Not Necessarily Interesting News

I’ve been having some issues with my iPod for the last few months. It’s been randomly rebooting several times a day. I’ll be listening to a song or watching a show and *boom* reboot. I tried all the usual fixes. I updated the firmware. Restored from scratch(a pain in the ass). Everything. I finally got fed up with it and decided to send it in.
I went to Apple’s website to get an RMA and started browsing around. I found out that there was an Apple store here in Austin. That shows how much of a mall-hopper I am. Apparently we’ve had an Apple store in Austin for like 2 years. I never knew. I decided to pop on by to have one of their ‘Geniuses’ look at it.
I made an appointment online and went to the store tonite. I walked in and my name was on the board as next in line. Sweet. The guy asked me what was up and I explained my problem. He took my iPod and poked at it a bit then started to take it out of the case. He asked if I still wanted my screen protector. I kind of looked at him funny for a second then realized what he was doing. He turned around and opened the case behind him and brought out a new 60GB iPod Video just like mine, punched the serial number into the computer and said ‘Here ya go. Have a nice day.’
I’d heard about them doing this but didn’t believe it. I was amazed. No real paperwork other than signing a sheet saying I received the iPod. No hassle. ‘Here’s your replacement iPod.’
I received mine as a gift for my birthday last December. I decided while I was there I’d buy the AppleCare warranty extention. I figured it would be worth it to get another year of service should I have other problems. I got home and tried to add the extention to my warranty and got a message saying it couldn’t process the extention and to please call up Apple. I called them up and explained what was up. The guy asked when I got the iPod and I told him last December. He said, ‘No, when did you get the replacement?’ I told him like 2 hours ago. He took the extention info and processed it right then. I asked when the warranty would expire expecting to hear 2 years from my original purchase/gift date. He said ‘2 years from today.’
How’s that for customer service? I’ve now got a new iPod with a 2 year warranty starting today and not from the day of purchase of the original iPod as I expected.

Last weekend I decided to upgrade our Tivo. We bought the basic 40hour model last winter and have been more and more getting really close to running out of space. Fry’s had 200GB Western Digital hard drives on sale for only $55 without any rebate hassles.
I followed the instructions from http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/ and swapped the original 40GB HDD for the 200GB in about 30 minutes. This includes copying over the data from the original drive to the new one.
I plugged it back into the TV and powered it on. I looked in the system info menu and we now have a 220 hour Tivo. The little guy has been recording its head off. No more running out of stuff to watch. I’ve got 10 CSI episodes ready to watch at all times. The kid has a good selection of educational programs and cartoons in Tivo’s KidsZone. We wonder why we waited this long to do the upgrade.