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I use my Zune 30GB daily, but not today, thus far. I was afraid to even try today, but decided it is important to, for you, readers. So, found my Zune also Dead this morning, though it was fine last night. It’s hung now, during boot-up, so doesn’t boot… As I learned on the Net this morning, some bug associated with Dec 31st caused all original 30Gb models to fail.

These devices are firmware upgradable, so lets see how fast can Microsoft not only identify the issue, but actually issue a tested patch for us, poor folks.

Another interesting thing is how fast they heard about it, via the Blogosphere. I am sure people called in Customer Service also, but those Reps on the phone are paid to “repeat the standard troubleshooting procedures”, and no more. As most CS centers go, they are actually encouraged to never escalate issues, so I would be surprised if they, even after hearing so many people call, managed to get the note out to Zune Dev Team that “something was Up”. I will update this post as things develop.

[via Zune Insider] [also via ars technica]

UPDATE: After I read earlier that Apple’s Macs are ready for special “leap-second” year, I thought — probably Zune is affected by that. Well, we now have confirmation from Zune team , and it looks like tomorrow my Zune should be back to normal! I’ll update this post again tomorrow.

UPDATE2: Welcome to 2009, Happy New Year! Quick update - Zune battery ran out yesterday, as planned. This morning I charged it from computer, and it’s back to Life! Working fine, as promised! Hope none of you rushed to break your Zune or do anything crazy to get to battery.

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Be sure to click through to Vimeo to watch in HD (if your connection allows). Also, for the record, I love this music and the whole thing is excellent!

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EDITORS NOTE: I used a little-known hack in Wordpress 3.1 to actually adjust a time stamp of this post, originally posted December 24, 2009 – to timewarp into December 2008. Enjoy!

Wow, so  much has happened this past year, that I find it virtually impossible to even try and predict next year. But, I guess it’s somewhat of a tradition on this blog, so I will give it a go:

• Since this is the great year when Gaming finally “took off”, I want to start things by reflecting on PlayStation 3 (R.I.P). Most people say that the introduction of Nintendo’s Wii HD is what killed it, but I felt the troubles brew right from the start, with their strange bet on now-dying Blu-ray format, and the problematic design of Cell CPU. Ironically, the competition now finally ripping the big rewards, especially from offering all those Excellent and Free Ad-Supported games this holiday season.
• Speaking of home entertainment - I believe Microsoft should put even more focus there. After taking such a big beating this year with the dramatic decline of Office and Windows market share, they really need to push their new Microsoft Home product, and get more builders signed up to having homes come with Windows preinstalled. Yea “Your Home with Windows!” would have been such a great pun, shame their silly marketing named it “Microsoft Home - Ultimate Edition”, instead of plain “Windows”. Their Entertainment unit is already the most profitable in the company, keeping the whole thing “afloat”, so it’s only natural…
• The Operating System wars are only likely to intensify in 2010. The introduction of Google OS this year, especially with it running so many Windows Apps faster than Windows, changed so much. I predict that in addition to further growing their already dominant market share on the ever so popular Netbooks, Google will finally build and market their custom business Client appliance (aka: PC). iNetBook (seriously Apple, creativity much!?) is a serious contender here, but their insistence on charging premium even over Windows 7 netbooks, is keeping their market-share still around 35%.
• I am still shocked and saddened by the recent demise of nVidia, as are many of you, I am sure. It’s a shame too, I always loved their products. So the big question now remains whether AMD can survive and even thrive, just on their excellent line of embedded chipsets for Netbooks, with those amazing 3D capabilities. Intel’s offering is finally on-par, now that they woke up to the importance of proper 3D and 2D graphic acceleration. I almost wish that AMD rename themselves to ATI, a brand that should make it easier to compete with Intel, in this great Brand war that we got now.
• Who could have predicted that Adobe would buy Sun this year, certainly not I… Or that they would so quickly release this amazing business cloud platform offering, integrating fully complete high-performance backend, with the amazing and visually appealing front-end framework? This only deepened the many troubles at Oracle, and I don’t see them coming back with anything next year either. Makes me wonder if Larry is asleep at the wheel, or just planning to abandon rapidly sinking ship soon? On a personal note, I was saddened at first to hear that Adobe chose to abandon Sun’s Java, in favor of ActionScript 5 standardization on client and server. I am a long time Java fan, but I guess I’ll have to get over it.
• In other personal news - I am still torn about exact specs of my “New Year Gift” for myself. I got my eye on that 14″ Dell beauty, the half a pound thin netbook, with desk-projected keyboard (though I will mostly use on-screen keyboard and speech input). Even though I am a Microsoft shareholder, I can’t seem to justify the “Windows 7″ premium for choosing that OS. In fact, I have a suggestion for Microsoft, why not simplify the tough choice consumers are faced when they walk into Best Buy today? Instead of them having to choose between Google OS, Mac, Windows 7 or Ubuntu, just give them “Windows 7+” option (Just don’t call it ULTIMATE!!). Beat Googlers at their own game, and pre-install the Open Source Google OS, alongside Windows 7, tightly integrating the two. That should also make it feasible to justify your price premium!
• Finally, I was as excited as many of you to hear that they are taking pre-orders on Robo-girl this holiday season. Though the thought of never cleaning, washing dishes or doing laundry again is very appealing, I found the price to be a deterrent for me. I think I’ll give it another year to mature, and for the price to come down a bit. Of course, I am afraid to ask what my wife thinks about the idea…

