Dealing with iPods: Part 4: How Many?

These are not my iPods. If I had this many iPods, and didn’t give each away to a friend I think that I’d get into hell on gluttony alone.

Ben Stroud asked about how many iPods I’ve owned in a comment to the first entry I posted in this iPod series. The fact alone that I didn’t know this off hand means I should be in some iPod Obsessives Anonymous program instead of posting these blog entries. But I don’t got the time for that now that I have a new working iPod.

It adds up, that’s all I’m going to say about the price of being addicted to the iPod.

I’ve never bought the same iPod twice, and just to clarify, I’ve spent more money on repairing the car I crashed in Winter 2003 than I’ve spent on iPods.

The first iPod I got was the 2nd Generation (touch wheel), which I got as a present for graduating high school. I paid for the 3rd generation (with 4 light up buttons) and the 4th generation (click wheel, black and white display) out of my own pocket with money earned from summer jobs. And as a birthday present, I split the cost of the 4th generation (color screen, photos) with my parents.

Why did I have to keep getting new iPods? I lost the 4th generation (click wheel, black and white) when I was moving my stuff during the summer before senior year. I sold my 3rd generation to get money, because I needed money. And I believe the first iPod, the 2nd generation iPod, it broke and somehow the break wasn’t under warranty.

But I’ve owned more than 4 specific iPods, because whenever I’ve had a problem with one, when it was covered under warranty, which I believe has happened at least 6 or 7 times, Apple’s sent me, or handed me, a brand new replacement.

So Ben, to answer your question, I’ve owned about a dozen iPods, and paid for 4.

Dealing with a Sad* iPod Part 3: The Re-Up (No Shady)

*and then, inevitably, a New iPod.

I’m watching tonight’s Heroes off of the DVR box, so I’ve decided to christen the new iPod in the name of Masi Oka’s character Hiro.

And tonight, for the next few hours, Hiro’s going to be loading my tunes up. I did the math, and at about 2000 songs every 40 minutes, it should take a little under 4 hours to load my music library onto my iPod, and hopefully, I’ll be asleep by then.

This isn’t the way I’d prefer it to be done, and I thought it wouldn’t take so long, but you work with what you get. Since I’ll be asleep by the time it’s done loading (around 4 am), that means for at least three to four hours, the iPod will still be on, active, working. The damn thing won’t auto-eject once it’s done loading up.

This leads me to the next, and possibly obvious, point: I have too much music. That 11411 up there isn’t just a palindrome, it’s the number of songs that will be transferred to my iPod. I think before I get my next computer I need to sit down with iTunes and go over what I really need. I know the point of having a 60GB iPod is to have a crapload of music on it, but there should be more free space on the thing so it’s longevity will increase. Most hard drives are supposed to have at least 10% of free space in order to function to the best of their abilities.

Tomorrow, I plan on not over exerting Hiro: an album on the way to work, an album on the way home from work, and not much else. Don’t want to put too much early wear on it after dragging 50 some odd gb’s of music onto it.

Here’s the first photo of Hiro now that he has a name:

Dealing with a Sad iPod, Part 2: Being a Repeat Offender

So I got there, and even after making my reservation, I had to wait an additional half hour.

But once my name was called, and after I wrote my name, email, and phone # down, I was given a new iPod to replace the now dead McNulty.

Why did I have to write my info down, I wonder. I didn’t dare ask my genius, Gerald, because he seemed to be a little grumpy – going against exactly what my last post in this series had said – but that might have had more to do with the fact that it was 6pm, and everybody’s grumpy at 6pm. But back to the question, as to why I was grumpy.

As it says above on my reciept, this was a Repeat Repair. Which means, probably, that Apple Inc. is suspicious as hell of me. Am I just some dude who doesn’t take care for his iPod and expects these free replacements? Maybe. This has inspired me to keep track of all, if any, mistakes I make in the taking care of it, to see if it’s me or is it Apple that’s at fault.

And here’s a photo of the new one, looks just like the old one, and has yet to be named or filled with music, as I’m currently charging it up.

How To: Dealing with a Sad iPod, Part 1.

And no, the answer is not trying to fight the iPod’s depressed state by buying it new cases at the Apple store. That’s just unhealthy behavior that will make the iPod’s happiness dependant on you spoiling it.

The story is the same. I’m using my iPod. I’m happy with my iPod. But then, every so often, when I try and do a simple task, it bites me in the ass. 99% of the time, when I choose to change what album or song I’m listening to, nothing bad happens. But, for the last week or so, that simple task of changing what song I’m listening to has been freezing my iPod. So I’ve been going through the following steps each time this has happened, only to, each time, have the iPod fix itself before my Apple Store appointment.

