..."You can use these [enabled] drives to childproof your laptop
because it operates outside of Windows. Windows hasn't even booted
yet. Your kid can't crack it unless [he] has the password. You can
leave the laptop at home and rest assured a 14-year-old can't get on
it," Thibadeau said.
IT departments will also be able to repurpose drives using the
encryption standard by cryptographically erasing them with a few
keystrokes. Cryptographic erasure changes the cryptographic key, thus
making data permanently inaccessible....
...from:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&tax…
Coming soon: Full-disk encryption for all computer drives
Drive makers settle on a single encryption standard
By Lucas Mearian
January 27, 2009 (Computerworld) The world's six largest computer
drive makers today published the final specifications(download PDF)
for a single, full-disk encryption standard that can be used across
all hard disk drives, solid state drives (SSD) and encryption key
management applications. Once enabled, any disk that uses the
specification will be locked without a password -- and the password
will be needed even before a computer boots.
The three The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) specifications cover
storage devices in consumer laptops and desktop computers as well as
enterprise-class drives used in servers and disk storage arrays.
"This represents interoperability commitments from every disk drive
maker on the planet," said Robert Thibadeau, chief technologist
atSeagate Technology and chairman of the TCG. "We're protecting data
at rest. When a USB drive is unplugged, or when a laptop is powered
down, or when an administrator pulls a drive from a server, it can't
be brought back up and read without first giving a cryptographically-
strong password. If you don't have that, it's a brick. You can't even
sell it on eBay."
By using a single, full-disk encryption specification, all drive
manufacturers can bake security into their products' firmware,
lowering the cost of production and increasing the efficiency of the
security technology.
For enterprises rolling out security across PCs, laptops and servers,
standardized hardware encryption translates into minimum security
configuration at installation, along with higher performance with low
overhead. The specifications enable support for strong access control
and, once set at the management level, the encryption cannot be turned
off by end-users.
Whenever an operating system or application writes data to a self-
encrypting drive, there is no bottleneck created by software, which
would have to interrupt the I/O stream and convert the data "so
there's no slowdown," Thibadeau said.
"Also, the encryption machinery uses no power. When it reads data from
the drive, it displays it to the user in the clear. It's completely
transparent to the user," he said.
The TCG includes Fujitsu, Hitachi GST, Seagate Technology, Samsung,
Toshiba, Western Digital, Wave Systems, LSI Corp., ULink Technology
and IBM.
"In five years time, you can imagine any drive coming off the
production line will be encrypted, and there will be virtually no cost
for it," said Jon Oltsik, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.
Here are the three specifications:
• The Opal specification, which outlines minimum requirements for
storage devices used in PCs and laptops.
• The Enterprise Security Subsystem Class Specification, which is
aimed at drives in data centers and high-volume applications, where
typically there is a minimum security configuration at installation.
• The Storage Interface Interactions Specification, which specifies
how the TCG's existing Storage Core Specification and the other
specifications interact with other standards for storage interfaces
and connections. For example, the specification supports a number of
transports, including ATA parallel and serial, SCSI SAS, Fibre Channel
and ATAPI.
Several of the drive manufacturers, including Seagate, Fujitsu
andHitachi, already support the standard on some of their drives.
Hitachi, for instance, is shipping its internal Travelstar 5K500.B
laptop drives with full-disk encryption.
Several encryption management software vendors, including Wave
Systems, WinMagic Inc. and CryptoMill Technologies, have also
announced product certification for the standard.
Brian Berger, a marketing manager with Wave Systems and chair of the
TCG marketing work group, said the specifications call for the use of
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Vendors are free to choose either
AES 128-bit or AES 256-bit keys depending on the level of security
they want. Neither have been broken.
"Things like key manageability and patch management become things of
the past," he said. "You don't have to worry about what version of
encryption software is running or what [encryption appliance] your
system's plugged into. When encrypted drives are under management,
users can't turn off encryption, so there's no chance of users losing
machines with valuable data on them after having turned off encryption."
The effort to create the encryption specifications, which began six
years ago, focused on full-disk encryption, which protects data on a
computer by encrypting all of the information on the computer's hard
drive regardless of what partition it's on. In order to gain access to
the information, users would first have to supply a password, which,
in turn, would be used to unlock a key used to decrypt the data.
