You may remember the Home Virtualization Project from last year.  In that project, I converted my existing server, based on a Shuttle XPC (SP35P2 Pro, to be more precise) from a Linux server running VMware Server 2.0 to a VMware ESXi 3.5 server.  It worked well, but left a few things to be desired, such as..

1. No RAID
2. Onboard NIC required significant fiddling to get working under ESXi 3.5u4
3. No onboard video, so I needed a video card, plus a network card to get going (the real root cause of #1 above).
4. A bit loud.  The system wasn’t terribly loud, but for something that’s on full-time in the background in my office, it could be distracting at times.

So here we are, it’s a brand-new year, so the big project was an upgrade, inspired by some requirements I found with a project at work.  In the end, the old server was converted into a workstation and now has a happy home.  So what’s the current system?  Another Shuttle XPC.  This time, it’s the SG45H7.  This is a slightly smaller chassis than the already small SP35P2 Pro.  The SP line has space for 2 hard drives up top, above the optical drive that the SG line lacks, resulting in a shorter case.  The SG45H7 is targeted as an HTPC, and includes onboard video with both SVGA and HDMI outputs.  Further, it includes 2 expansion slots, one PCIe x16 and one PCI. Continue reading »

At long last, after promises to open up Facebook chat to Jabber clients, it’s up and going.  Finally!  No more crappy plugins for Pidgin and Adium that stop working randomly.  No more leaving a browser window up and connected to Facebook either.  It’s working quite well, so far at least.  Interested?  Head over there and they’ll walk you through the process.

What brought this about?  Facebook has started opening up and federating their IM system with other networks.  First up is AIM.  That’s right, AIM users can now chat with Facebook Chat users.  Since Facebook wisely chose the open XMPP (eXtensible Messaging & Presence Protocol) for this, which allows easy federation (i.e. interoperability) with other IM services, including the greater Jabber/XMPP community, which includes Google Talk, both in its standard and “Apps for Your Domain” flavors.

Here’s the gist, tell your Jabber client (they give precise instructions for Pidgin, Adium and iChat) to connect as your-user-name@chat.facebook.com and you’re all set.  For other Jabber clients, check out the link above for any particulars on the connection parameters.

One thing that they did not do, and it’s a bit irksome – no SSL/TLS support.  Come on kids, we’re in the 21st century here, let’s get with the program a bit.  After all, the standard login.facebook.com page uses SSL, so why not this too?

So overall, it’s great news, but they’ve still got a bit of work to do.

The Apple iPad

Ok, so it’s been a couple of days since Apple announced the latest gadget that’s going to be “revolutionary,” or perhaps this one is “game changing.”  Whatever it is, the iPad, which many had very high hopes for appears to be a big dud.

People have been clamoring for Apple to enter the netbook/tablet market for some time now, at least an hour after the Asus eeePC started gaining popularity.  Well, they finally got their wish this past week.  Unfortunately, it’s a big dud.

Take an iPhone 3GS, make it bigger, slap a huge bezel around the screen, and take away its ability to make phone calls.  Blammo, you now have the iPad.  I’ve got so many questions about this thing, and the choices they made in its design, that I’m not entirely sure where to start.  How about the CPU?  Apple went and designed their own, rather than do something sensible like use the Intel Atom.  It boggles the mind.  Ok, so it plays HD video.  So does the Atom, when outfitted with a proper graphics chip, like the Nvidia ION.  Rather than put all that effort into the CPU, they could have done so much more with the hardware.  And despite touting it as able to play HD video, it’s got a 4:3 ratio screen, rather than the widescreen aspect ratio it deserves.

No front-mounted camera.  Apple loves to trot out the latest iChat video stuff during keynotes.  Why not on this thing?  I thought it was supposed to be “the netbook, but done right,” or something like that.  Then the OS, the iPhone OS?  Blech.  Multitasking anyone?  Sure, I understand their attraction to the fact that it runs iPhone apps out of the box, but that’s bound to be problematic.  Consider games for instance – those are designed down to the pixel on the little screen of the iPhone/iPod Touch.  Now suddenly they’re on a bigger screen.  Is there resolution independence, or will developers be doing hoop jumping to support the iPad?  We’ll find out, eventually.

Then there’s the price.  Wow.  $500 for a 16GB tablet that’s only got wifi?  Yikes.  Want that 3G?  No problem, just add another $130 to the price of an already overpriced gadget.  If you wan the big dog model (64GB) with 3G, that’s going to run you a cool $829.  Oh yeah, and then you still get to pay the monthly recurring charges for your carrier’s data plan.  Since it’s free of contract pricing and you can start and stop at-will, why not just simply sell it unlocked?

