Geeky Bob

I had another interesting situation present itself recently that I thought would make a good blog: how to use Classic ASP with the IIS URL Rewrite module to dynamically generate Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files.

Overview

Here's the situation: I host a website for one of my family members, and like everyone else on the Internet, he wanted some better SEO rankings. We discussed a few things that he could do to improve his visibility with search engines, and one of the suggestions that I gave him was to keep his Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files up-to-date. But there was an additional caveat - he uses two separate DNS names for the same website, and that presents a problem for absolute URLs in either of those files. Before anyone points out that it's usually not a good idea to host multiple DNS names on the same content, there are times when this is acceptable; for example, if you are trying to decide which of several DNS names is the best to use, you might want to bind each name to the same IP address and parse your logs to find out which address is getting the most traffic.

In any event, the syntax for both Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files is pretty easy, so I wrote a couple of simple Classic ASP Robots.asp and Sitemap.asp pages that output the correct syntax and DNS-specific URLs for each domain name, and I wrote some simple URL Rewrite rules that rewrite inbound requests for Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files to the ASP pages, while blocking direct access to the Classic ASP pages themselves.

All of that being said, there are a couple of quick things that I would like to mention before I get to the code:

• First of all, I chose Classic ASP for the files because it allows the code to run without having to load any additional framework; I could have used ASP.NET or PHP just as easily, but either of those would require additional overhead that isn't really required.
• Second, the specific website for which I wrote these specific examples consists of all static content that is updated a few times a month, so I wrote the example to parse the physical directory structure for the website's URLs and specified a weekly interval for search engines to revisit the website. All of these options can easily be changed; for example, I reused this code a little while later for a website where all of the content was created dynamically from a database, and I updated the code in the Sitemap.asp file to create the URLs from the dynamically-generated content. (That's really easy to do, but outside the scope of this blog.)

That being said, let's move on to the actual code.

Creating the Required Files

There are three files that you will need to create for this example:

1. A Robots.asp file to which URL Rewrite will send requests for Robots.txt
2. A Sitemap.asp file to which URL Rewrite will send requests for Sitemap.xml
3. A Web.config file that contains the URL Rewrite rules

Step 1 - Creating the Robots.asp File

You need to save the following code sample as Robots.asp in the root of your website; this page will be executed whenever someone requests the Robots.txt file for your website. This example is very simple: it checks for the requested hostname and uses that to dynamically create the absolute URL for the website's Sitemap.xml file.

<%
    Option Explicit
    On Error Resume Next
    
    Dim strUrlRoot
    Dim strHttpHost
    Dim strUserAgent

    Response.Clear
    Response.Buffer = True
    Response.ContentType = "text/plain"
    Response.CacheControl = "public"

    Response.Write "# Robots.txt" & vbCrLf
    Response.Write "# For more information on this file see:" & vbCrLf
    Response.Write "# http://www.robotstxt.org/" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf

    strHttpHost = LCase(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_HOST"))
    strUserAgent = LCase(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_USER_AGENT"))
    strUrlRoot = "http://" & strHttpHost

    Response.Write "# Define the sitemap path" & vbCrLf
    Response.Write "Sitemap: " & strUrlRoot & "/sitemap.xml" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf

    Response.Write "# Make changes for all web spiders" & vbCrLf
    Response.Write "User-agent: *" & vbCrLf
    Response.Write "Allow: /" & vbCrLf
    Response.Write "Disallow: " & vbCrLf
    Response.End
%>

Step 2 - Creating the Sitemap.asp File

The following example file is also pretty simple, and you would save this code as Sitemap.asp in the root of your website. There is a section in the code where it loops through the file system looking for files with the *.html file extension and only creates URLs for those files. If you want other files included in your results, or you want to change the code from static to dynamic content, this is where you would need to update the file accordingly.

