Despite my most earnest efforts, the iPod resisted all attempts at resuscitation. It would emit whirring and clicking sounds until the battery was depleted. The pesky folder-with-exclamation-point icon wouldn’t go away, and although various websites said it was a software problem, it sure sounded like something was wrong with the disk drive.
The person who is never wrong asked me how long I had spent diddling (technical term which means spending hours working on a problem that a trained professional could fix in 10 minutes) with the iPod. I shaved my estimate: “About eight hours.” I flashed back to my auditing days when I wouldn’t charge my clients for all the time I spent diddl--- uh, performing research.
“Why don’t you get a new one? You can afford it.” Note the subtle appeal to the male ego: scrapping a $400 piece of equipment is nothing to a distinguished gentleman of means. But that would also mean kissing off the $30 I spent on the battery, not to mention the time spent pursing my lips and sighing. She just doesn’t understand.
I took it to the Apple Store. The bearded wizard at the Genius Bar (Apple’s designation for the technical help desk…cool, huh) shook the iPod, turned it on, and raised it to his ear. “It’s the disk drive,” declared the genius.
He input the serial number into the terminal and gave me the bad news. The warranty expired last year, and the fix would cost $250. Apple wouldn’t even bother repairing it, he explained, they would just give me a new unit, albeit last year’s model. My crestfallen expression stimulated his pity, and he jotted down the name of a company who would do repairs.
For $29 iPodResQ sent me a box with prepaid overnight round-trip shipping to its Kansas office; diagnosis of the problem was included in the price. I wrapped the iPod in the foam packing material and deposited it in the DHL dropbox.
iPodResQ confirmed that the 30-gigabyte drive was fried (another technical term) and offered to install a new one for $190. My self-help urges had long since abated, so I agreed to their terms--actually spending a few more dollars for a drive with larger capacity. The iPod has been functioning smoothly during the past week, and normalcy has returned to our household. No moral, dear reader, just the rueful observation that I still make mistakes deciding when to trade off money for time. © 2005 Stephen Yuen
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Rueful Observation
Despite my most earnest efforts, the iPod resisted all attempts at resuscitation. It would emit whirring and clicking sounds until the battery was depleted. The pesky folder-with-exclamation-point icon wouldn’t go away, and although various websites said it was a software problem, it sure sounded like something was wrong with the disk drive.
The person who is never wrong asked me how long I had spent diddling (technical term which means spending hours working on a problem that a trained professional could fix in 10 minutes) with the iPod. I shaved my estimate: “About eight hours.” I flashed back to my auditing days when I wouldn’t charge my clients for all the time I spent diddl--- uh, performing research.
“Why don’t you get a new one? You can afford it.” Note the subtle appeal to the male ego: scrapping a $400 piece of equipment is nothing to a distinguished gentleman of means. But that would also mean kissing off the $30 I spent on the battery, not to mention the time spent pursing my lips and sighing. She just doesn’t understand.
I took it to the Apple Store. The bearded wizard at the Genius Bar (Apple’s designation for the technical help desk…cool, huh) shook the iPod, turned it on, and raised it to his ear. “It’s the disk drive,” declared the genius.
He input the serial number into the terminal and gave me the bad news. The warranty expired last year, and the fix would cost $250. Apple wouldn’t even bother repairing it, he explained, they would just give me a new unit, albeit last year’s model. My crestfallen expression stimulated his pity, and he jotted down the name of a company who would do repairs.
For $29 iPodResQ sent me a box with prepaid overnight round-trip shipping to its Kansas office; diagnosis of the problem was included in the price. I wrapped the iPod in the foam packing material and deposited it in the DHL dropbox.
iPodResQ confirmed that the 30-gigabyte drive was fried (another technical term) and offered to install a new one for $190. My self-help urges had long since abated, so I agreed to their terms--actually spending a few more dollars for a drive with larger capacity. The iPod has been functioning smoothly during the past week, and normalcy has returned to our household. No moral, dear reader, just the rueful observation that I still make mistakes deciding when to trade off money for time. © 2005 Stephen Yuen
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