was greeted with a bunch of yellow warning icons next to all the tracks, telling me something went wrong.

This is the error message it showed:

If you click on the web help link, it sends you off to a page which suggests that the problem is that your clock is set incorrectly.

Nope, my clock was correct. I checked all my paths. I checked security settings. I tried another album, and it worked. I tried yet another album, and it failed, but it did so in a very telling way.

Here’s what really happened.

The album is question was one that I had purchased (with my 10 free songs/month, but that doesn’t matter). When you purchase music from Zune, sometimes the label will let you re-download it and sometimes they won’t. Fine, I’ve never really required a re-download system before (knock on backup wood). Except, now I’m stuck without the ability to even download a DRM’d Zune Pass version of the album, because now it knows I own it (and when you own the album, the ‘download’ feature silently becomes a ‘re-download the MP3s’ feature, rather than downloading the Zune Pass DRM’d version).

Ugh.

I’m forced to get copies from home into work now, so I’m using Windows Live Sync to download them – one album at a time – from my home PC onto my work laptop. Such a pain. I sure hope they fix this!

Music of 2008

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