<%
    Option Explicit
    On Error Resume Next
    
    Response.Clear
    Response.Buffer = True
    Response.AddHeader "Connection", "Keep-Alive"
    Response.CacheControl = "public"
    
    Dim strFolderArray, lngFolderArray
    Dim strUrlRoot, strPhysicalRoot, strFormat
    Dim strUrlRelative, strExt

    Dim objFSO, objFolder, objFile

    strPhysicalRoot = Server.MapPath("/")
    Set objFSO = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.Filesystemobject")
    
    strUrlRoot = "http://" & Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_HOST")
    
    ' Check for XML or TXT format.
    If UCase(Trim(Request("format")))="XML" Then
        strFormat = "XML"
        Response.ContentType = "text/xml"
    Else
        strFormat = "TXT"
        Response.ContentType = "text/plain"
    End If

    ' Add the UTF-8 Byte Order Mark.
    Response.Write Chr(CByte("&hEF"))
    Response.Write Chr(CByte("&hBB"))
    Response.Write Chr(CByte("&hBF"))
    
    If strFormat = "XML" Then
        Response.Write "<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""UTF-8""?>" & vbCrLf
        Response.Write "<urlset xmlns=""http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"">" & vbCrLf
    End if
    
    ' Always output the root of the website.
    Call WriteUrl(strUrlRoot,Now,"weekly",strFormat)

    ' --------------------------------------------------
    ' This following section contains the logic to parse
    ' the directory tree and return URLs based on the
    ' static *.html files that it locates. This is where
    ' you would change the code for dynamic content.
    ' -------------------------------------------------- 
    strFolderArray = GetFolderTree(strPhysicalRoot)

    For lngFolderArray = 1 to UBound(strFolderArray)
        strUrlRelative = Replace(Mid(strFolderArray(lngFolderArray),Len(strPhysicalRoot)+1),"\","/")
        Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(Server.MapPath("." & strUrlRelative))
        For Each objFile in objFolder.Files
            strExt = objFSO.GetExtensionName(objFile.Name)
            If StrComp(strExt,"html",vbTextCompare)=0 Then
                If StrComp(Left(objFile.Name,6),"google",vbTextCompare)<>0 Then
                    Call WriteUrl(strUrlRoot & strUrlRelative & "/" & objFile.Name, objFile.DateLastModified, "weekly", strFormat)
                End If
            End If
        Next
    Next

    ' --------------------------------------------------
    ' End of file system loop.
    ' --------------------------------------------------     
    If strFormat = "XML" Then
        Response.Write "</urlset>"
    End If
    
    Response.End

    ' ======================================================================
    '
    ' Outputs a sitemap URL to the client in XML or TXT format.
    ' 
    ' tmpStrFreq = always|hourly|daily|weekly|monthly|yearly|never 
    ' tmpStrFormat = TXT|XML
    '
    ' ======================================================================

    Sub WriteUrl(tmpStrUrl,tmpLastModified,tmpStrFreq,tmpStrFormat)
        On Error Resume Next
        Dim tmpDate : tmpDate = CDate(tmpLastModified)
        ' Check if the request is for XML or TXT and return the appropriate syntax.
        If tmpStrFormat = "XML" Then
            Response.Write " <url>" & vbCrLf
            Response.Write " <loc>" & Server.HtmlEncode(tmpStrUrl) & "</loc>" & vbCrLf
            Response.Write " <lastmod>" & Year(tmpLastModified) & "-" & Right("0" & Month(tmpLastModified),2) & "-" & Right("0" & Day(tmpLastModified),2) & "</lastmod>" & vbCrLf
            Response.Write " <changefreq>" & tmpStrFreq & "</changefreq>" & vbCrLf
            Response.Write " </url>" & vbCrLf
        Else
            Response.Write tmpStrUrl & vbCrLf
        End If
    End Sub

    ' ======================================================================
    '
    ' Returns a string array of folders under a root path
    '
    ' ======================================================================

    Function GetFolderTree(strBaseFolder)
        Dim tmpFolderCount,tmpBaseCount
        Dim tmpFolders()
        Dim tmpFSO,tmpFolder,tmpSubFolder
        ' Define the initial values for the folder counters.
        tmpFolderCount = 1
        tmpBaseCount = 0
        ' Dimension an array to hold the folder names.
        ReDim tmpFolders(1)
        ' Store the root folder in the array.
        tmpFolders(tmpFolderCount) = strBaseFolder
        ' Create file system object.
        Set tmpFSO = Server.CreateObject("Scripting.Filesystemobject")
        ' Loop while we still have folders to process.
        While tmpFolderCount <> tmpBaseCount
            ' Set up a folder object to a base folder.
            Set tmpFolder = tmpFSO.GetFolder(tmpFolders(tmpBaseCount+1))
              ' Loop through the collection of subfolders for the base folder.
            For Each tmpSubFolder In tmpFolder.SubFolders
                ' Increment the folder count.
                tmpFolderCount = tmpFolderCount + 1
                ' Increase the array size
                ReDim Preserve tmpFolders(tmpFolderCount)
                ' Store the folder name in the array.
                tmpFolders(tmpFolderCount) = tmpSubFolder.Path
            Next
            ' Increment the base folder counter.
            tmpBaseCount = tmpBaseCount + 1
        Wend
        GetFolderTree = tmpFolders
    End Function
%>

