Zune owners now have a fix for their failing devices thanks to Microsoft that has posted instructions on how to start the new year off with a working digital music player. On Thursday, 30GB Zunes suffered a crippling glitch causing the digital music players to lock up, reboot themselves and freeze. Zune users are calling Microsoft's screw-up "Zune 2K9," a reference to the Y2K bug. The problem was caused by the Zune's internal clock and its inability to handle leap years, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft posted instructions on its support site Zune.net/support on how to thaw your Zune from its deep freeze and get it working again. However, if you're a Zune Pass subscriber with music managed by DRM copyright protection, Microsoft says you might have to take extra steps to play those music tracks.

The Zune fix is outlined below. Microsoft says it will also issue a fix for the device so that this problem won't re-occur the next leap year, in 2012.

McColo Internet Hosting's site disappeared Tuesday and along with it went around 50% of the spam and virus laden emails flooding the web. McColo had long been "friendly" to companies and individuals with less than savory business practices. Although it seems odd that a single company could have such a large impact on the overall spam problem that appears to be the case according to IronPort. IronPort (an anti-spam and security research company) noted that they have seen "a drop of almost 2/3 of overall spam volume, correlating with a drop in IronPort's SenderBase queries” - a dip the company initially thought was due to technical problems. Unfourtunately this reprieve will most likely be temporary as spammers move they're business to other companies.