use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without

[rikibeth]

Really awesome customer service: last week, I dropped the lid of my 20-year-old Le Creuset dutch oven, and half the knob broke off on the tile floor. I dropped a note to Le Creuset's customer service, asking if replacement knobs were available and how much they cost, and they mailed me one out for free. It got here today.

NOT so awesome customer service: the Apple Store won't tell you over the phone if they have a replacement battery in stock for an iPod. You have to make a Genius Bar appointment and come in. And the Genius Bar appointments, not unlike doctor's appointments, tend to run later than scheduled. Today was only 15 minutes behind. It's been worse. Once I was THERE, they were able to tell me that they didn't have any replacement batteries in stock, they couldn't GET any for my 30GB video iPod because they'd stopped MAKING them on November 10, and that I could do a full unit swap for $120 (when the battery would have been $60) but I'd lose all the files and have to restore them. Since not all the files on this iPod are on my computer -- some came from eternaleponine's collection, some came from trowa_barton's -- this would be a royal pain in the ass, and not worth it. PopTart can stay plugged in to operate until I can afford to upgrade to something with more memory and more features. And I'm going to look into third-party back-up-your-iPod software, dammit.

Unrelated victory of the day: DEATH TO FLEAS! Working in two half-hour chunks, because that's the shortest setting on my sleep timer on my new alarm clock radio that has a line in for the iPod, I got my bedroom picked up to the point where I could vacuum it, shut the cat into the bathroom with his food and water, and SPRAY THE CARPET AND THE MATTRESS FOR FLEAS. I really wanted to do it today because this is probably the last day it'll be reasonable to have the windows open to vent the TOXIC FUMES. The mattress pad is in the wash now with hot water and bleach, along with a load of whatever other white sheets and towels needed washing. When it's dry, I can make up the bed with fresh sheets and all the blankets and enjoy an itch-free existence. Hopefully the Frontline on the cat is working and I won't have a reinfestation. He's due for another dose in a week anyway.

Extra bonus joy: having my room that far picked up means I can more easily get to the windows tomorrow to shrink wrap them for the winter.

Aw, crap, the washing machine sounds like it might be coming unbalanced. Bye!

Comments

[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

One of many reasons why I won't buy apple products.

I was starting to get enticed by the iPad, but if this is their customer service, forget it.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

If the goddamn things weren't so shiny and seductive... I mean, I LOVE my iPod. I've had it for four years now and it's been a faithful friend. And I like the Mac interface for computers. And, to be fair, I've had some good experiences with customer service there too... they were great about fixing technical issues on my kid's iPod. It isn't THEIR fault that SOMEONE lost it in under a year.

But the whole "we can't even tell you over the phone if the battery is in stock, forcing you to make a trip for nothing" thing? Sucks.

[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

and having to make an appointment? then wait? lol no way.

See, I like to put my own stuff together, and apple is pretty much the opposite of that.

Years ago, my dad found an iPod that wasn't working, so I got a 3rd party battery cheap and opened the thing up and replaced it, but I HATED using iTunes. It felt like bloated viral software to me. I also hated how the iPod didnt work like a hard drive. I went back to my crappy old MP3 player because I could just drag and drop back and forth and treat it like an external drive.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I know, that's why I want 3rd-party backup software for it. Because, dammit, most of the music on here? I PAID FOR IT. I just paid for it in CD format. Some of it I paid for in VINYL. (Yes, my copy of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is ripped from the single I bought back in 1983.) Fucking DRM.

[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

yea..they make it hard for people who legally buy things to use them. makes me not want to support any of it.

[fasteronfire525.livejournal.com]

I had a blueberry iMac that someone gave me free because it was damaged. I took it to a local computer shop and found out that only apple certified people could open it and repair it. when i took it to apple they blatantly told me 'we don't fix those anymore. we don't even make parts for it.' it was a 3 year old desktop. i have despised apple since then.

[c1.livejournal.com]

Don't discount the role of the RIAA/MPAA.

Pretend for a moment that the record labels and movie/TV studios aren't greedy pigs who'd slap a universal 1% tax on every citizen of the world if they could get away with it*: they can't prove that you're not making copies of their stuff, so you're automatically guilty, hence the 1% levy to cover their "losses".

*And don't think the fact that it's not present reality stems from a lack of effort on their part.

C30, C60, C90 go!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Motherfuckers. I'm perfectly happy to pay for something ONCE; I resent having to pay for it every time the format changes or i get a new device.

Re: C30, C60, C90 go!

[c1.livejournal.com]

Be glad you don't live in England: their version of the RIAA has gone after, for example, auto mechanic's shops. Why? Because a mechanic was listening to the radio in his repair bay, and that constituted a "public performance", for which he needed a license. He was fined something fierce.

In Canada, they've convinced the legislature to impose a tax on all blank CD/DVD media, assuming that it'll only be used to pirate music. The entirety of that levy goes to the record labels and movie studios.

