Thanks Macintosh!!!!

[Boozer76]

I purchased an Ipod brand new about 5 months ago. It started to act a little funny this past week and finally the battery died out-completely. Alas I now have to choose between waiting upwards of 6 weeks for Apple to fix it if I mail it to them, or I have to find an Apple Store and pay $45 to replace it. Joebaby told me Mac was perfect and would never make a defunct product. Looks like I'll be looking at the Zune's.

[BwanaZulia]

Make an apt at the local Mac store and go in. iPods are covered by 1 year manufacturer warranty.

If you spend half as much time trying to fix it as complaining you would be half way there.

Oh, and it is Apple, not "Macintosh".

BZ

[Bob]

Don't bother these guys with reality, Boozer. They can't handle it.

[BwanaZulia]

Yeah, reality is tough...

BZ

[BP]

Don't bother these guys with reality, Boozer. They can't handle it.

May a pin wheel of doom embed itself in your bunghole.

[Bob]

May a pin wheel of doom embed itself in your bunghole.

Maybe my Mac laptop at work can spare one. I get them every day.

[Panzer Division Marduk]

May a pin wheel of doom embed itself in your bunghole.

Foul lollipop o'certain death.

[BwanaZulia]

Ok, just to put a little salt on my Homer tag.

Yesterday I got RAM upgrades for my two Macs (24" iMac, MacBook Pro) and tried to install it.

The MacBook (mostly the wife's) was easy, popped out the battery, unscrewed the hatch, plopped in 2 x 1 GB chips, reversed and rebooted. Works like a charm.

The iMac (my machine) should have been just as easy. I went to shut it down and it hung on the last screen of shut down. Being impatient, I did a hard shut down (hold down power button). Unscrewed the hatch at the bottom, removed the 2 x 1 GB chips (could have put them in the laptop! DOH!) and replaced with 2 x 2GB chips. Closed it up and rebooted.

It hung FOREVER on the boot screen, just before it shows which accounts you can log in with. I rebooted. Same thing. I rebooted and waited ten minuted. Nothing. Thinking it was the ram, I reseated it and rebooted. Nothing. Then I removed the RAM and replaced it with the old RAM. Same thing.

I then booted off of the recovered DVD and that worked fine. I tried selecting the right start up disk in preferences, didn't work. After re-booting to the DVD (hold down C while you boot up) I though to try to boot from another partition I have with 10.4.7 (not the 10.5.2 that was giving me trouble). That worked.

So now, I figure I have a corrupt system file somewhere on the 10.5.2 side. Knowing I have a backup and knowing it will take awhile I decide to reinstall 10.5 OVER the 10.5.2 with the Preserve Users & Setting options. This just archives the old system, installs the new one and keeps all the users directories (only 228 GB for me).

After the 1.5 hour install, it rebooted fine. I then had it do the system update to get up to 10.5.2 and that (anther 20 minutes) worked fine.

Started up all my applications and everything is there. No muss, no fuss.

See? **** goes wrong on a Mac, but the point was, it was well designed enough, that when it goes wrong, the recovery wasn't too drastic or painful.

BZ

[Boozer76]

Haha, just to add insult to injury, I grabbed my wife's 2gb Nana to work out with. Turns out her battery is dead too from lack of use. Why the hell wouldn't they just let you chrge a dead battery?

[Boozer76]

I must admit I plagiarized this from another site, but I nearly **** myself laughing so hard:

Q: How many Mac users does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Mac users don't screw in light bulbs. They screw in bathrooms at highway rest areas.

[BwanaZulia]

Haha, just to add insult to injury, I grabbed my wife's 2gb Nana to work out with. Turns out her battery is dead too from lack of use. Why the hell wouldn't they just let you chrge a dead battery?

Wow...you can charge my Nana?

BZ

[joebabyny]

Haha, just to add insult to injury, I grabbed my wife's 2gb Nana to work out with. Turns out her battery is dead too from lack of use. Why the hell wouldn't they just let you chrge a dead battery?

it is just a function of lithium ion batteries and the way they are made, has nothing to do with it being in an apple product or any other manufacturer. If it is discharged below 2.5 volts an internal safety circuit opens and makes the battery appear dead and can not be recharged with the typical charger, some specialized equipment can bring it back though, but if it goes below 1.5 and is stored that way for a few months it should not be recharged even with that equipment due to safety concerns. Like I said, this is a function of litium ion technology. If you decided to bleed out your cell phone to full discharge and then store it a few months the same would happen, but nobody would do that so you don't run into that problem. Also on a related note, for those of you who frequently forget to charge your phone and run it down until it dies, this is also bad news bears for your battery's longevity.

[BwanaZulia]

Joe, time to give up on using logic, it just seems to get lost in all the hand waving and gesturing from those who want to pontificate on their hatred of Apple products.

In other words...