Lots of folks are up in arms that it’s yet another device bound for AT&T’s network, but I completely understand (and agree with) the choice.  You want to minimize your build costs to maximize your profitability.  Just like the iPhone, that means GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS 850/1900/2100, guaranteeing your ability to sell the product pretty much anywhere globally.  Especially perturbing to many is that it isn’t available for use on the Verizon network, for the reasons I just gave.  Honestly folks, everyone’s moving to LTE-based networks, even Verizon, so you’ll just have to wait a few more years, then you can get your iLove on the VzW network.

Last, but most certainly not least – the adapters.  Want to pull pictures from your digital cam into iPad?  There’s an adapter for that.  You still need the special dock cable to connect it to anything as well.  I get it – I understood the use of the dock connector back in the day.  It’s time to abandon it in favor of the Micro-USB connector that everything else is either using, or moving to.  My Nokia E72 uses it, as do all the newer BlackBerrys, as does the Kindle, as do many newer digital cameras.  Join the rest of us in the land of “only 1 cable for all these devices.”

Will people flock to this thing?  Probably.  But, I just don’t see the attraction.  Maybe after 3 or 4 revisions it will be cooked enough, but in its current state, it needs more time in the oven.

My trusty E71 finally took a dive for the last time onto a nasty floor.  I was using a Nokia N85 for a bit as a stopgap.  Great phone, fantastic camera, but typing email with T9 drove me nuts.  The N85 is now hosting my home phone’s SIM.  But this review isn’t about the N85, so back to the topic at hand..

Between the N85 and the E72, I tried out the Blackberry 9700, which was lovely, as much as a Blackberry can be, but lacked some of the features I liked, such as a working SIP stack, and especially the ability to tell when my data is moving through the corporate network/BES, vs. WLAN, vs. carrier data that’s not via the BES – I found that utterly impossible on the BB 9700.  Otherwise, a nice phone.  But again, back to the topic at hand.

First, I’ll start with the physical attributes of the E72.  The E72 is a tiny bit wider than the E71, but is the tiniest bit lighter than the E71.  The E72 trades in a good bit of the metal housing for plastic, but gets new & improved features like a 3.5mm headphone jack, instead of the 2.5mm mess that’s on the E71.  Radios are mostly equivalent to the E71.  Mine is the US variant, the E72-2, so it’s a quad-band GSM/EDGE device, with works on UMTS 850/1900/2100 Mhz bands.  The 2100 Mhz band is a nice addition to the device, for users who travel abroad, as is the support for HSPA 7.2 Mbps.  The WLAN in the E72 is essentially the same as the E71 – 802.11b/g. The camera is a nice bump in the E72 as well – a 5MP cam, a step above the E71’s 3.2 MP cam, with a single LED flash.

My favorite part about the phone?  The messaging experience.  At work, one of our options is Exchange ActiveSync, so I’ve been a Mail for Exchange user for quite a while now, even with its deficiencies, like the lack of ability to sync folders other than the Inbox, HTML support, and lack of ability to create a meeting request from the phone.  The device works with Nokia’s Messaging service, which I’m not using at this time.  For my personal mail (hosted by Google Apps), I use the Google Gmail app, which works just as well on the E72 as it did on the E71.

Overall, the E72 is a worthy successor to the E71.  Right now, Amazon’s got it for $369.  If you’re going to buy, please consider using my link to it.

It’s that time of the year again kids.. For some reason, I didn’t do this last year.  Here we go, my 10 predictions for technology in 2010.

1. Netbooks – huge.

You thought 2009 was the year of the netbook?  You ain’t seen nothing yet, kid. 2010 will bring a whole new crop of them, this time with the Nvidia ION chipset, allowing you to watch HD content on your little netbook.  We’ve already started seeing better screen resolutions like 1366×768 (instead of the older 1024×600), giving you greater than 720p on the display.  This will continue, though I don’t think you’ll see 10″ screens grow much more in resolution.  Apple’s rumored to release something early in 2010, possibly called iSlate, which will be a hybrid netbook/tablet device.

2. Home Virtualization

In 2009, with VMware ESXi being free, geeks started doing bare-metal virtualization more and more, dumping host-os solutions like VMware Server in favor of better performance.  This trend will accelerate in 2010, and we’ll see someone introduce a virtualization product targeted at the so-called “pro-sumer”.  It will be interesting to see if it’s specifically marketed as such.  What’s it for?  Aggregation of lots of different home network services onto a single hardware platform.  Maybe it’s all a dream for us geeks, but I think something will pop in 2010.  Remember, everyone said the same thing about NAS, and now those are everywhere too.