For your own benefit, here are my simple instructions on how to schedule a repair with the Apple Store. Nowadays, scheduling a repair is often a must, because sometimes there are so many people at the Genius Bar, tat if you just go there after work without a reservation, you’re probably going to be told that the genius bar is full of appointments for the day, and to go home, make a reservation tomorrow (you can only make a reservation on the day of the appointment) and come back.

1. Make sure that your iPod still has it’s Apple Care warranty. If you’re living on the edge, without a warranty, and the complimentary 90 day warranty period has passed, then prepare for Apple charging you an arm and a leg for your repair. I had a small debate with Michael about buying warranties last night, and we ultimately decided that if you think you need a warranty, because you have frequent bad luck with technology, you should get the warranty. And when it comes to iPods, I have shitty luck. Does that mean I’m going to switch and get a Zune? Not likely. It means that I’m always going to pay for AppleCare for my iPod.

2. Go to http://www.apple.com/retail/ and find your nearest Apple Store. If there is no nearby Apple Store, then head on over to http://www.apple.com/support/ to file for a repair with them. I choose to try my luck with the Apple retail stores because it’s more pleasant to talk about technology with someone face to face, rather than filling out a form on-line or trying to find the tech support phone number.

3. After going to your local Apple Store’s specific page, click on “Make a reservation.”

From there on in, it’s pretty self explanatory. But something to note is that when you choose your appointment time, pick one slot later than when you expect to get to the store, for you will be told to arrive 5 minutes before your appointment begins

4. Breathe, and relax. It’s going to be all good. The geniuses are good, nice people and they’ll take care of you and your iPod. I’ve heard they get a lot of crap, though, so be nice!

Wish me luck today, I’ve got a 5:45 appointment for the same problem as usual.

This Funny Photo, and other blips of advice

I’d been working for weeks trying to lose this cold that’s been trailing me. 2 weeks ago, it took on flu/virus like symptoms. Now those symptoms are back again. Which probably means I’ll be staying home from work tomorrow. I don’t have much energy, but I gotta give back to you for reading this, so here are some interesting things I’ve found online recently. Something about how I expect to get healthy at the end of this. But first, the blips:

1. Apple seems to be poised to introduce new LED screens to it’s Macbook line, starting with the 15″ Macbook Pro. This is a welcome bit of rumor mill gossip for me, as I’m saving my dollars up for this summer, when I plan to purchase a Macbook Pro. If I can get a great product after a big form factor move, I’ll be happy. (Source: AppleInsider)

2. Coachella is going to be amazing this year. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE are reuniting, The JESUS AND MARY CHAIN are playing the festival, GHOSTFACE KILLAH’S is gonna WRECK THE HELL OUT OF FESTIVAL!, GIRL TALK IS PLAYING THE FESTIVAL!, PHARAOE FUCKING MONCH is gonna be there, The Smashing Pumpkins are rumored to be playing there too. Also attending: The Good The Bad And The Queen (more on them later), Hot Chip, El-P, Lupe Fiasco, The Arcade Fire, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, AND THIS MIGHT NOT EVEN BE THE FESTIVAL I GO TO BECAUSE …. (Source: PitchforkMedia)

3. Bob Dylan is playing Bonnaroo. This is a good sign for what’s to come regarding The ‘Roo. Also good signs, the following artists/bands are also rumored to play: Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Arcade Fire, Hot Chip, America, TV on the Radio, The Roots, The Decemberists, Ozomatli, Keiren Hedben (Four Tet) & Steve Reid, The Hold Steady, M. Ward, and Girl Talk. Superfly Productions plans to officially announce the lineup on January 31st. (Source: Stereogum)

4. Kanye West’s taking a page out of the Kingdom Come rulebook, and he’s going to work with Chris Martin for a track on the forthcoming Graduation. (Source: Pitchfork, again)

5. 24‘s gonna do the whole 2-hours-in-one-night thing AGAIN, this time in February. Set your DVR’s and brains for the 12th. And can someone comment to talk about tonight’s shocking return of one of season 5’s big bads? (Source: TV Squad)

So what do I expect will save me from the dead beyond I find myself in? The Good, The Bad, and The Queen release their self titled album tomorrow. Who the hell are they? Damon Albarn is The King of All Side Projects, what with Blur, Gorillaz, his own album Mali Music, and now this group, which feature the following people:

– Paul Simonon, the freaking bass guitarist from The Clash.

– Tony Allen, drummer for Fela Kuti’s band, of whom Fela stated, “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat”. (Source: Wikipedia)

– And Simon Tong, guitarist/keyboardist for The Verve.

A recording brought from all of them, produced by Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, will be on shelves tomorrow. This is how the British do SuperGroup, and I’m starting to think it’s a hell of a lot better than we Americans do it.

The Backup, one Area of My Expertise

I have a lot of media to backup. Over the last few years, it became increasingly easy to download tv shows, movies, and albums, and to complicate matters, these means became increasingly illegal over the same period of time. That last part has little to do with the backup process, except that you might say it’s not the smartest thing to have all this ill-gotten media in an obvious location, like say, a big gray brick of data resting nearby my laptop.