BZ

[Boozer76]

it is just a function of lithium ion batteries and the way they are made, has nothing to do with it being in an apple product or any other manufacturer. If it is discharged below 2.5 volts an internal safety circuit opens and makes the battery appear dead and can not be recharged with the typical charger, some specialized equipment can bring it back though, but if it goes below 1.5 and is stored that way for a few months it should not be recharged even with that equipment due to safety concerns. Like I said, this is a function of litium ion technology. If you decided to bleed out your cell phone to full discharge and then store it a few months the same would happen, but nobody would do that so you don't run into that problem. Also on a related note, for those of you who frequently forget to charge your phone and run it down until it dies, this is also bad news bears for your battery's longevity.

Difference is with a cell phone I can go to the store and buy a battery. With this I have to sit there and wait in an Apple store or mail it in and wait 6 weeks. It's just plain stupid and inexcusable.

[joebabyny]

Difference is with a cell phone I can go to the store and buy a battery. With this I have to sit there and wait in an Apple store or mail it in and wait 6 weeks. It's just plain stupid and inexcusable.

i think if it is within the 1 year warranty you can just go to the apple store nearest you and they will take care of it on the spot. As far as it being user replaceable, well, I have never really had an issue with mine and I like the smaller form factor the non user serviceable battery affords. A lot of the other small electronics are designed the same way. What are you gonna do with that new zune you are going to buy that has the same setup? Is there a zune store close to you that does the repairs?

[BwanaZulia]

And, despite what you may think, there is a reason.

The non-replaceable batteries are part of the design to keep the form factor smaller, lighter and more resilient. Battery compartments have latches that break, batteries that pop out, create less structural integrity and places for water and dirt to get into.

Either that, or it is all a plot to make your life miserable.

Check back later for the real answer.

BZ

[Arsis]

I'm not going to get into this with fanboys, but ipods are pretty crapply made. They break all the time, the batteries stop working all the time. When I worked in circuit city we would have at least 5-6 defective i-pods returned a day.

[BwanaZulia]

Arsis, and that was compared to what other product that sells over 10-11 MILLION a quarter?

Red ring of death anyone?

BZ

[war ensemble]

Microsoft and the Xbox 360 are a disgrace. They rush out on purpose to beat out the competition (Sony) and release a console nowhere near ready for release. They obviously knew they were releasing such a broken console, seeing as they have such complex warnings to show for what broke. They cut corners to hurry and provide a semi-cheap next-gen console first and they were plagued with problems ever since. Announcing that 33% of consoles have already broken and gauranteeing that every console will break while not issuing any type of return system is terrible.

To add to that they make it look like they care by providing a 3 year warranty for the RROD, which is general hardware failure. The problems with this are it is still only a one year warranty for all different hardware failures, they ignore everyone else who have received numerous broken consoles. Broken AV chips, hard drive, etc, after their one year warranty has run out. This has personally happened to me, the crap recognized games as DVD's and so couldn't play them. What was I forced to do? Overheat and freeze the POS until it gave me the RROD, which is pathetic.

To add to that, their customer service is a joke. Although the last two times I've called I got a perfectly understandable english speaker, many times before that I was forced to speak to a supervisor just to get them to understand me. Then once you get them to understand, you wait 3-4 weeks to get your console back. But they refuse to give you new ones with the lower failure rate, instead you either get yours back which will break again in a matter of days, or a refurbished one in terrible condition that does not work when you receive it. Trust me, this has happened to me 3 times before I got a working console.

Also, you'd expect them to address this issue soon after release, right? Wrong. They have had two new releases of the console, the Zephyr and the Falcon (65nm CPU) which have totally failed to address the issue. Sure, they added a heatsink and shrunk the CPU, lowring power consumption. But they totally ignored the real problem. The majority of problems are in the GPU and disc drives. What do they do? Leave the exact same GPU which overheats and fails daily, and switch routinely between disc drives, which are all loud and scratch the disks. They have gone from BenQ to Samsung to whoever else but still have POS disc drives. If they were really going to address the issue, they would've used a 65nm GPU and manned up and used a Sony disc drive, which are obviously quieter. They totally ignored the problems and made themselves look good to the press by all these redesigns that totally ignore the problem. If nothing else worked they should've realised this earlier in the 360's life and gone through a total redesign, even if that requires minor changes in the casing, and given the customer an option for returning their defective console for free.

[madmike1]

I've had an iPod for 5 years. It still works fine.

[BwanaZulia]

I've had an iPod for 5 years. It still works fine.

My father has my original iPod (5GB) bought the day it was launched. I replaced the battery once a few years back for $30 and it still works great.

BZ

[ECURB]

Arsis, and that was compared to what other product that sells over 10-11 MILLION a quarter?

Red ring of death anyone?

BZ

Stick with SONY... get a SONY MP3 player and a PS3 and all will be well... grab a SONY Vaio PC while your at it.

[joebabyny]

Stick with SONY... get a SONY MP3 player and a PS3 and all will be well... grab a SONY Vaio PC while your at it.

haha Sony completely screwed the pooch on the mp3 player market. With a brand like Walkman they should be the market leader, but there strategy was about as bad as could be and they are now pretty much irrelevant in the portable media player market.