3. Gigabit Ethernet for everyone

People will stop buying routers and switches for the home that are only 10/100 devices.  The driving forces?  NAS and 802.11n.  As people replace old computers with new, they come with shiny stuff like 802.11n wifi cards instead of crusty old 802.11g.  This means a jump from 54 Mbps to 300 Mbps.  Obviously, 300 Mbps > 100 Mbps, and nobody wants to have access to their data on the NAS to be that slow.

4. Android Cleans House

I admit it.  I like Google.  I love the idea of a common-source OS that’s open for mobile devices.  I’ve got serious technolust for something running Android right now.  I’m doing my best to be patient though.  I want to see the latest batch of devices, hopefully with 1 Ghz Snapdragon processors and Android 2.1 first.  After that, if it’s got AT&T 3G bands and wifi, I’m in.  I predict that people will finally start falling out of iLove with their iPhones, though certainly not in droves, and move to a more capable platform that does “more.”

5. Another new iPhone

As it’s older siblings before it, it will be buzzword compliant, but probably only with stuff that isn’t cutting edge.  You’ll get your 5MP camera (that I had on a phone 2 years ago), you’ll get HSPA – but won’t be able to use it.  What’s the big prediction here?  New headphones that use Bluetooth, sort of like the ones that Nokia sells.  They’ll be optional, and work with the 3GS, but I’d bet they won’t work with the 3G and certainly not the original iPhone.  Nothing earth shattering, but they’ll be Apple-branded, and tightly integrated with the device, so you’ll see stuff like song titles and caller id info on an OLED display, possibly color, using buddy icons from your address book.

6. Another iPod Shuffle down-size

Because they’re not small enough, right?  This time, it will be a single piece of hardware, integrated into the headphones.  It will also see a price cut to $49 for a 4GB model.  Just an incremental change in the end.

7. More gigantic technological misnomers

Like LED TVs.  I had a discussion with someone not long ago who insisted that these were not LCD TVs, and were in fact LED TVs.  He just couldn’t get past the idea that the display technology is largely the same, possibly some incremental changes, but the real change is in the backlight.  LCD TVs that were purchased a couple of years ago were certainly backlit using fluorescent bulbs.  These “LED” TVs use LED bulbs for the backlight.  That’s the limit of the changes.  These are not self-illuminating screens like OLED or AMOLED.  Now an AMOLED screen – that would be HUGE.  What will the misnomer be about?  Who knows?  It’s coming though.

8. A “major” newspaper will fail to make it to 2011

We’ve been talking for years about the impending death of the newspaper, in favor of Internet-based news channels.  I think back to our experience with the local paper earlier this year.  We subscribed purely for the reason of getting coupons.  We subscribed to the weekend package (so Friday – Sunday).  Total cost was about $10 a month.  The problem?  We only netted about $5-6 worth of coupons per month.  After 2 months, we canceled the subscription.  Ad revenues are already in the toilet for newspapers, and will only continue to decline.  Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, Mr. Newspaper Man.

9. Compressed hydrogen will start moving.

Sure, Honda’s got their prototype Accord going in California.  But, we’re going to start seeing a real compressed hydrogen delivery network being built.  Hydrogen is arguably one of the most abundantly available elements on Earth.  The vehicles emit water vapor as their exhaust.  Not so bad, eh?  Please, don’t confuse me with a climate change fruit loop.  I don’t subscribe to cooking the books in order to support my points, as is the case in the climate change circle these days.  But surely a car that emits water vapor can only be a good thing, when compared to a gas or diesel vehicle.

10. A usable water-based fuel cell

This thing is the big dream.  You fill it up with water, and the hydrogen is used to power the device.  It’s completely sustainable, and free to “recharge.”

As some of you may know, though may or may not actually care, I was previously running my home server on Ubuntu Jaunty x86_64, and ran VMware Server 2.0 on it.  I had VMs for my SSL VPN and some occasionally used VMs for other things.

I was tired of performance that VMware Server offered, along with its baggage.  For instance, the Web UI suffered from frequent crashes, and it was also fairly slow.  Having had great success in the lab at the office with VMware ESXi, I decided that was the way to go.  ESXi 4.0 is still fairly new, and I’ve had some trouble with my SSL VM on it, so I decided to sit that one out for a bit, leaving me with 3.5u4.