"You can use these [enabled] drives to childproof your laptop because
it operates outside of Windows. Windows hasn't even booted yet. Your
kid can't crack it unless [he] has the password. You can leave the
laptop at home and rest assured a 14-year-old can't get on it,"
Thibadeau said.
IT departments will also be able to repurpose drives using the
encryption standard by cryptographically erasing them with a few
keystrokes. Cryptographic erasure changes the cryptographic key, thus
making data permanently inaccessible.
"The specific way in which encryption is done inside the drive doesn't
matter for interoperability," said Jorge Campello, senior manager of
architecture and electronics at Hitachi. "What matters is how they
drives are configured and how access control is configured. So any
drive, in conforming to these standards, will have the same interface
commands."
...from:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/20/windows-7-install-roundup/#continued
Windows 7 install roundup
by Paul Miller, posted Jan 20th 2009 at 11:01AM
After resting up and settling into our post-CES golden desk chairs,
team Engadget got busy at installing Windows 7 on pretty much anything
they could find. Most installs went off without a hitch, and BSoDs
were fairly few and far between. You can check out all our various
first impressions after the break... the names aren't made up, but the
stories are true.
Joshua Topolsky
System:
• MacBook Pro (unibody)
• 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB of RAM
Install process:
Partitioned the drive with Boot Camp, popped in a burned Windows 7
disc and booted to it just fine. Formatted the partition and
installed, nary a bump. Installed Vista graphics drivers from NVIDIA's
site.
First impressions:
Fast boot times, and the graphics drivers and WiFi work great.
Unfortunately, the sound and webcam still aren't working, and the
trackpad experience is pretty bad with the new unibody MacBook Pro
button-free pad, even with the latest drivers -- there's no right
click, for instance. Also, hit a BSoD when trying to resize an active
title bar. Microsoft has clearly taken time to listen to people this
go-round and made some noticeable ease-of-use improvements, but I
think the real power of Win 7 likely lies in its trimmed requirements
and ability to adapt to a wide variety of systems... just like XP.
Paul Miller
System:
• Dell Dimension 9150
• Intel Pentium D 2.8GHz dual core
• 2.5GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT graphics
• Windows Vista SP1
Install process:
Ripped the install DVD and put the contents on a USB flash drive in a
folder called "windows," ran setup.exe from there. The "upgrade"
method failed, but failed gracefully, with the full original Vista
setup remaining. Tried a clean install (with the old install moved to
windows.old) and it worked flawlessly. Took about an hour.
First impressions:
Boot times and responsiveness seem comparable to Windows Vista, though
the time from start-up to usability is improved. Drivers for a
multitude of odd hardware pulled just fine. Unfortunately, there seem
to be some problems with returning from sleep with the GeForce card --
certain window elements won't draw, the system becomes unstable and it
continually cycles the graphics card, none of which happened with
Windows Vista.
System:
• Sony Vaio P
• Intel Atom Z520 1.33GHz
• 2GB of RAM
• Windows Vista SP1
Install process:
Ripped the install DVD and put the contents on a USB flash drive in a
folder called "windows," ran setup.exe from there. A clean install
(with the old install moved to windows.old) worked flawlessly. Took
about 45 minutes.
First impressions:
Machine became much more responsive and usable. OS includes a
simplified, more usable version of Vista's DPI setting panel that
scales UI elements to look much better on the high-res screen. We
wrote up the rest of our impressions of Windows 7 on the P right here.
Thomas Ricker
System:
• MacBook Pro
• 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2GB DDR2 SDRAM
• Leopard 10.5.6
Install Process:
Ripped Windows 7 Beta installer to .DMG image using Disk Utility and
renamed .DMG image to .ISO. Created new virtual machine in VMware
Fusion 1.1 and selected .ISO image of Windows 7 when prompted. After
about 10 minutes I was up and running Windows 7 Home Basic on WiFi
network.
First impressions:
There's a slight lag felt when running in the default 512MB memory
slot allocated to Win7. The lag mostly disappears when dialing up the
memory to 1GB -- that's mainstream netbook territory. I keep Fusion
running in OS X Spaces for quick access to the Windows applications I
require for day-to-day computing. Only real problem seen so far is the
occasional wonky behavior when jumping in and out of VMware Fusion's
full screen mode (the Win7 desktop disappears).