The US version of the RIAA has been taking notes, and if it were up to them, if you buy the CD, you have to pay for an additional license to rip it to your computer, and yet another license fee for transferring it from your computer to your MP3 player. Google for it: this came up in testimony once in one of the infamous RIAA v. John Doe cases.

Then there was Disney's flirtation with DVDs that "expire" by making the DVD physically degrade about a week after you break the seal on the plastic packaging.

Re: C30, C60, C90 go!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

The more you talk about it, the more I wish bands would follow the lead of artists like Trent Reznor, and that thing that Radiohead did, and bypass the labels and all their bullshit. Of course, artists like those can get away with it because they already have a huge audience.

Someone I know is in negotiations with a big record label. Part of me hopes he gets it, because it would be nice if he got paid, but part of me wishes it falls through and he takes the "1,000 serious fans" route instead.

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

that is indeed BAD service.

and the front line, over time, will reduce the flea level without help.... but with what you diod it shoudl be dramatic!

a non toxic way to reduce fleas? put a light on the floor, put a sticky pad or a fly trap under it. fleas jump to light and fall on sticky trap.

[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

a candle in the middle of a dish of soapy water works too :)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

yeah, I don't trust me or the cat with a poorly-attended lit candle in my bedroom. Toxins > burning down the house.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

He's had two months of Frontline and there's still flea dirt on him when I comb him. However, he hasn't been back in the living room since I gave IT the toxic flea treatment, and I haven't seen any downstairs and B hasn't complained of bites since then, so I think I may be reaching victory conditions.

[goddessvessel.livejournal.com]

when I lost buddah I had a bad infestation it was a night mare and cost me big time to wash everything and get a handle on it I hate fleas they make my skin crawl i was very happy at the last vet visit when he said they looked really clean!! I just can't have clients on my table and fleas on them

[gentlyepigrams]

I believe Senuti is the software you're looking for. I haven't used it myself but it's the one people I know consistently recommend.

The Genius Bar ought to be on time, but they're not a full-bore repair shop and expecting them to have repair-only parts available on demand isn't particularly reasonable. I have my share of complaints about them (they flattened my laptop's hard drive once after they told me they wouldn't, and $DEITY knows I've never gotten them to see me at the appointment time either) but that's not one of them. They're a retail outlet with a front-line tech support bar to do handholding for people who can barely handle the basics. If you're moderately technically competent, by the time you get to the point where you need them, you're at second-tier support needs (like opening the back of a sealed iPod) anyway. I don't want them to promise they can handle second-tier support locally anyway, because I'd rather be pleasantly surprised when they do than be dismayed when they don't live up to what they promise.

Where I would be bitching in your shoes is at the frequent turnover of iPod models, because it seems like they have a different damned lot of the things every time I go into the Apple Store, and I'm in there a lot (it's around the corner from where I get my hair cut). I dread the day my little purple shuffle finally dies, because I hated the form factor on the next round. Of course, by now they're probably another generation or two on and may have one I can use again.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's unreasonable that they don't make this model of iPod 4 years later, but I am kind of annoyed that I can't replace the rectangular purple Nano that the kid lost because they don't make a Nano that looks like that any more.

Fuck it, maybe I'll get employed and be able to splurge on a 64GB Touch soon. That'd handle most of my shiny gadget needs for another few years.

oh, and also? My annoyance is not so much that they didn't have the battery in stock, but that they couldn't tell me whether it was or not without me making a trip in there. If they had been able to tell me over the phone that it wasn't there, I could have skipped going in.

[gentlyepigrams]

I will wish you good luck on the employment front so you can do exactly that! Personally I never use anything but the shuffle, and that in the car. Public transportation here in Austin wasn't useful enough in the old place (if it even ran out there) for me to need it for anything else. But that may change in the new place and my habits may change with it.

Four years of life isn't that bad, but I swear, they do seem to have new models every couple of months. I know consumer electronics is how they make their nut these days, but it's not like the tech is improving significantly any more. The tech where the improvement is happening is all in the iPhone/iPad ecosystem, and I don't know how much of it can filter back to the (non-touch) iPod.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

The car is, admittedly, a big part of my iPod usage NOW, but when I've got kitchen work? ALL my collection on shuffle through a pair of powered speakers is how I make it through my day.

I like the idea of a 160GB Classic, but the shininess of the Touch is awfully seductive.

[gentlyepigrams]

My shuffle has something like 8-10 hours of music on it at any given time but depending on shift length, that might not be enough. I have it all set up to rotate, though, so anything that gets played rotates off in favor of new songs. It's how I keep myself in travel music.

I have 90ish GB of music now; it'd take a huge iPod to get it all. I don't think I need it all to travel, though. The thing is that I also get 6ish GB on my phone if I need it.