Next hurdle – my hardware.  I use a Shuttle XPC for my server.  It’s small, and doesn’t inhale too much power, so I found it to be a good choice as a Linux server, what it’s spent most of its time as.  Unfortunately, as it uses a Marvell Ethernet chipset (the sky2 driver), and that’s not on the VMware HCL, there wasn’t a driver for it.  But then, KernelCrash to the rescue.  The author gives very nice build instructions to get a mod_sky2.0 driver that works on ESXi 3.5u4.  It’s been good enough that I haven’t noticed any problems with performance or functionality.

I did have to give up my Linux software raid, so at the moment, I’m sort of running without a net.  My plan is to add an external RAID box, either connected via eSATA or 1GbE NAS.  Obviously eSATA will perform better, but I’m not yet convinced I’ll see much of a practical performance difference.  I’ll add a new Intel e1000 NIC to the system dedicated to storage if I do that.  Anyone have thoughts on VMware iSCSI vs NFS performance?

Now I’ve got VMs for my SSL VPN, my File/Pri DNS/DHCP/kitchen sink server, a secondary DNS, and a FreeNAS, as well as some assorted client systems to test various things.  All in all, it’s worked very well.

If you want to go straight to ESXi 4.0, KernelCrash has you covered there as well.

iPhone 3GS

Well kids, it’s that time of the year again.  iPhone season.  Last week, Apple announced their latest move in the iPhone marketplace – the iPhone 3GS.  The new member of the iPhone family is a small upgrade from the existing iPhone 3G that’s been beating the street for the past year.

What’s the new kid bring to the table relative to the existing 3G?

• HSDPA 7.2
• 3 MP auto-focus Camera
• Video Recording w/editing on the device
• Voice Control
• Slightly better battery life

Obviously, anyone would be happy with more battery life – though the additional capacity doesn’t amount to all that much.  Video recording is a nice addition as well.  Voice control is a neat toy, but isn’t used too much in general.  Phones that run S60 have had voice control features for years now.  Same goes for many other manufacturers as well.  Is the feature a killer app that’s used all the time?  Nope.

E71 HSDPA Speed

HSDPA 7.2 is a nice addition, vs. HSDPA 3.6 on the 3G.  However, consider that most AT&T HSDPA customers never see 3.6 Mbps download speed, does 7.2 Mbps really matter?  Check out the screenshot on the right from my Nokia E71, which also supports HSDPA 3.6.  This is fairly representative of the mobile speed tests I’ve done on the device.  In the past, I have seen as high as 1 Mbps, but have never come anywhere near close to 3.6 mbps.

Upgrades from the 3G?  Certainly, but marginal, at best.  All of the other iPhone 3.0 OS features are also present on the iPhone 3G as well.

Has this stopped a torrent of iPhone 3G customers who seemingly cannot go on living without the shiny new iPhone 3GS?  Nope.  There’s a gaggle of people signing a Twitter petition in what will be a vain attempt to get AT&T to repeat last year’s exception to AT&T’s standard policy regarding pre-term upgrades for existing users under contract.  Kids, think about this.  Last year, with the move from the iPhone to the iPhone 3G, AT&T changed the game.  The original iPhone used a $20/month data plan that also gave 200 texts.  Contrast that with the iPhone 3G, which carried a $30/month data plan and included no texts at all.  If you wanted to add those 200 texts back, that’s another $5/month.  Effectively, the customer had to cough up an extra $180 a year to maintain the same level of service when they moved from iPhone to iPhone 3G.  This increased revenue level allowed AT&T to make an exception to the upgrade policy, allowing users that were only half way through their contract to upgrade with no additional cost above what a new customer would pay.

Still don’t get it?  When you buy a phone from a carrier, you’re getting it at a lower price because of your commitment to a contract term of 1, 2, or sometimes even 3 years, though 3 year deals aren’t common in the US.  The carrier is partially subsidizing the cost of the device because you’re locking yourself in for a period of time.  For original iPhone customers, only being a half way through the contract, AT&T had not fully recouped the subsidy provided on the iPhone.  However, since allowing those original iPhone customers would result in an additional $360 above and beyond current revenue levels, it was financially feasible to allow the early upgrades.  It was even in the best interest of AT&T Wireless.  The fact that customers benefitted from the move was secondary – don’t confuse it with good will from AT&T.

