iRock!

I pretty much fail in all areas mechanical or technical. There's nothing I hate more than fiddling around with tiny, hidden away, easily lost parts. And yet today I managed, with the snarky but able assistance of The Dark Lord, to save myself a couple hundred bucks by reviving my dying iPod.

I never intended to become a Pod person but my spiffy green mini was a freebie a couple of years ago when we were flush (remember the real estate boom?) and I bought the boys a brand new iBook for animation. While I loved having hundreds of songs with me in the car, the iPod became more valuable once I started my regular walking routine. Nothing gets me going like an uptempo playlist and I enjoyed working on the timing so the peppiest songs would get me up the big hill halfway through my regular walk. I then discovered how very handy an iPod could be in learning Torah readings. I can download mp3 files and practice to my heart's content at home, at work (before class), in the car and even out of town. And when I'm up late at night, working on some new project or knitting to meet a deadline, I love to pop on the headphones for a good podcast to keep my brain going without waking up my family. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with my little mini.

A few months ago some friends were talking about the notoriously short life of iPod batteries. In total denial, I insisted they must be wrong. Maybe other iPods had trouble but mine was working perfectly. And it was....until a few weeks ago when it started flashing weird messages at me and running out of juice only a few blocks into my walk. Not only am I not in a financial position to replace my little green companion, I really cringe at the thought of replacing something that shouldn't have to be replaced, spending money needed for other things, and tossing my sweet mini in the landfill. I began Googling solutions and quickly came across these guys who promised an affordable and painless battery replacement. What could I lose? The darned thing didn't work anyway, so I placed my order.

My new battery came promptly, but the instructions were daunting. Tearing into my iPod with their special "iOpener" was no easy feat and the case does look a little worse for wear. I called on The Dark Lord for moral support and a bit of teen bravado to crack the case but we did get it open, only to discover a surprising amount of cat hair inside. How in the world does cat hair get inside the iPod? I hadn't realized just how much stuff was in that little case and it was quite fascinating to peek inside.Once the guts were exposed it really was a fairly simple matter to disconnect the old battery, hook up the new one, and slide it all back together.

There was a lot of non-technical wiggling that went on in order to reassemble everything but all in all it was maybe a 20 minute operation. And miraculously nothing was damaged. The scroll wheel still works, the backlight comes on, and all the music is till there. For a $30 investment, I ought to get many more months of service from my free iPod. Yippee! This bodes well for my next planned techie adventure--updating the memory in my laptop. Luckily my Dear Old Dad is going to help me through that!