Note: There are two helper methods in the preceding example that I should call out:

• The GetFolderTree() function returns a string array of all the folders that are located under a root folder; you could remove that function if you were generating all of your URLs dynamically.
• The WriteUrl() function outputs an entry for the sitemap file in either XML or TXT format, depending on the file type that is in use. It also allows you to specify the frequency that the specific URL should be indexed (always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or never).

Step 3 - Creating the Web.config File

The last step is to add the URL Rewrite rules to the Web.config file in the root of your website. The following example is a complete Web.config file, but you could merge the rules into your existing Web.config file if you have already created one for your website. These rules are pretty simple, they rewrite all inbound requests for Robots.txt to Robots.asp, and they rewrite all requests for Sitemap.xml to Sitemap.asp?format=XML and requests for Sitemap.txt to Sitemap.asp?format=TXT; this allows requests for both the XML-based and text-based sitemaps to work, even though the Robots.txt file contains the path to the XML file. The last part of the URL Rewrite syntax returns HTTP 404 errors if anyone tries to send direct requests for either the Robots.asp or Sitemap.asp files; this isn't absolutely necesary, but I like to mask what I'm doing from prying eyes. (I'm kind of geeky that way.)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <rewrite>
      <rewriteMaps>
        <clear />
        <rewriteMap name="Static URL Rewrites">
          <add key="/robots.txt" value="/robots.asp" />
          <add key="/sitemap.xml" value="/sitemap.asp?format=XML" />
          <add key="/sitemap.txt" value="/sitemap.asp?format=TXT" />
        </rewriteMap>
        <rewriteMap name="Static URL Failures">
          <add key="/robots.asp" value="/" />
          <add key="/sitemap.asp" value="/" />
        </rewriteMap>
      </rewriteMaps>
      <rules>
        <clear />
        <rule name="Static URL Rewrites" patternSyntax="ECMAScript" stopProcessing="true">
          <match url=".*" ignoreCase="true" negate="false" />
          <conditions>
            <add input="{Static URL Rewrites:{REQUEST_URI}}" pattern="(.+)" />
          </conditions>
          <action type="Rewrite" url="{C:1}" appendQueryString="false" redirectType="Temporary" />
        </rule>
        <rule name="Static URL Failures" patternSyntax="ECMAScript" stopProcessing="true">
          <match url=".*" ignoreCase="true" negate="false" />
          <conditions>
            <add input="{Static URL Failures:{REQUEST_URI}}" pattern="(.+)" />
          </conditions>
          <action type="CustomResponse" statusCode="404" subStatusCode="0" />
        </rule>
        <rule name="Prevent rewriting for static files" patternSyntax="Wildcard" stopProcessing="true">
          <match url="*" />
          <conditions>
             <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" />
          </conditions>
          <action type="None" />
        </rule>
      </rules>
    </rewrite>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Summary

That sums it up for this blog; I hope that you get some good ideas from it.

For more information about the syntax in Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files, see the following URLs:

• http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php
• http://www.robotstxt.org/

Note: This blog was originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/robert_mcmurray/

I'd like to take a brief departure from my normal series of IIS-related blogs and talk about something very near and dear to the hearts of many geeks - ripping a computer apart and upgrading its various hardware components just because it's fun. ;-)

Several years ago I bought a Dell Inspiron Mini 1011 Laptop, which is a smallish netbook computer with a 10-inch screen. (Actually, I bought this as an alternate laptop for my wife to use when travelling, since she doesn't like to travel with her full-sized laptop.)  This computer eventually became a "coffee-table laptop" for our house, which houseguests use when they come to visit. Since the netbook computer is so small, our family has affectionately labeled it the "Baby Computer."