Nilay Patel
System:
• MacBook Pro
• 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics
• 3GB DDR2 SDRAM
Install Process:
Installed really quick'n'dirty on a Boot Camp partition just to play
around for a while -- I'm going to buy a dedicated Windows 7 box soon,
so this install will get deleted anyway. Didn't pay much attention to
anything along the way for that reason -- I just let things happen the
way they happened, and everything works fine except for trackpad right
click, but I solved that by plugging in an external mouse. Took about
45 minutes start to finish.
First impressions:
Works great so far -- I'm really liking the automatic window
management. Can't say I've done much to stress the system other than
poke around the web and download software updates, but overall it's
fast and responsive. There's still a sense that the OS is trying to
help you a little too much when you do things, as opposed to the go-it-
alone feeling of XP, but that might just be familiarity talking.
Definitely a vast improvement over Vista -- if this is just the beta,
I'm encouraged to see what the final product looks like.
Kevin Wong
System:
• MacBook Pro
• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB of RAM
Install process:
A breeze to install via VMWare Fusion using the .ISO and entering the
key. Was surprised how quickly it installed all of the updates,
without a bunch of messy pop up windows or warnings. Took me all of 15
minutes to install (at most) and use right away. Allocated one core,
10GB of hard drive and 1GB of RAM and it's running smoothly.
First impressions:
Compared to Windows Vista, Windows 7 is a god send. Being a recent
Apple convert, I've used XP all my life. I was stoked for Windows
Vista before it came out because it looked nicer than my XP setup, but
now I can look forward to Microsoft releasing a better looking product
that works! It's snappy, quick and looks great, everything Vista
should have been. Looking forward to installing it on a touch screen
netbook soon!
Ross Miller
System:
• HP Pavilion Elite m9150f
• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad
• 3GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• HD DVD player ... cause I'm cool like that
Install Process:
Installed from DVD. The upgrade initially refused to run, citing
nondescript reasons. Eventually figured out I had to uninstall my
antivirus software entirely. From there, the update ran smoothly --
good to go in less than 15 minutes.
First impressions:
Haven't noticed too much of a speed boost yet. Aero Peek is useful for
checking the desktop widgets, but so far not much else. Really love
being able to drag windows to the side or top of screen for tiling and
maximizing, respectively. Navigation is much better, but still not as
efficient for me as OS X's Exposé.
Wrap-up
Overall, pretty good experiences all around. Microsoft has clearly
done a lot to get the install quick and painless, and it's great to
boot an OS that seems in most cases to bring with it immediate
performance and usability improvements. We'll be delving in further in
the coming weeks, but Windows 7 certainly passes the "first date"
test. A typical install -- including Paul's fateful upgrade failure --
plus some larger shots of our desktops are in the gallery below.
...from:
http://www.oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1245&It…
Blank CD-R tax to increase 38 percent in Canada
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
The Canadian Copyright Board has announced that it will raise the tax
on blank compact discs to 29¢ (US$0.23), a 38% increase. Previously
the tariff on blank recordable CDs was 21¢ (US$0.1679), according to
Billboard.biz. Blank CD manufacturer Brad Yeager, senior product
manager optical media for Memorex, toldOne to One that this decision
pretty much kills the CD-R business in Canada.
The tariff is collected on behalf of the Canadian Private Copying
Collective, an organisation formed in 1999 and created to collect
money that compensates musicians and stakeholders for having their
music copied by individuals. The board says there were two reasons for
the increase.
Billboard quotes the report. "First, increased mechanical licence
royalties, coupled with the elimination of container deductions and
free goods allowances in the calculation of the performers' and
makers' remuneration, greatly add to our estimation of the total
remuneration per pre-recorded CD," the board said in a report.
"Second, the use of compression technology raises from 15 to 18.4 the
average number of tracks copied on a blank CD used to copy music."
Using the new royalty rate, blank CD sales would have generated $29
million (US$23 million) in revenue in 2008, the board said, adding
that despite the rate increase, the total amount collected would
remain consistent with past years due to falling blank CD sales.
"Should this forecast not materialise, the estimated amount of
royalties would be adjusted accordingly," the board said.
