The Day The Music Died — Frozen 30GB Zunes
My 30 GB Zune is frozen, along with almost everyone else’s 30 GB Zune. MS says: “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!” More at MSNBC and Ars Technica.
UPDATE: Possible explanations:
* Slightly late Y2K issue
* Alien Virus
* Evil Clowns
* Egyptian Curse
* Latest GNR Album Rocks Too Hard
* MS Sucks
UPDATE 2 - I have a feeling this was a coding error related to 2008 being a leap year — today is day 366. Could be wrong, but as a long-time mainframe programmer, I’ve seen leap year glitches a few times.
UPDATE 3 - Microsoft says the issue will fix itself tomorrow..
The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.
Read more details on the official Zune blog.
UPDATE 4 On Twitter, ZuneInsider is assuring us that the firmware will be updated before 2012 — the next leap year. Man, I hope I’m not still using my brown 30gb Zune 4 years from now. 
link: http://twitter.com/ZuneInsider
(cross-posted on badooble)
Permalink | Make a Comment ( None so far )TextOnPhone iPhone App Comes to T-Mobile G1
Popular iPhone ebook app TextOnPhone is now available as an Android application in the Marketplace. So far, it’s the best ebook reader available for the T-Mobile G1. There are about 30,000 books that can be downloaded, mostly public domain and Creative Commons titles. You can also upload books to a personal bookshelf on the textonphone.com web site from a computer, and then download them to your phone. I successfully uploaded a short story, but I couldn’t get a full-length novel to upload for some reason.
The TextOnPhone Android application doesn’t support bookmarks, but it does a good job of remembering your place — even if you close and then re-open a book.
It would be nice if TextOnPhone could open text files stored on the phone’s SD card, or if I could at least figure out how to get large books uploaded, but it will do until a more full-featured application shows up.
UPDATE: Uploading books to TextOnPhone seems to be working fine now via the Facebook app. Go to the TextOnPhone web site to install the app to your Facebook account, and have fun uploading your books. The G1 application itself has also been updated — books are now downloaded to the G1’s storage card instead of to the device’s storage (only five books can be saved to storage at a time). And books can now be read online, without downloading first (like on the iPhone).
Finally, books can even be read on your desktop pc, via the Facebook app. The TexOnPhone developers are definitely on the ball, and this is easily the best (and most improved) G1 ebook application — not to mention my favorite G1 app of all. Thanks guys…I can finally stop carrying around my old Treo 650 just to read ebooks on!
Permalink | Make a Comment ( Comments Off so far )G1 Gets Ebook Reader
The T-Mobile G1 smart phone now has a functional (more-or-less) ebook reader. FBReaderJ has now been re-compiled to work on the device, and it can indeed open and display certain ebook formats. I converted several books from Microsoft’s LIT format to the FB2 format, and they were recognized and opened without a problem.
There are still bugs, to be sure. Find Text doesn’t work yet, and each orientation change causes the book to re-load and start at the beginning (open the keyboard while reading, and lose your place!). And I haven’t discovered a way to set bookmarks yet, which is important. But this is a key application for me, and I’m glad it’s available. Hopefully, active development will continue and improvements will come quickly.
FBReaderJ 0.2.1 is not in the official Android marketplace yet, but the Android package can be downloaded here (you’ll need to enable “Unknown Sources” in the Settings > Application menu on your G1 first).
Thanks to FBReaderJ, I’m now closer to retiring my Treo 650 for good and just carrying the awesome G1.
FROM THE COMMENTS:
“what did you use to convert the LIT books to FB2?”
I use a free Windows program called ABC Amber Lit Converter. It does the job, converting Lit titles to a variety of other ebook and document formats. Very nice.
Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )I Get It
The new Microsoft ad featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates has appeared on the web, and a lot of people are criticizing it as being odd and pointless. Well Duh! The quirky ad is obviously meant to set the stage for things to come, and I did find it amusing in a very “Seinfeld” way. If anything, the ad is too reminiscent of the inspired Seinfeld - Superman ‘buddy” commercials for American Express (and no, I’m not saying Bill Gates is Superman).
Permalink | Make a Comment ( Comments Off so far )Google Chrome - A Brand New Browser
Google’s new browser, “Chrome”, will be available tomorrow (Tuesday) for download in 100 countries. Kara Swisher has scans of a promotional comic accidentally mailed out a little early. And Blogoscoped has some screenshots, along with more details. Here’s a taste:
UPDATE: The Google Chrome browser is available for download.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( Comments Off so far )Dell Can’t Trademark Generic Term After All
Dell’s “Cloud Computing” trademark application: denied
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( Comments Off so far )Some End Of Summer Recommendations
Book: I just finished reading Small Favor, the latest installment of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. This is actually the tenth novel, and the series is still going strong. Harry Dresden is a modern-day wizard who manages to spend most of every book bruised and battered by a variety of supernatural beings [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( Comments Off so far )Boldly Going Massively Multiplayer
A Star Trek MMORPG is in the works:
The massively multiplayer game, from Cryptic Studios for Windows PCs and perhaps Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, takes place about 30 years after Star Trek: Nemesis. Players can captain their own starship, as a human or alien, as they seek out new civilizations.
I want to play a [...]