Recently my wife and I took a trip to Hawaii, for which I decided to leave my full-size laptop at home, and I brought the Baby Computer instead.  Since I had never needed to rely on the Baby Computer to do anything more than surf the web in the past, I hadn't realized how quickly it was starved for resources whenever I tried to edit photos or write code. (Yes - I actually write code while on vacation... writing code makes me happy.) The Baby Computer shipped with an underwhelming 1GB of RAM, which filled up quickly if I tried to do too many things at once, and it came with a 120GB 5400rpm hard drive. There's nothing that I could do about CPU speed, but as I slogged through the rest of my vacation using the Baby Computer, I resolved to research if the other hardware in this laptop could be expanded.

Figure 1 - Performance Before Upgrading

Once we got home from vacation I did some checking, and I discovered that I could expand the Baby Computer's RAM to 2GB, which isn't much, but it obviously doubled what I had been using, and I decided replace it's original hard drive with a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD). With that in mind, I thought that it would be a worthwhile endeavor to document the upgrade process for someone else who wants to do the same thing with their Dell Inspiron Mini 1011. (Of course, you are undoubtedly voiding your Dell warranty the moment that you open your laptop's case.)

First things first - Dell's support website has some great information about tearing apart your laptop; Dell provides a detailed online Service Manual with all of the requisite instructions for replacing most of the parts in the Dell Mini, and I used it as a guide while I performed my upgrades. That being said, the upgrade process was still a little tricky, and some of the parts were difficult to get to. (Although it seems like Dell may have made upgrades a little easier in later models of my laptop.)

So without further introduction, here are the steps for upgrading the RAM and hard drive in a Dell Inspiron Mini 1011 Laptop.

Step 1 - Remove the Screws from the Back of the Case

This step is pretty easy - there are only a handful of screws to remove.

Figure 2 - Removing the Screws

Step 2 - Remove the Keyboard

It's pretty easy to pop the keyboard out of the case...

Figure 3 - Removing the Keyboard

...although once you have the keyboard loose, you need to flip it over carefully and remove the flat ribbon cable from underneath.

Figure 4 - Detaching the Keyboard Cable

Step 3 - Remove the Palm Rest

This step was a little tricky, and it took me a while to accomplish this task because I had to wedge a thin screwdriver in between the case and the palm rest in order to pry it off. Note that there is a flat ribbon cable that attaches the palm rest to the motherboard that you will need to remove.

Figure 5 - Removing the Palm Rest

With the keyboard and palm rest out of the way, you can remove the hard drive - there's a single screw holding the hard drive mount into the case and four screws that hold the hard drive in its mount.

Figure 6 - Removing the Hard Drive

If you were only replacing the hard drive, you could stop here. Since I was upgrading the RAM, I needed to dig deeper.

Step 4 - Remove the Palm Rest Bracket and Motherboard

Once the hard drive is out of the way, you need to remove the motherboard so you can replace the RAM that is located underneath it. There are a handful of screws above and below the computer that hold the palm rest bracket to the case...

Figure 7 - After Removing the Palm Rest Bracket

...once you remove remove the palm rest bracket, you can flip over the motherboard and replace the RAM.

Figure 8 - Replacing the RAM

Optional Step - Cloning the Hard Drive

Rather than reinstalling the operating system from scratch, I cloned Windows from the original hard drive to the SSD. To do this, I placed both the old hard drive and the new SSD into USB-based SATA drive cradles and I used Symantec Ghost to clone the operating system from drive to drive.

Figure 9 - Both Hard Drives in SATA Cradles

Figure 10 - Cloning the Hard Drive with Ghost

Once the clone was completed, all that was left was to install the new SSD and reassemble the computer.

Figure 11 - Installing the New SSD

Summary

Once I had everything completed and reassembled, Windows booted considerably faster when using the SSD; it now boots in a matter of seconds. (I wish that I had timed the boot sequence before and after the upgrades, but I didn't think of that earlier... darn.) Running the Windows 7 performance assessment showed a measurable increase in hard drive speed, with little to no increase in RAM speed. Of course, since there was no speed increase for CPU or graphics, the overall performance score for my laptop remained the same. That being said, with twice the RAM as before, it should be paging to disk less often, so regular usage should seem a little faster; even when it does need to swap memory to disk it will be faster using the SSD than with its old hard drive.

Figure 12 - Performance After Upgrading

That's all for now - have fun. ;-)

Note: This blog was originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/robert_mcmurray/

First and foremost - I am not ashamed to admit that I am a card-carrying Zune fanboy. But that being said, as a faithful owner of several Zune devices, I am ashamed of the way that the Zune team at Microsoft so badly botched their product line; the Zune team was so out of touch with their target consumers that it borders on negligence. Here is my totally-biased list of reasons why I personally think the Zune failed.

