30GB Zunes failing due to software glitch

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According to hundreds of reports from users worldwide, 30GB Zunes are freezing and locking up due to what appears to be a new years date bug.
One poster summarized the issue on Microsoft’s support forums, "At exactly 2am CDT (12am PDT), the docked Zune made the "unplugged from USB port" bong-noise and went to the boot-up screen with the 100% loading bar…and froze. At 2:30am CDT, I decided to check the other Zune. Turned it on and…frozen at the 100% loading screen."
It appears as though only 30GB Zunes are currently affected and some reports indicate that only Zunes with the latest firmware are affected, but this hasn’t yet been confirmed.
Microsoft has not yet commented on the matter and is currently unavailable for comment due to time zone differences.

Update: Microsoft’s official response so far is "Thank you for your inquiry. We’re looking into the situation and will update you as soon as possible." Microsoft has also updated its Zune support service page, "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!". Microsoft’s Zune insider twitter page has the following, "Hey all. Yes it looks to be quite a day. Thanks for all the heads up. we are on it working to isolate the issue and I will keep you posted." More as it follows.
Update 2: Microsoft has now additionally stated that the Zune Social "might be slow or inaccessible."
Update 3: On the ZuneInsider Twitter, Microsoft says they are making progress and close to being able to ID the issue. Hopefully for the many users being hit with this bug, that means a fix is forthcoming.

The Zune freezes as pictured below:

Image courtesy of Gizmodo
Thanks to QuietStorm21A for the news tip.

Source: Neowin.net

Note: I can confirm this has also bricked the Zune I gave to my mother as well. What a pile of crap it’s proved to be.

Prioritizing Features for WordPress 2.8

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Everyone knows by now that WordPress 2.7 is packed with new features. Now that it’s available (almost 600,000 downloads as I write this!), it’s time to start working on 2.8. There were dozens of things that got tabled during 2.7 due to time constraints, and there are a lot of high-rated features in the Ideas forum, so there are a lot of potential features under consideration.

Right now, the lead developers are thinking the top priorities for 2.8 will be widget management, theme browser/installer and performance upgrades. The rest of the development time will be taken up with bug tickets and additional features/enhancements from a prioritized list. To that end, we’ve posted a new survey for you to help us prioritize features for 2.8. The list pulls from the developers’ “2.7 leftovers” list as well as the most popular features from the Ideas forum. Just rank each feature and tell us your top pick (up to three). You also have the option of adding comments or additional suggestions, but this is not mandatory. For your response to count, you must rank all of the features in the list. The survey has only one page.

Note that media features are not included in this list as we will be posting a separate survey for media-specific features soon.

Cast your votes any time this week, but as always the sooner the better. This survey will close at noon on December 31, 2008 UTC.

In the new year, we will be reviving scheduled IRC developer chats, where the lead developers will discuss the week’s progress on feature development, providing opportunities for people to ask questions or make suggestions. These will be held early in the day on Wednesdays (U.S. Wednesday), and the specific time will be posted here on the development blog once it’s been finalized.

As a related aside, we spent a significant amount of time during 2.7 development sifting through Trac tickets that really shouldn’t have been there. Feature ideas and requests do not belong in Trac, they belong in the Ideas forum. Please reserve Trac for reporting bugs and things that need fixing (typos, code enhancements, etc.). If you are asking for a new UI, a new feature, or a new approach to coding something, that’s not an enhancement, it’s a new feature. New features will be entered into Trac by developers once it has been determined that the feature should be included in core. To help speed up development, moving forward we will close Trac tickets that are actually feature requests, with the comment that they should be posted in the Ideas forum instead. Please help the developers maximize their time by following this guideline.

Thanks for your help!

News source: WordPress Blog

Enable Ctrl+Alt+Delete for Vista Logon Screen

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In older versions of Windows, you had to use the Ctrl+Alt+Delete combination to login to the system. This was supposed to provide a higher security login, although I don’t know how. You also might be used to using that combination to login, and there’s a way to turn it back on.

Open the Advanced User Accounts panel by typing in netplwiz into the start menu search box, and hitting enter. Then click the Advanced tab, and you’ll see this:

Just check the box, and the next time you login, you’ll see the old familiar prompt.

Source: How to Geek

How To Enable Polygamy In Windows Live Messenger (9.0 RC1)

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Many of you will have several WLIDs, and want to sign into Messenger with more than one of them. Until now you had to seek refuge in a patch or add-on to be able to do so. Not anymore! Microsoft’s John Weisenfeld just shared a little trick with me to enable this, which I’m going to share with you.

The trick involves registry editing, so please follow these steps very carefully:

1. Start regedit (admin)
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows Live
3. Right click Messenger and create a new DWORD called MultipleInstances

REcreateDWORD

4. Right click the newly added registry key and choose Modify
5. Set the Value data to 1

REeditDWORD

6. Close regedit

All done! Now you can launch Windows Live Messenger as many times as you want, and sign in with as many WLIDs you want, on one computer. Just don’t try to sign in with the same WLID more than once on one computer or it will throw error 80071392 at you!

80071392

Enjoy!

Source: Liveside.net

Windows Live Messenger and Live Suite Wave 3 released (RC)

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Microsoft has just made the updated release candidate of the Windows Live Suite wave 3 at download.live.com. Thanks to Sean Bradford for alerting us.
Microsoft has updated the Messenger client to Version 2009 (Build 14.0.8050.1202) as can be seen below from the about Window:

There is no beta tag anywhere on this build as it’s a near final build and Messenger plus does work with this build but not all features are usable.
Overall the UI has been enhanced in most areas with minor changes. The main improvements are the integration to Windows 7 and jump lists.
The sign in has changed slightly

The Windows 7 jump lists:

The toasts that pop up when users sign in have been updated too:

The contact list and IM windows remain largely the same:

Source: Tom Warren of Neowin.net

Virgin to launch 50mbps service for UK customers today

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Virgin Media is expected to unveil its 50Mbps broadband service at a press briefing this morning.
It will be the fastest domestic connection available to UK web surfers. Early reports suggest the XXL service will be priced at £52 per month with upload speeds capped to 1.75Mbit, increasing to 2.5Mbit in 2009.

According to a report in the FT, Virgin Media CEO Neil Berkett was quoted as saying "It will be premium-priced," at an investors conference in New York last week. "I see no reason to go in cheap" he added.

Earlier this year Virgin was slapped on the wrist by the Advertising Standards Authority for misleading adverts regarding its speed packages. Virgin media controversially began throttling users internet connections in May 2007 during peak times (4pm till midnight) for customers who downloaded a certain amount of data in that given time. It is unclear whether Virgin will apply these restrictions to the XXL service.

 

News source: Neowin.net