The increase of 8 cents will lead "most consumers to use blank DVDs or
flash-based products. The CD-R business has been decreasing by about
15-20% per year over the past three years. A 50 pack will cost about
$15.00 less in the United States. Paying an additional $10.50 for a 50
pack was a stretch, but paying $14.50 Canadian is mind boggling," says
Yeager.
"The Canadian Copyright Board should find a way to target users of CD-
R that are actually copying music. This "shot gun" approach to
collecting money for musicians unfairly penalises nearly all of MAM-
A's Canadian customers. A very small percentage of MAM-A discs sold
into the Canadian market are used for music," said Joe Weisenbach of
MAM-A Inc (pictured).
The decision leaves the rate for audio cassettes at 24¢
= - = - = - =
...from:
http://www.oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1273&It…
New business models for music
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
According to the IFPI's Digital Music Report 2009, which gives a
comprehensive overview of trends in the music business
internationally, the industry has shifted its approach from one based
only on unit sales of music to 'monetising' access to music across a
multitude of channels and platforms.
John Kennedy (pictured), chairman and chief executive of IFPI, said:
"The recorded music industry is reinventing itself and its business
models. Music companies have changed their whole approach to doing
business, reshaped their operations and responded to the dramatic
transformation in the way music is distributed and consumed." However,
while music companies are embracing new revenue models, and offering
consumers more choice, the download model still has its own headaches:
an estimated 95% of music downloads are unauthorised, with no payment
to artists and producers.
"The music industry has transformed its business models, offering
consumers an increasing range of new services with leading technology
partners," says the report. "Yet generating value in an environment
where 95% of music downloads are illegal and unpaid for is still the
biggest challenge for music companies and their commercial partners."
The digital music business internationally saw a sixth year of
expansion in 2008, growing by an estimated 25% to $3.7 billion in
trade value. Digital platforms now account for around 20% of recorded
music sales, up from 15% in 2007. Recorded music is at the forefront
of the online and mobile revolution, generating more revenue in
percentage terms through digital platforms than the newspaper (4%),
magazine (1%) and film industries (4%) combined.
...from:
http://www.macworld.com/article/138240/2009/01/triumvirate.html?lsrc=mwweek
Jan 15, 2009 11:50 am20 Comments+ 5 Recommendations
Strong Apple team can fill in for Jobs
by Dan Moren, Macworld.com
The downside of being a company that gets as much press attention as
Apple is that it cuts both ways: while even the most minor product
release can grab headlines, less positive news gets amplified as well.
So Steve Jobs’s announcement on Wednesday that he’d be taking a six
month leave of absence for medical reasons has apparently caused more
panic and consternation than Godzilla setting foot in Tokyo Bay.
It’s true: there is no one person at Apple who can replace Jobs as an
icon. He’s been the public face of the company for the last 10 years
and his image has been inextricably tied to Apple since he co-founded
the company more than 30 years ago. Ten years of keynotes and special
events has solidified the image that the company’s a one-man show,
even if we all know that’s not really true.
But while Steve as the one-man prophet, priest, and king may be
irreplaceable—and I brook no argument over the fact that he's a Great
Man—that doesn’t mean that he can’t be replacedat all. Over the years,
Apple’s developed a solid roster of senior talent in a myriad of
fields, all of them players brought to the majors with the approval of
Jobs himself. As CEO, he’s built a team that subscribes to his
ideology, who can ably steer the ship in his absence, whether it be
temporary or permanent.
So, instead of the Caesarean dictatorial rule of the Jobs era, think
instead of the triumvirates of ancient Rome. Apple still has Tim Cook
to run the day-to-day operations of the company—which, for many
intents and purposes he’s been doing for awhile; Jonathan Ive to
handle the design, as his gaggle of awards shows he’s capable; and
Phil Schiller to handle product demos, as he ably did last week at
Macworld Expo.
Just because Jobs's image has conflated the roles of showman, designer-
in-chief, and CEO into one über-role doesn’t mean that that’s the way
it has to be. Sure, it’s one of the things that sets Apple apart from
many of its competitors, but it’s certainly not the norm in the tech
business world.
The triumvirate of Cook, Ive, and Schiller may lack some of the fabled
reality distortion field of Steve Jobs, but there’s no doubt to my
mind that they’re capable of creating the same kind of great products
that we’ve come to expect from Apple. And that’s because, consciously
or not, those executives have been learning from Steve—and, I’d argue,
vice versa—for almost a decade. They’re attuned to the way he does
things, because they’d have to be just to survive at Apple, never mind
at such a high level.