Tonight, I am taking another step in the arduous process of backing up my library of stuff. That photo up top (which combined with the soon to follow photo, qualify as photos of the day, as I took them today), is a somewhat absurd stack of DVD-R discs that I have just picked up from the drug store across the street. For the record, it seems that blank, recordable media is one of the last things that Sony knows how to be good at anymore. I bought blank Maxell DVD-R’s and they wouldn’t even start the burning process on my relatively middle of the road iBook G4.

I’m doing this now, because some time in the next few months, I’ll be placing my savings into getting a sweet new setup soon, so I need to gear up. If I could be using the external hard drive, pictured below, for backing up the actually important data I don’t want to lose, and not the not-as-important tv shows I really don’t need to have on hand, it would be really nice.

I’m not sure exactly when I got this LaCie 160GB external hard drive, but ever since I did acquire it, my packrat tendencies have only been enabled, not quelled. Currently, it has 105 GB of TV shows on it that I need to burn to DVD-Rs. That’s over 20 DVD-Rs, easily. The obvious question to ask is WHY THE HELL DID I THINK IT WAS NECESSARY TO DO THIS? The first answer I came up with is as simple as the question is obvious (a benefit of drafting both the question one has to answer), the four alternative answers that follow the first answer are, sometimes, as ludicrous as that SNL skit where Luda played a male captain on a lesbian cruise who was trying to find some ladies to turn straight.

1. I did it because I could.

2. I want to have every single episode of LOST, and continue to have them until the series ends, and not have to buy over priced DVD box sets. This way, when the show ends in about 2-4 years, I can go back and watch from the start and figure out how many (if any) loopholes there are in the endpoint.

3. The 5th season of 24 is one of the top 10 best seasons of any TV series that has aired during my lifetime.

4. Premium Cable television shows are as overpriced as it gets, and I don’t think anyone should ever spend upwards of 30 dollars on 4 hours of Entourage, no matter how much brilliant either Jeremy Piven or Kevin Dillon are.

5. The current and final season of The Sopranos is so weird that it’s going to need a refresher course in itself before it starts again in April.

So, as I face the giant stack of DVD-R’s, and realize how much time this is going to take me, I ask that you think before you horde. Or at the very least don’t wait until the last bits of space remain on your backup hard drive before you decide that you should be using the external hard drive for regular backups of your hard drive, the reason you originally used to justify spending all that cash in the first place.

Check back tomorrow for my thoughts about either Keith Olbermann’s analysis of 24 that aired last night, or the last Bardian I expected to see on FOX News.

iPods* are just like vampire slayers

As one dies, another is chosen.

top 5 reasons why I own an iPod:

1. I live literally 3 blocks away from Apple SoHo, does any other MP3 player have it’s own store which opens for repairs at 6am?

2. The iPod was replaced in under a half an hour, with no questions from the Genius Bar employee.

3. Works with OS X better than any other MP3 player, and OS X (Tiger) is better than Windows, and, from what I hear, better than Vista.

4. The GUI** of the iPod is superior to every other piece of tech on the market, even that new Zune, I played with it at a Virgin Megastore, is not up to snuff.

5. Stuff like ZSubway is designed for it.

*Applecare supported iPods.

Requiem for, “Logan,” an iPod

NEW YORK, December 6

This afternoon, at approximately 1 p.m. EST, “Logan,” the iPod died. He weighed approximately 47GB, and died of unknown causes. His owner tried to resuscitate him multiple times during the day, but gave up at around 8:30 p.m. EST.

Tomorrow, at the break of dawn, there will be a last ditch effort to save “Logan,” but experts believe he will only be replaced by a scratch-less version of himself. There is hope that his breed’s time is done, and that the iPod pound at the Apple SoHo location will be forced to replace him with a younger more vivacious breed that plays well with videos. Such is the case when an owner thinks ahead and purchases life insurance for their pet iPod.

Possible names include Farva, Azamat, Malicious, Ari, Yancy, Eghck, and Dick (Pronounced “Rish-ard”).

I Love The Smell Of Meta-Blogging In The Morning

So I realized that I’m not sure how WordPress alerts people that entries that they have commented to have recieved more comments. This is a problem because there’s no built in comment-replytocomment system. So here are two simple rules now in effect:

1) check entries that you comment to. if your comment is in need of a reply, it will be posted in 24 hours after I recieve it.

2) if I know who you are OR if you leave your email address, I’ll send a note with a link saying I’ve replied.

that’s all for now.

Henry

Not (Just) For Tourists

I just found out about ZSubway from the good folks over at TUAW. This is a must have for owners of any photo-capable iPod who spend ANY time in New York City. The installation instructions are kind of backwards and they suggest that you only sync their .png files and not your existing iPhoto library, but that’s more than an even trade in my book.