Zen and the art of (ultra-violent) iPod maintenance
Okay, this isn't really relevant to anything. But here's something that made my life a little easier:
The really scary thing about Apple's iPod (excepting, of course, the flashdrive-based Nanos and Shuffles) is that it's really just a fancy case for a surprisingly middling 2.5" hard drive. You probably already knew this, but it's still worth thinking about: your musical life is daily entrusted to a whirring, multi-headed, capricious little animal of about the same size and constitution of the one in most of today's laptops.
Except that most people don't drop most of today's laptops five or six times a month.
I broke my iPod in December, and it was a sour end to a pretty good year. If you've ever gotten that ugly exclamation point folder (or, worse yet, the "sad" iPod icon) when you start up your iPod, you know the kind of existential pain I'm talking about. (If you haven't--and you're even half as clumsy as I am--you will, someday. So be prepared.)
Sure, you could spend about half the value of your already-outdated unit by sending it in to Apple or some online chop shop. But they're probably just going to start off with what I'm about to tell you to try: namely, hitting it very, very hard.
I know that this is painfully counterintuitive. If you're like most people (which, of course, I am not--I won mine in London), you paid somewhere around $300-400 for this thing, and just because you really want to hit it right now doesn't mean that you don't know better. Hard drives aren't supposed to take well to sudden, violent shocks, right? Well, sure. But neither are people, and EST--despite all that we should have learned from R.P. McMurphy--is more popular than ever.
My method (and, of course, your mileage may vary) proceeds thusly:
1) Hold top of iPod between thumb and index finger of your non-dominant hand, caliper-style.
2) Apologize to iPod in whatever manner you find most appropriate. (I opted for the old "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you" approach; you might want to try "I wouldn't have to do this if you didn't make Mommy drink so much.")
3) Ready your dominant hand in the style of one going in for the kill in a particularly vicious tetherball game.
4) Smack iPod. This smack should be somewhere between "like it owes you money," and a particularly sadistic obstetrician. Allow some give so that it can swing a bit between your fingers. (Depending on finger strength, you might want to do this over a mattress, as this technique will inevitably to send it flying at least once.)
5) Test iPod. If failure persists, try rotating it and trying again.
I know this sounds like a joke, but I've been using variations on this technique on dead hard drives for going on fifteen years. Sometimes it even works.
The really scary thing about Apple's iPod (excepting, of course, the flashdrive-based Nanos and Shuffles) is that it's really just a fancy case for a surprisingly middling 2.5" hard drive. You probably already knew this, but it's still worth thinking about: your musical life is daily entrusted to a whirring, multi-headed, capricious little animal of about the same size and constitution of the one in most of today's laptops.
Except that most people don't drop most of today's laptops five or six times a month.
I broke my iPod in December, and it was a sour end to a pretty good year. If you've ever gotten that ugly exclamation point folder (or, worse yet, the "sad" iPod icon) when you start up your iPod, you know the kind of existential pain I'm talking about. (If you haven't--and you're even half as clumsy as I am--you will, someday. So be prepared.)
Sure, you could spend about half the value of your already-outdated unit by sending it in to Apple or some online chop shop. But they're probably just going to start off with what I'm about to tell you to try: namely, hitting it very, very hard.
I know that this is painfully counterintuitive. If you're like most people (which, of course, I am not--I won mine in London), you paid somewhere around $300-400 for this thing, and just because you really want to hit it right now doesn't mean that you don't know better. Hard drives aren't supposed to take well to sudden, violent shocks, right? Well, sure. But neither are people, and EST--despite all that we should have learned from R.P. McMurphy--is more popular than ever.
My method (and, of course, your mileage may vary) proceeds thusly:
1) Hold top of iPod between thumb and index finger of your non-dominant hand, caliper-style.
2) Apologize to iPod in whatever manner you find most appropriate. (I opted for the old "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you" approach; you might want to try "I wouldn't have to do this if you didn't make Mommy drink so much.")
3) Ready your dominant hand in the style of one going in for the kill in a particularly vicious tetherball game.
4) Smack iPod. This smack should be somewhere between "like it owes you money," and a particularly sadistic obstetrician. Allow some give so that it can swing a bit between your fingers. (Depending on finger strength, you might want to do this over a mattress, as this technique will inevitably to send it flying at least once.)
5) Test iPod. If failure persists, try rotating it and trying again.
I know this sounds like a joke, but I've been using variations on this technique on dead hard drives for going on fifteen years. Sometimes it even works.
posted by Anonymous at 9:20 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home