a black Porsche and a white Zune
a.k.a. Happy Camping 2.0
A couple of weeks ago I got an email asking me if I was able to do …erm… something with …erm… some mp3-player. Well, yeah sure, I guess so. For a while I didn’t hear anything, but this week I got mails again, I had some conversations on the phone about this and got invited to some campsite. Although I get some strange suggestions more often, this one was very strange but it intrigued me too somehow, so in the end and after discussing it with several friends, I decided to go.
Now this campsite is not even that far away from where I live, but when I was trying to plan my trip I somehow didn’t know what to think of it all, it seemed I had to travel for 5+ hours to make a round trip by public transport, so plans rose on my side to blow the whole thing off, I mean, to me it wasn’t exactly clear what the goal of all this was, although in the end it became (a little) clearer.
Somehow there was an option I didn’t think of and a friend reminded me of that… and that was a mutual friend who just bought a new car (and a very nice one too!), so I decided to drop him a mail, asking if he would like to drive me up and down this designer campsite and guess what? he said yes. ^_^
Soooo, this saturday morning I threw my hacking gear in this very nice car and I think it’ll become hard to ever throw my old Mac SE traveling system (I most of the times use these old bags which used to house Mac SEs) in a nicer enclosure than this one:
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
You can imagine we flew to the spot.
more pics here:
Mark goes to WAACS goes to camp
arriving at the spot
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
At the spot they had this caravan for me, where I could work.
my caravan for the day(!)
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
And then, the actual reason of all this (or so I think it is… ^_^)
WAACS, a design office from Rotterdam, decided they would go out camping and this campsite had to become some sort of ‘Happy Camping 2.0’ site, with lots of experiments, for a new book of theirs. Because one of their clients (now guess who that is…) could get them Zunes, they wondered what they were able to do with those at a campsite and by asking around, they ended up with me. ^_^
So in this caravan, there was a box full of said MP3-players and I could do with them whatever I wanted.
for a more complete view of what I did, check my flickr set:
Zune hardware hacking at Mark goes to WAACS goes to camp
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
In the end, I made this ‘really social’ Zune, in white because somehow they forgot that colourscheme (^_^), with an custom iTrip backpack so you can really share the music you’re listening to with your friends. Zunes have a FM-receiver, so with this one Zune with a transmitter, everyone can join the party. I mean, you don’t want to be bothered with DRM-stuff and/or three-day-three-play-stuff while you’re out camping? At least I don’t. ^_^
Now, with more time on my hands and my own environment I guess it could have come out a little tighter and such, but considering the circumstances and the time frame, I guess this was pretty much the max I could get out of it.
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
And afterwards (I’ve been working for seven straight hours in the caravan) I got treated with this green grass drink which, according to Marcel, the organizer, would revive me completely!
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
Well, if the drink didn’t revive me, the food sure did because there was some excellent cooking in the evening.
the food not only looked good
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
And afterwards I got a nice drive home (in the same car), so in all, a strange but lovely day.
Back home I still feel like a happy camper. ^_^
vroooooooooooooom
click to go to the corresponding pic on flickr
pics:
Mark goes to WAACS goes to camp
Zune hardware hacking at Mark goes to WAACS goes to camp
related:
WAACS
waacsgoescamping.blogspot.com
Waacs goes Happy Camping 2.0 (Dutch)
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Would you say the Zune is anywhere near as hackable or as well built as the iPod?
I’ve liked the design of the Zune but the interface didn’t look so well. Plus, all the demo models at the stores I’ve been to are just cardboard fakes.
Ah well, the flash-Zune I took apart is a nice player, but so are so many other players out there. In terms of ‘hackability’, there’s not really that much you can do to these types of players, only when firmwares become complete OSes (like the iPhone), there’s a lot that can be done, but with this? hardly…
Next to that, I really couldn’t find a true competitive edge why I would buy this instead of something else. I guess they will try to market this product anytime soon here in Europe (the Zune hasn’t been available here up until now), but I think that’s going to be hard. But well, I guess we’ll see how it does.
ZUNE RULS! APPLE SUCKITH THE BIG FRUIT! sry… that was MS Fanboy in me knee jerking, I will flog myself for it later.
In all fairness I own both products…
1 – iPod-Gen 4, 4GB CF Mod (You Da man Mark!)
1 – iPod-Gen 5, 30Gb
1 – Zune Gen 1, 30GB (Same as the Brown brick in Pic)
1 – zune Gen 2, 4GB (Same as small Pink one in Pic)
Both have pros and cons, but over all the apple wins because the desktop client software is, in my opinion, easier to work with.
I am not taking the iPod Touch or iPhone into account here. That is a super wicked slick piece of tech and currently is the udisputed big boy on the bolck. But given its price, I can not compare the zune line with it. Would you compare a top line Peugeot to an F1 Indy car? To me the zunes are a great value given their price.
Mark keep tinkering, I really enjoy seeing what you come up with. One question, I see a mallet peaking out from the edge of the table pic… Did that actually have to be used while bodging about the zune, or was it used to defend yourself from wheat germ toting bears?
Ah, I sort of just got what you did to the white Zune. Pretty clever solution, though for audiophiles like myself, I can’t help but feel like there’s going to be some quality loss in using the FM signal to beam out music to other players.
But clever nonetheless!
Also, a quick question: I wondered about the sync cable that the Zune uses. It seems really similar, if not the same as the iPod dock connector cable. Is that the case, or is there something different between the two?