To conclude, I want to remind everyone the gloom and doom atmosphere of a year ago. Back in 2008 when all you heard around the holiday time was Recession, Depression, etc. Oh, how quickly we tend to forget, and how readily we spent a record 15% more year-over-year, this holiday season. Now that economy is booming, I suppose it is only natural for people to “overcompensate” for such a dismal holiday last year…

PS: More Editors Note - Kudos to Matt and the team at Automattic. This new Time-warp feature you guys put together, is really amazing. At first I tried accessing a post from 1988, just for the fun of it, but it was coming in too slow over 2400 kbps modem..

Happy Holidays and Have Fun!

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Having realized that this is a post number 100, I had very hard time to decide what to blog about to make it “special”. So instead, I decided to blog about Nothing (in particular)!

Finished installing new router last night, picked up Linksys WRT360N for cheap at Newegg.com (they’re great!). Was overdue for a new router, still using old G kind, and this is a Gigabit beast, or at least that’s the promise.

Well, thanks to Jason for giving out $5 to existing Mahalo members, and making it fun for us to try out new Mahalo Answers. And Thanks for everyone at Mahalo Answers for writing such positive and constructive feedback for the site. Hope some also subscribed during their visit

Wordpress upgrade for this site to 2.7 was Smooth as butter this time! And I hear it is “self-upgrading” from now on – Great Job!

Probably just like everyone else, I’m all excited about Windows 7, and looking forward to grabbing more stable public beta, when it comes (soon!).

On the ever improving iPhone platform, there are some nice new free games (TapDefense, Checkers, PenguinLite), and the $10 worthy SimCity version! Also check out Joost free App and YPMobile

Thinking of adding Google Friend Connect gadget to the site, but I fail to see sufficient value, for all that screen space/page load time I will compromise on… Comments welcome

It’s the end of 2008, and we still can’t get Internet Security or Internet Identity Management right. Seriously, I’d do a startup on this, but I lack the resources. For this to succeed it has to be either really Big guys doing it, or Government mandated kind of deal.

Happy Holidays!

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Looking at this image from NYTimes this morning, it hit me that I already know and use the secret best-ever diet. This one is a sure-hit for 21 century and beyond.

Here’s how it works – put yourself on scheduled meals, and of course try to keep them balanced. I don’t think you have to go to extremes, like that study, but do add veggies and salad to most of your meals. This is not the secret part, the secret is rather simple:

Every time you want to snack on something (surely unhealthy) or eat outside your schedule, simply go play Computer/Xbox or some other Game instead. I find that most good games are engaging enough, to keep your mind off food! If it doesn’t work for you, keep searching for that personal Favorite game, which is sure to take your mind off that nasty snacking habit.

For our family, World of Warcraft is the best diet! Just make sure the Gaming PC is not in the kitchen, and you will find that you can’t leave 4 real people, who depend on you, getting killed by horrible monsters just because you decided that you Must have a snack Right Now!

Ah, also, for Hours of clean family fun, check out Kingdom of Keflings. It takes the classic formula of building and does it right, albeit it’s a little short for us, but I am sure expansions and ‘Second Edition’ are on the way.

And yes, your Brain burns calories also, so be sure to pick game where you use it, which is most all of them

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