So here we are, another year later.  The iPhone 3GS comes at an even lower price tag than before, but uses the exact same plans as the current 3G models.  This time around, there is no benefit to AT&T in allowing early upgrades at no additional costs, so they’re not.  This year, there are 3 levels of iPhone cost:

• Fully Subsidized – $99 for the 8GB 3G, $199 for the 16GB 3GS, $299 for the 32GB 3GS, comes with a 2-year contract.
• Partly Subsidized – Early Upgraders (12-18 months into contract) are eligible to upgrade for a $200 premium above the fully subsidized cost.
• No Subsidy – If you’re less than 12 months into your contract, you can upgrade, but face a $400 premium above the fully subsidized cost.

Herein lay the source of angst for the twittioners.  Kids, get this through your heads.  Your phone company is not your friend, and you’re their friend either.  You’re their customer – who sends them money in return for services.  You’ve agreed to be bound by the terms of a contract.  You cannot alter the terms of the deal just because you want the new, shiny toy.

IDS Install with Tap

I wanted to install a small network ids on my home network using Snort.  I wanted to stick the nids outside of my firewall, so it would be able to examine all Internet traffic coming in & out of the network.  Of course, putting a device online outside my firewall without any protection isn’t terribly attractive, so I decided to install using a tap.  Ignoring the fact that this is really the only possible configuration, given my home ISP (FiOS), it allows me to do a completely stealthed deployment of a nids.  Unfortunately, this type of deployment also precludes the ability to interact with any traffic seen on the wire, so flexresp is out of the question.

Construction of a passive tap

The other bad part about using a tap is that simply by the nature of the tap, you need to have 2 Ethernet ports to sniff on.  Why?  Check out the Snort docs on the subject.  When you setup a tap, you can only push one direction’s worth of traffic onto a single port.  This means you have to combine the traffic on the sniffing device.  Since you can only receive traffic and can’t send on these ports, you must have a third Ethernet port to connect to your internal network, or if you’ve got a larger network, a management LAN.

So, building your tap is pretty simple, when you’ve got the picture here on the right to work from.  Need the parts?  Head over to Home Depot and grab yourself the following parts:

1. A plastic electric box (get one marked for “Old Work”).  An 8 cubic inch box will probably not be deep enough, so go for the one of the 14 cubic inch ones.  Unscrew the little anchor flaps and toss them in the trash.
2. A 4-jack faceplate.  Whatever color you like.  I used white.
3. 4 Cat 5e Ethernet jacks.  I got 2 white and 2 blue.  The white jacks are the Host jacks, and the blue ones are Tap A & B, as shown in the figure at the right.
4. About 6 inches of Ethernet cable.

Strip off the jacket and remove the 8 wires.  Wire up the jacks as shown in the figure.  I found it easiest to wire up one of the host jacks, then run the wires through the tap jacks and finally up to the other host jack.  Try to keep the twists in the wire as much as possible, to prevent NEXT (Near End Crosstalk).  Cap off the jacks and screw the thing into the electric box.

I made two, one to use for the NIDS, and another to carry around for work if I need a tap.

I’m not going to go into how to install Snort, ACID, or any of that stuff.  There are already enough guides out there on that topic.  I will, however, address the need to join the two sniffing interfaces into a single full-duplex interface for Snort to sniff on.  You’ll be using the Linux kernel’s bonding module for this.  I’m going to assume Debian or Ubuntu here.  Add the bonding module to your /etc/modules file, then execute the command modprobe bonding.  In the /etc/network/interfaces file, you’ll need something like this:

auto bond0
iface bond0 inet manual
  up ifconfig $IFACE 0.0.0.0 up
  down ifconfig $IFACE down
  post-up ifenslave bond0 eth0 eth1
  pre-down ifenslave -d bond0 eth0 eth1

Obviously, you’ll need to configure Snort to sniff on the bond0 interface.  Don’t forget to install the ifenslave package.  It’s not installed by default on Ubuntu.

The biggest concern lots of tap novices have is accidentally introducing traffic onto the wire via the tap.  Let’s be clear.  This is simply impossible.  Can’t happen.  At all.  Why?  The only pins that are live on the tap ports are 3 and 6.  Guess what happens on those pins?  It’s only RX, not TX, so you can’t transmit on the tap ports.

February 17, 2009 is quickly approaching, and you’re still confused about the DTV Transition, right?  You’re not alone.  There are acronyms flying around like crazy, people don’t understand them, there’s a lot of bad information coming from a variety of bad sources even.  Relax, here’s all you need to know.

First, listen up. The DTV Transition only applies to you if you use an antenna to get your TV signal. Cable and satellite subscribers will not be impacted by the DTV Transition, even if your cable operator is suggesting you will be impacted.  This post is focused on antenna users, not cable or satellite users.