But if there’s one thing that—"worries" is too strong a word—makes me
curious in such an arrangement, it’s the issue of executive power: who
has the authority to veto a project that isn’t up to snuff, and how
will they use it? If Cook takes the CEO reins, will he exercise that
ultimate verdict wisely, listening to counsel from the likes of Ive,
hardware VP Bob Mansfield, and iPhone VP Scott Forstall? Or will he
focus instead on the strength of his own instincts for operations,
potentially killing off products that simply needed more time to
mature? Take the Apple TV, for example: would a “hobby” like that
survive in a Cook administration, or would it fall prey to the hatchet
of operational efficiency? We just don’t know.
But then again, if that’s the biggest question, the company’s in
pretty solid shape.
So don’t cry for Apple. This isn’t a repeat of 1985, where Jobs was
ousted by a man in a suit with a completely different vision of the
company—the people who are left running the company in Jobs's absence
are the people Jobs put there. While there may be no single hand-
picked successor to Jobs, it doesn’t mean that there’s no successor at
all—far from it. In fact, he’s got a whole company of successors,
people who have come to Cupertino because they want to help make great
products that they love. So even if Steve Jobs isn’t at the company in
person, you can be sure that his influence will continue to be felt on
every level for a long time to come.
While it's been some time since Seagate drives shipped in Apple
machines, external drives or other machines may have them.... here's a
description of the problem and a link to find out if your Seagate
drive may be susceptible...
...from:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39596623,00.htm
Bug hits Seagate disks
Colin Barker ZDNet.co.uk
Published: 19 Jan 2009 16:12 GMT
Seagate on Friday acknowledged failures among recent models of its
Barracuda and DiamondMax disk drives. Users affected lose all access
to data on their disks, and the disks themselves are reported to
become undetectable to the computers in which they are mounted.
Seagate acknowledged the problem in a statement on its website that
said: "A number of Seagate hard drives… may become inaccessible when
the host system is powered on."
The drives in question are the Barracuda 7200.11, which comes in
capacities ranging from 160GB to 1.5TB, the DiamondMax 22 and the
Barracuda ES.2 SATA drive.
Once a drive has become affected, "the data becomes inaccessible to
users but the data is not deleted", the Seagate statement read.
According to the company the issue is caused by a problem with the
firmware on the drive, which "is affecting drives from these families
manufactured in December 2008".
With the statement, Seagate provided details on how users could check
if their drives were affected, but did not provide an immediate update
to the firmware that could fix the problem. Instead Seagate advised
users of affected drives to contact the company directly, and offered
a data-recovery service if required.
More information on the issue is provided on the Seagate website.
Users who believe they have affected disk drives Seagate must contact
the company by calling them directly. According to a Seagate
spokesperson, although an international call is required it should be
at no charge. Users can also contact the company by sending an email (discsupport(a)seagate.com
), mentioning drive model number, serial number and current firmware
revision.
ZDNet UK contacted Seagate for comment but the company had not
responded at the time of writing.
= - = - = - =
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931
Welcome, Seagate hard drive owners. A number of Seagate hard drives
from the following families may become inaccessible when the host
system is powered on:
Barracuda 7200.11
DiamondMax 22
Barracuda ES.2 SATA
Once a drive has become affected the data becomes inaccessible to
users but the data is not deleted. Seagate has isolated this issue to
a firmware bug affecting drives from these families manufactured in
December 2008.
Please use the following tools and instructions to determine if you
have one of the affected products. If your drive is affected, we
recommend that you update the firmware on the disk drive to prevent
this condition.
To identify your drive, retrieve the model number, serial number and
firmware revision without removing your drive. There are multiple
methods:
Seagate DriveDetect.exe method (recommended)
Click here to download Drive Detect:
When running Drive Detect you will see a screen like this. Look for
the drives that are attached:
In the example above the Drive Name is the same as the Model:
ST31500341AS, the serial number is 9VS00J20 and the firmware revision
is SD1A.
Device Manager Method :
Use Microsoft Windows Device Manager to see the model numbers of your
disk drive.
- Choose Start | Run | type: devmgmt.msc
- Click Ok.
