Some of you will remember that a few years ago I won a Zune. Sometime in 2007 there was a firmware update and it sucked — I no longer had the ability to add a single song to my “Zune library” which was frequently all I wanted or needed to do with the software. Thus, I vowed never to bother with firmware updates again since I had a free player that worked (mostly) how I liked it and I didn’t want to risk losing more features.
Well, today I am very grateful that I never bothered with the 3.x version of the firmware. One of the key features of this update was that, for the first time, the Zune got a clock (and also lost the “QuickList” feature — equivalent to “Playlist-On-The-Go” for iPod users). However, it seems that those fine programmers over at Microsoft forgot that 2008 has 366 days and Zune’s of my model everywhere are freezing up and freaking out. Google trends even indicates the problem (see 41, 53, 82, 88, and 94). But, according to Slashdot readers, it’s a firmware issue and those who never updated are fine. The official Zune site also claims that as long as you didn’t connect it to a computer before Noon GMT today, you’re also fine.
Way to be Microsoft. Didn’t the whole Y2K “crisis” teach you how our calendar works?
Luckily, my version 2.0 firmware is currently cranking out K.T. Tunstall as we speak having experienced no such problems… if it ain’t broke, why fix it?
Edit: The Guardian appears to have uncovered the specific lines of code that caused the bug and indicates that it’s not really Microsoft’s fault — well, not the fault of their programmers anyhow. The QA department is a different story.

I was, for highly appropriate reasons, just googling the phrase “The Beatles Birthday” because as of twenty-two minutes ago it is a timely day to find that song on YouTube and listen to it. (My mp3s are not on this machine, my external harddrive, which was the back up, is dead, my Zune speakers are in another room, and the White Album CDs which I, er, “borrowed” from my dad in 9th grade are in my car. YouTube is just faster sometimes, especially when you want to hear a specific single song.) And yet, instead of the first hit being the YouTube video, as is usually the case since Google bought them, Google seemed to think I wanted to know what the Beatles birthday was… and gave me “1962.”
That is just wrong, Google, for so many reasons. (Okay, mainly three: 1962 is not a birthday, it’s a year; the Beatles actually formed and existed as a group before 1962, so it’s not even the right year; and finally, I’d bet good money that most people doing that search are looking for the song, not some arbitrary date.) Edited to Add: If you check Google’s “source“, they list the birth-“day” as 1960 (which I think is more correct because that’s when they stopped being The Quarrymen — seriously, my off-hand knowledge of this band is freakish). Google fails big time.
However, on the second hit, I did get what I was looking for…

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