Next, let’s talk about what DTV is and is not.  DTV stands for Digital Television.  You will also hear terms like ATSC and HDTV used to describe the DTV Transition.  To gain a better understanding, let’s rewind a bit and look at analog TV.  In the US, analog TV transmissions are governed by what’s called the NTSC standard.  This standard defines a specific method for transmitting a TV signal.  A tuner, or device that converts the TV signals into a picture on your screen, with the help of an antenna, pulls in TV signals from the air and does its job.  DTV uses a newer transmission standard, referred to as ATSC.  This means, in order to get a picture on your TV after February 17, 2009, you will need a digital, or ATSC tuner, either inside your TV, or as an add-on box, that looks something like a cable box.

Instantly, lots of questions jump to mind…

What does DTV give me over the old analog standard?

First and foremost is picture quality.  Digital transmissions are cleaner, thus better picture quality on your screen.  Also, because DTV transmissions take up less space in the airwaves than their analog counterparts, many stations broadcast what are called “sub-channels,” with additional content.  For example, Philly’s NBC affiliate, Channel 10, broadcasts two channels.  Channel 10.1 is the same old Channel 10 you’ve seen for years.  The extra channel, 10.2 is an all-weather channel that only broadcasts local weather, full-time.  Other stations handle this differently, sometimes running more shows, others not taking advantage of sub-channels at all.

Do I have a digital tuner already?

Unfortunately, there’s no quick & easy answer to this question.  The best advice I can give you is to check your TV’s manual.  If you don’t have that handy, look at the back of the TV, get the model number and check the manufacturer’s website.  If you bought your TV in the past couple of years, you may already have a digital tuner inside!

Ok, I don’t have a digital tuner, do I need a new TV?

Absolutely not.  If your TV lacks a digital tuner, you can get an inexpensive digital converter box.  These are available at your local electronics retailer, and cost anywhere between $40 and $75.  To help defray the costs, Uncle Sam’s willing to kick in 2 $40 coupons per household.  Head over to their website to apply for your coupons.

Do I need to subscribe to cable or satellite?

Again, absolutely not.  There is a lot of clever messaging by cable and satellite operators referencing the DTV Transition out there.  Let’s be perfectly clear – there is NOTHING you need to do if you’re a cable or satellite subscriber.

Do I need a new antenna?

Again, no.  In the store, you’ll see lots of antennas marketed as DTV or HDTV antennas.  DTV transmissions are in the same frequency range as existing analog TV signals, so even those crusty old rabbit ears your grandfather bought at Radio Shack in 1974 will still work fine.

So, how does HDTV fit into all of this?

All HD programming that comes in OTA (over the air), that is, via antenna, is by definition, digital already.  In other words, all HDTV content is DTV.  However, not all DTV programming is in HD.  Think of DTV as a bigger circle with HDTV as a smaller circle completely inside the DTV circle.  A common misconception is that by adding a digital tuner to your existing older non-HDTV, you’ll somehow transform it into an HDTV set.  This is again, not true.

Still not sure what you need to do?  Ok, I cooked up a little flow chart to help you figure out what to do (click it to enlarge):

Your Decision Process

Users of Microsoft’s 30GB Zune had a real treat early this morning.  Their Zunes stopped working.  Oops!

It seems that around 2 am local time this morning, Zunes that were on locked up.  Zunes that were off promptly locked up upon power-up today.

Microsoft finally posted an update for the poor embattled Zune users at about 9am Pacific Time.

“Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!”

Sorry for the inconvenience, indeed.  Particularly humorous are posts on the Zune message boards recommending people buy iPods instead.  Ouch.  Salt in the wounds much?

It seems that there’s a DIY fix for this, as long as you don’t mind taking your Zune apart, and thus voiding the warranty…  I’m just happily cruising along with my iPod nano.  Yay.

Update: Last evening, there was official word from the Microsofties about a fix.  The details seem a bit sketchy in that post.  First, they blame it on a driver issue, then later they claim it’s related to bad code handling leap-year situations.  That is, Zunes blow up on the last day of a leap-year, and start working again on New Years Day.  Mind you, I’m not a device driver coder, but who on earth would put clock management code inside a device driver??  Seems more like a core OS function to me, since lots of things would need to access the clock.  After that explanation, which vaguely reads like, “We have no idea what we did wrong,” if I was a Zune guy, my Zune would now be on eBay, awaiting my iPod purchase.