[fasteronfire525.livejournal.com]

I think the new Nano is sexy. At first I thought the itty bitty square was hideous... until I saw a coworker wearing one on a wrist strap as a watch. Then it became reeeeeally cool. XD

I was going to edit my comment, but you replied

[gentlyepigrams]

The problem with the battery thing is they don't know what they'll have in stock when you get there. They might have had one and used it before you got there. If they did have a limited number of parts in stock, they certainly couldn't guarantee they wouldn't get used up. And, more importantly, they don't know you from Adam, so they don't even know that you're right about the battery.

I'm technically competent and I've been sure things were wrong with my laptop that weren't because they were deep in the (generally locked down) innards. Turned out that not only was I wrong about why the DVD drive on my laptop was failing at one point, but so was the local Genius Bar guy on first examination. And that's why they don't promise to swap batteries: because they don't know what's wrong until they look at the machine. When you turn out to be right, that looks like bad service, but when they confidently accept that it's Thing A and then it turns out to be Thing B, which is how my hard drive got wiped (the problem ultimately required a replacement hard drive), then they get nailed for bad service for not checking sufficiently before they take your machine.

The system is set up for morons, which annoys me as a user who can get into the guts of my machine. Still, when I had a problem that was slowly killing my laptop with weird signs like a failing DVD drive, it was a good thing.

[kittenmommy.livejournal.com]

My annoyance is not so much that they didn't have the battery in stock, but that they couldn't tell me whether it was or not without me making a trip in there.

I agree, that's ridiculous. I think they have that policy because they want to get you into the store, where you're more likely to buy something!

[c1.livejournal.com]

The problem with replacing iPod batteries over the phone is that the guy from Apple doesn't know what model iPod you have. That they started making them all look alike from day one doesn't help. Trying to get you to accurately describe what they're seeing over the phone isn't going to work in even 5% of the circumstances. Let's face it: Apple made a brilliantly designed appliance that's easy to operate by just about everyone. How? By standardizing a look and feel down to the tiniest detail.

The realities of global commerce combined with the ever changing landscape of electronic gadgets means that there are different batteries for different iPods.

Couple this with the massive potential that it's not even the battery that's at fault. I've had it happen that the battery monitoring software was horked, and a simple firmware update did the trick: the battery was fine all along.

It's majorly easier all around to just have you go to the store and have them make those decisions for you.

It's also perfectly possible to have your iPod tethered to a more stable source of electrons (i.e. "plug it in") and use it like that. My 10GB iPod that I've had for the past 8 years is still in service this way. It gets plugged into the wall outlet, and to the stereo amplifier, and becomes a sort of jukebox.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I was very specific in saying "30GB video iPod," which has been the disambiguating phrase in the past. They COULD have looked it up. They just wouldn't.

Battery monitoring software? I'll have to ask about that. Maybe it's something they can even fix remotely, then. Because what's going on is that the battery doesn't like to hold any decent length of charge, any more. It used to run for about six hours on a full charge. Now it doesn't like to get fully charged, and even when it claims to be, if I get two hours it's a good day, and more likely I'll get 45 minutes.

It IS a jukebox, just one that fits in my pocket. I have an iTrip with a slot in the thing for a USB cord, so it can charge and broadcast at the same time in the car, and I've got wall adapters and powered speakers and now an alarm clock with a line-in, so I have ways of broadcasting the music at home when I'm in the kitchen or my bedroom. And the powered speakers and wall charger can go to work, too.

I was just hoping to be able to pay $60 and get portability back.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

ipods don't have a serial number or model number written in a place that's easy to find?

[sheyeblaze.livejournal.com]

Which generation of Nano did she have? I keep an eye on the iPod refurb section on the Apple Store. They currently have 5th Gen 16gb for $149. They often have the 8gb for $99. Looks like they're currently sold out of the 8gbs right now, though. The refurbs come with the same warranty as brand new ones and each one has a brand new outer shell and brand new battery....

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I can't keep track of the numbers, but the long rectangular kind.

[kittenmommy.livejournal.com]

Sorry the Apple Store was so sucky. I've always had great luck with Apple's customer service. Did you buy AppleCare for the iPod? I'd just call their AppleCare line and tell them the problem, and see if they're willing to do anything for you. And I'd tell them about your bad experience at that store, too.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

Perhaps this might help. My niece asked how she could move songs from her iPod to a new computer (she wanted to sell her old iPod and get a new one). But I don't have an iPod or a Mac, so I asked friends for advice.

---

One person pointed out a article from Apple's website that tells you how to transfer music to a new computer.

iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to a computer.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1848

If that doesn't work, someone else recommended a program called "Senuti"

http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/

that can recover songs and videos from iPods.
("Senuti" is "iTunes" spelled backwards)

[goddessvessel.livejournal.com]

oh fleas SUCK
a handy trick
cooking pan of apple cider viniger on floor with a lamp placed over it leave lamp on for a while
heat atracts fleas vinager kills fleas a very nasty looking soup but a great non toxic way to trap and kill the nasty things and nice when you can't open the windows....