- Expand the Disk Drive branch to see the model numbers:
Seatools for Windows Method:
Download SeaTools for Windows which displays all of the required
information.
After determining your serial, model and firmware revision please
attempt to find your model in the following list of affected models.
If you have one of these drives you can choose it from the list for
model-specific instructions to update the firmware.
Barracuda 7200.11
ST31000340AS
ST3750330AS
ST3640330AS
ST3500320AS
ST31500341AS
ST31000333AS
ST3640323AS
ST3640623AS
ST3320613AS
ST3320813AS
ST3160813AS
Barracuda ES.2 SATA
ST31000340NS
ST3750330NS
ST3500320NS
ST3250310NS
DiamondMax 22
STM31000340AS
STM3750330AS
STM3500320AS
STM31000334AS
STM3320614AS
STM3160813AS
If you need assistance updating your firmware you can email us
directly at disksupport(a)seagate.comPlease include the following disk
drive information: serial number, model number, and current firmware
revision. We will respond to your email request with appropriate
instructions.
Program Details:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The iPhone University Program program is now open for applications
from Canadian degree granting universities and colleges who wish to
teach iPhone development as part of the curriculum.
The iPhone Developer University Program is a free program designed for
higher education institutions looking to introduce curriculum for
developing iPhone or iPod touch applications. The University Program
provides a wealth of development resources, sophisticated tools for
testing and debugging, and the ability to share applications within
the same development team. Institutions can also submit applications
for distribution in the App Store.
We would like to invite you apply for the program.
The steps you need to take are as follows:
1. As you prepare to apply please identify: the professor who will be
teaching, and a legal signing authority for the university
2. You will need to apply via this web site. --> http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/university.html
3. You will be prompted for an Apple ID. If you do not have an AppleID
you will need to create one.
Once you have applied the application will be reviewed by Apple
Corporate and your signing authority will be contacted before a
decision is made.
Thank you for your patience, we look forward to seeing your
application in the near future.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me know if you have any questions...
Take Care,
Rob Klassen
---------------------------------------------------------------
Systems Engineer
Apple Inc.
Email: rklassen(a)apple.com
Voice: 204.285.7513
Cell: 204.227.1464
---------------------------------------------------------------
= - = -= - = - =
- additional resources:
http://iapps.stanford.edu/
- Stanford course curriculum: http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/index.php
...from:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/music/showArticle.jhtml;j…
Zune Leap Year Bug Fixed, Microsoft Says
The software maker says affected users need to drain their batteries
and restart the device.
By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek
January 2, 2009 09:39 AM
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) says it has resolved a glitch that caused the
30-GB model of its Zune MP3 player to freeze up over the past week.
"You can go back to using your Zune!" the company said in a support
note posted Thursday on its Web site. The note details steps that Zune
owners should take to eliminate the bug by resetting their players.
CBSSPorts.com GM(NYSE: GM) Jason Kint Talks About the Video On Demand
Offering for March Madness 2008
Earlier this week, thousands of Zune users flooded blogs and support
forums with reports that their devices had locked up. Microsoft traced
the problem to a software bug that caused the Zune's internal clock to
fail when switching from the past leap year to 2009, which is not a
leap year.
To fix the problem, Microsoft advised users to unplug the Zune from
its power source and allow the batteries to drain. "Wait until the
battery is empty and the screen goes black," the company said in its
support bulletin. It then instructed users to power up the devices,
but only after 7 a.m. Eastern time on New Year's Day Thursday. "No
other action is required," said Microsoft.
However, the company added that Zune owners with copyright-protected
songs might have to resync their devices with their PCs after
rebooting in order to restore DRM files that allow the songs to be
played.
Prior to Microsoft's posting of the fix, some Zune owners took matters
into their own hands and turned to the Internet for help. One
procedure for resolving the problem that made the rounds involved
opening the device and disconnecting the battery in order to force a
reset.
"This is a bad idea and we do not recommend opening your Zune by
yourself," said Microsoft, noting that such a move would immediately
void the warranty on the device.
The inability of Microsoft's engineers to anticipate a leap year is
the latest black eye for the company, which has been stung by
criticism of its unpopular WindowsVista operating system and by Xbox
360 hardware failures.
The glitch also won't help the Zune gain ground against Apple's
popular iPodplayer, which controls more than 70% of the MP3 hardware
market.