My Top 10 Reasons Why the Zune Failed

Reason #1 - Microsoft entered the game with TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

There were a smattering of MP3 players on the market by the time that Apple's iPod hit the stores. I still have an RCA Lyra device that kicked butt in its day, but my personal favorites were the Creative Zen devices; you plugged a Zen player into your computer and it showed up like an external hard drive. To add music, you simply dragged & dropped music files anywhere you wanted; the Zen devices used your music files' metadata to sort by albums, genres, artists, etc.

When Apple's iPod hit the stores, its main rise to fame was its end-to-end story from iTunes to iPod, all of which belonged to Apple. Their devices were cool, and their advertising was stellar (as always). Even though they were overpriced, the iPod soon became "the product" that everyone wanted. The iTunes/iPod integration was closed to outsiders, which meant that Apple owned the end-to-end experience, and thereby collected all of the profits from it.

When Microsoft eventually realized that Apple was making enough money off their music/devices sales to save their company - which was formerly close to bankruptcy - they decided to create a device and end-to-end experience for themselves. But when Microsoft tried to do so, they mostly opted for feature parity with iTunes. What was Microsoft thinking? Instead of improving on the iTunes model, they were trying to break into an established market with a product that had little to offer that was above and beyond what consumers could already get.

FAIL.

Reason #2 - The early Zune end-to-end experience was terrible

I bought my wife a Zune for Christmas when they first released. Having owned and used several MP3 players in the past, I thought that it would be a similar experience; let me assure you, it was decidedly not a similar experience. I was so frustrated with the first-generation Zune software that I had boxed up the Zune and was ready to take it back to the store within an hour of trying to get it set up for her. I eventually elected not to do so, and I managed to get it working, but it was a crappy experience that made me apologize to my non-technical wife for burdening her with such a mess.

FAIL. FAIL. FAIL.

Reason #3 - You needed to use the Zune software to put files on the device

Customers wanted to use their Zune devices as external storage, but having to use the Zune software to transfer files to the device prevented that. The prevailing argument was that Zune followed the iTunes/iPod model, but who cares if that's the way that iTunes/iPod worked? Zune customers paid good money for their devices, and they wanted to store files on those. USB flash drives were still pretty pricey at the time, so opening the Zune platform to double as external storage would have been a fantastic selling feature, but that concept escaped the Zune team's leadership because they wanted to force users into having to use their @#$% software in the hopes that they would be tempted to buy more music/videos through Microsoft.

DESIGN FAIL.

[On a related note, the Windows Phone 7 team did not learn from the Zune's failure, and their devices still had the same, stupid Zune software requirement. BRAIN-DEAD FAIL.]

Reason #4 - You couldn't use Windows Media Player with the the Zune

Microsoft already made a killer media player application for Windows that worked with all the third-party MP3 player devices, but when Microsoft introduced their own MP3 player it didn't work with their existing Windows Media Player.

EPIC FAIL.

Reason #5 - Zune Didn't Support Plays For Sure

Microsoft spent a bunch of money cozying up to the music industry and MP3 makers with a program that was entitled Plays For Sure, whereby devices could be certified to play all Windows-based music files, whether they had copy protection on them or not. Even though all of these third-party companies went through the certification process, Microsoft's own player didn't have to; the Zune didn't support Plays for Sure.

SCREW YOUR PARTNERS FAIL.

[On a related note, this probably hastened the demise of WMA as a file format. SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FOOT FAIL.]

Reason #6 - The Zune Software for Windows Sucked

For a long time - and I mean a really long time - the software that you needed to use with your Zune was next to worthless. It was slow, buggy, and ugly. By the time that the Zune team finally delivered a version of the Zune software that was actually worth installing, the battle for MP3 player supremacy was over and the iPod ruled uncontested.

SCREW YOUR OWN PLATFORM FAIL.

Reason #7 - Dropping the free downloads from the Zune Pass

The Zune pass tried to be the Netflix service of music, and in that sense it was ahead of the curve when it was introduced. Customers paid $14.95 a month, and in exchange they were granted free access to tens of thousands of DRM-based WMA music files - all of which they could download and play on their computers or Zune devices - and customers could play them as long as they kept their Zune pass up-to-date. In addition, customers got to keep 10 free songs a month in DRM-free MP3 format per month.