[rillo]

Stick with SONY... get a SONY MP3 player and a PS3 and all will be well... grab a SONY Vaio PC while your at it.

SONY? No way....worst advice ever!

[war ensemble]

SONY? No way....worst advice ever!

As far as reliable gaming hardware, would you rather choose Sony or Microsoft for a true next-gen experience? If you say Microsoft, then you are a homer. I would much rather have a console with >1% failure rate than a console that's failure rate is 16% after the third redesign. That is pathetic.

Now onto the games front, the PS3 had many good games in its first year, and compared to the 360's first year was at least tied, if not PS3 has the advantage. For this year, the PS3 has Haze, MGS4, Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet, Gran Turismo 5, Resistance 2, Motorstorm 2,among others. The 360 cannot match that. Then in 2009 comes God of War 3, that alone is good for the year. But you could also add Uncharted 2 and probably the next R&C to that list. Not to mention the possibility of another Jak and Daxter game.

The Xbox 360 right now has a superior online experience when it comes to downloading games, etc. They instantly install once downloaded and you can download movies and TV shows. Only problem is Premium 360 owners have to pay 180$ just to get a HDD to fit all these. The PSN is free and has its own servers, something Microsoft's 360 doesn't. The experience through gameplay is similar although the lack of a unified in-game XMB is a loss. Once Home comes the PSN should have a superior online experience.

The PS3 also has a Blu-Ray Drive for hi-definition videos and the Cell processor, making it able to be used as a supercomputer to help simulate protein sequences. I have a 360 and a PS3.

[Gainzo]

haha Sony completely screwed the pooch on the mp3 player market. With a brand like Walkman they should be the market leader, but there strategy was about as bad as could be and they are now pretty much irrelevant in the portable media player market.

You hit the nail on the head.

IMO Sony is one of the most arrogant Corporations in the World. They never lower prices of any of their products because they feel that their technology is superior.

Look at how much market share they have lost over the last 2 years in the HD LCD TV market.

They gambled with Beta Max and lost, they gambled with Blu-Ray and won. They are still losing money hand over fist on the PS3 as Nintendo is kicking their arse.

[war ensemble]

You hit the nail on the head.

IMO Sony is one of the most arrogant Corporations in the World. They never lower prices of any of their products because they feel that their technology is superior.

The PS3's price has already gone down 200$ since it was released. They were taking a loss on each console at the 600$ mark. The PS2 started out at 300$ and within two years went down to 200$. The PS1 or PSX started at 300$ and within a year lowered its price to 200$. After another year the price was 150$. The PSP started at 200$ and is now 150$.

They gambled with Beta Max and lost, they gambled with Blu-Ray and won. They are still losing money hand over fist on the PS3 as Nintendo is kicking their arse.

So what? The Xbox 360 is also getting its arse kicked. However, the PS3 has steadily increased in sales and is now outselling the 360 everywhere, even in North America. The Wii caters to a larger audience with its cheaper price and games for all ages. If Sony were to follow their marketing strategy many people would be pissed. They have provided a supercomputer with next-generation graphics that versatile enough to be your web browser, whole computer with Linux, Blu-Ray player, games player, movie, file and music streamer. Everyone who accomplishes anything gambles to get there. Charles Darwin gambled when he published On The Origin of Species, because it is agaisnt creationism. Is he arrogant because he gambled against the popular belief of the day?

Stop talking out of your ass, man.

[rillo]

As far as reliable gaming hardware, would you rather choose Sony or Microsoft for a true next-gen experience? If you say Microsoft, then you are a homer. I would much rather have a console with >1% failure rate than a console that's failure rate is 16% after the third redesign. That is pathetic.

Now onto the games front, the PS3 had many good games in its first year, and compared to the 360's first year was at least tied, if not PS3 has the advantage. For this year, the PS3 has Haze, MGS4, Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet, Gran Turismo 5, Resistance 2, Motorstorm 2,among others. The 360 cannot match that. Then in 2009 comes God of War 3, that alone is good for the year. But you could also add Uncharted 2 and probably the next R&C to that list. Not to mention the possibility of another Jak and Daxter game.

The Xbox 360 right now has a superior online experience when it comes to downloading games, etc. They instantly install once downloaded and you can download movies and TV shows. Only problem is Premium 360 owners have to pay 180$ just to get a HDD to fit all these. The PSN is free and has its own servers, something Microsoft's 360 doesn't. The experience through gameplay is similar although the lack of a unified in-game XMB is a loss. Once Home comes the PSN should have a superior online experience.

The PS3 also has a Blu-Ray Drive for hi-definition videos and the Cell processor, making it able to be used as a supercomputer to help simulate protein sequences. I have a 360 and a PS3.

I was referring to MP3 players...

[war ensemble]

I was referring to MP3 players...

I guess it's just me, but this thread is confusing. And yeah as far as MP3 players go I don't know. I've never owned a Sony MP3 player but they are obviously not very popular.