Microsoft’s Zune Device Diagnostic Tool is now available. The Zune Device Diagnostic Tool compiles data to help Product Support Services diagnose Zune USB and wireless sync connection problems.

While you’re troubleshooting your Zune, go ahead and upgrade to the most recent version of the Zune client software, version 2.1 as of today [12-24-2007].

Kurt also mentioned that a new Zune firmware release, version 2.3, is now available. Go into Device Settings to install the update.

Supported OSs for both the client and diagnostic software are Windows XP SP2+ and Windows Vista.

Lastly, check out this post on forums.zune.net that discusses resolutions to many Zune sync problems.

I sure hope Santa Claus brings a nice 80GB Zune to our household!

• The great Sysinternals suite has been updated
• Defraggler – freeware Windows defrag utility than can defragment specific files rather than the entire drive at once
• Microsoft Genuine Advantage Diagnostic Site

I usually have a lot of tabs open in Firefox while I work. I’ve noticed (as have many others) excessive memory consumption by the browser at times. Right now firefox.exe is using 121,484K with only 9 tabs open. I rebooted first thing this morning, and I’ve had Firefox running for only about four hours.

Most of the information I’ve found says the problem has to do with misbehaving Add-ons, extensions or themes. I’m only running four Add-ons, and decided to uninstall all but my del.icio.us Buttons and Google Browser Sync. Unfortunately, the problem persisted even after a reboot.

I did some more searching and found this thread that suggests loading this image to see if your browser memory consumption goes through the roof. Mine did. I read further down the thread and found a problematic add-on is indeed Google Browser Sync.

Check out this list of problematic extensions to see if any of your favorite add-ons are listed. If none of your extensions are listed, try the suggestions found on the Standard Diagnostic for Firefox and the causes for Firefox Hangs.

You can also try the Leak Monitor extension to help determine what is the cause of your Firefox memory leak. PCtipsbox.com has four tips on handling Firefox memory usage as well.

I updated my NW65SP6 Groupwise 7.0.1 server to 7.0.2 Hot Patch 1a yesterday, and my gwia kept abending when I tried to restart it or exit it. It didn’t matter if gwia was loaded in protected memory or not, it would just lock the system console. I was unable to down the server, spawn a new process, or restart the server from Netware Remote Manager. I had to walk down to the server room and physically restart the machine to regain access to it.

I found that you can enable the kill threads on exit or restart option in ConsoleOne from the gwia object’s SMTP/MIME settings page. This forces the gwia to terminate all current threads and exits almost immediately without locking up the server. You’ll have to cycle the gwia for this setting to take effect, and killing threads without a proper shutdown can theoretically lead to data loss.

You could specify this setting in both eDirectory and the gwia.cfg file in versions of Groupwise prior to 7.0.1, but now ConsoleOne moves the gwia.cfg file settings into the wpdomain.db file. You can still use the gwia.cfg file to override the ConsoleOne settings, but it didn’t work for me, so good luck.

Confused?

Here’s Novell’s Explanation from the Groupwise 7 installation guide (accurate as of 06-14-2007):

Consolidated Configuration Information (v7.0.1)

Before GroupWise 7 SP1, Internet Agent configuration information was stored both in eDirectory, as properties of the Internet Agent object, and in the Internet Agent configuration file (gwia.cfg). Starting in SP1, all primary configuration settings have been consolidated into the properties of the Internet Agent object. Secondary settings are still available only through the startup file.

When you update an Internet Agent to GroupWise 7 SP1 and access the Internet Agent object in ConsoleOne, all primary configuration settings are moved from the startup file into eDirectory. ConsoleOne no longer writes configuration settings to the startup file. Switches in the startup file can be used to override the settings in ConsoleOne.

Please note that the under the Internet Agent Fixes section of the readme for Groupwise 7 SP2 it states:

The /killthreads startup switch immediately kills all Internet Agent threads

so does that mean if you’re using a pre 7.0.2 gwia, this switch doesn’t work?