In September, 2011, some wunderkind in the Zune group decided to take away the 10 free songs and drop the price of the Zune pass to $9.99 per month. This person - whoever they may be - is an idiot. With the incredible amount of free music that is available on the Internet now, the free downloads on the Zune pass was the only feature of the Zune pass that made having a Zune pass worthwhile.

SCREW YOUR CUSTOMERS FAIL.

Reason #8 - Zune Required Users to Buy Music with 'Points'

The rest of the world works with actual money, but the Zune service required customers to use 'points' to buy music or videos, and points did not map directly to dollars and cents. On Amazon or iTunes, music was typically $0.99 per track, but on Zune it was typically 89 points per track. WTF? What the @#$% was a 'point'?

So let's say that you wanted to buy a music file to download; the Zune software would inform you that had to buy points first, which would have some weird exchange rate that didn't make sense. For example, if you bought 400 points for $4.99, that would mean that your 89-point music file actually cost $1.11, which was $0.12 more than Amazon or iTunes. When Microsoft combined their crappy points-based purchasing system with their overpriced music, they created an environment that was a truly horrible customer experience.

WTF FAIL.

Reason #9 - It Took Too Long to Market Zune Overseas

The iPod was dominating media player sales all over the world, but believe it or not - there are people that simply don't like Apple. I constantly saw people all over Europe that were clamoring for a Zune, and Microsoft didn't deliver.

DRAG YOUR FEET FAIL.

Reason #10 - No Zune Software for the Mac

Believe it or not, I saw a lot of Mac users who were asking for Zune software on the Mac. I'm not sure if these people were also iTunes users or not, but I think that the concept of the original "10 free songs" with a Zune pass was appealing to them. Sadly, Microsoft did not deliver - and a whole slew of potential customers were left high-and-dry.

SCREW YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS FAIL.

In Closing

Despite all this negativism, the Zune team did deliver some great products - I still own several Zunes from the various series of players, although it now feels a lot like owning a Tucker automobile or a Betamax VCR.

Here are some of the coolness factors that Zune had:

• Wireless Networking - when the first Zunes came out, they were the first players to have wireless networking, which allowed Zune users to share files. I remember at the time that some of my Apple fanboy friends remarked that this was a stupid feature; their usual mantra was: "Who wants networking in a handheld device?" Seriously - I got asked that a lot. Now most every player worth its mettle has Wi-Fi support, as do iPhones, Windows Phones, etc. Zune was well-ahead of the curve.
• Larger Storage at Cheaper Prices - for many versions of the Zune, you would get the same features in your Zune for a lot less money than a comparable iPod. The Zune didn't catch on, but that certainly wasn't due to price-per-feature.
• Larger & Better Screens - when the Zune first came out, it's screen was much larger and better than its competitors' screens.
• HDTV Support - the Zune HD was a great device, and one of the really cool features was output to HDTV from a really tiny device.

In the end, it was very sad for me to see the Zune fail; the Zune was simply a victim of being superior device with inferior product management.

Here's a weird but true story for you: my wife and I went to the movies tonight to see Zero Dark Thirty, (which was a good movie in case you were wondering). Right at the point where the Navy Seals [spoiler alert] pull the trigger on their main person of interest, a man in the theater started yelling, "VIOLENCE ONLY BEGETS VIOLENCE!!! VIOLENCE ONLY BEGETS VIOLENCE!!!", and he ran out of the building while continuing to scream that phrase like a cultish mantra.
 
This leads me to the following quandary: it was publicly and deliberately advertised what the subject of this movie was about ahead of time, so there can be no question that everyone in the auditorium knew before they walked through the theater doors that they were there to watch the CIA and Navy Seals take down the principle terrorist who planned the tragedies of September 11th, 2001. So why would anyone go to this movie expecting anything other than violence?

This movie has an "R" rating because of the violence; and there is a lot of violence in this movie. But oddly enough, the person in question did not run screaming from the theater when [spoiler alert] a lot of European and American lives (both combatants and non-combatants) were premeditatedly and violently killed throughout the two hours of the movie which preceded the brief actions that were the cause of his outburst.
 
The whole affair was surreal, and I am sure that several people (not just me) were nervously wondering if we were about to see a repeat of the tragic theater shootings that took place at the Batman premier last summer. I'm beginning to think that I'll just wait for everything to come out on Netflix before I watch it in the future.