My iPod is back, and I decided to get a case for it. ‘Cos what with carrying it about, and the kids playing with it, I figured it could do with some protection, as well as a belt clip.

After looking about at the various products, and with Tony’s recommendation, I looked at the iSkin. They appear to have gone all out to design something that’s both practical and fairly visually appealing (though to be fair, nothing beats the look of the iPod itself — even down to the normally fugly things like the power supply, Apple have created something that is utterly beautiful).

iSkins are not cheap, at least not to those of us trading in the Australian Peso. A little shopping around showed a price of between A$49 and $59. Unfortunately the $49 price was at Streetwise, whom I have had recommended to me, but are not particularly conveniently located, and even if they were, have been closed this past weekend for moving. And I wanted my iSkin straight away. Likewise, Streetwise’s or Apple’s online shop could have sold me the product, but online shopping for physical items doesn’t give you instant gratification.

So I coughed up the $59 at the AppleCentre on Flinders Street. Took the skin back to my iPod, and then wrestled with it for about half an hour, trying to figure out how it opened.

See, in looking at the adverts and catalogues, I’d got it into my head that the iSkin was made of some kind of rigid plastic. It isn’t. It’s flexible, and you’re meant to get the iPod (and the instructions and other items in the packet) in and out by way of the gap for the screen.

When I figured this out, I found the instructions inside telling me so. WhyTF they couldn’t put a hint on the outside of the package, I don’t know. Would have saved me a bit of fiddling about.

Oh well, the iSkin is lovely, though I don’t think much of (and am not using) the “free bonus” click-wheel cover they included. The other downer: it can plug into its USB/firewire connection while in the skin, but it’ll have to come out to fit into the dock.

But hopefully it will keep my iPod safe from the ravages of the world.

You may have seen the footage of Josh and I destroying a VCR.

In the same spirit, here’s detail on how to destroy an iTrip.

(Thanks Phil)

Microsoft has a page about buying Flash-memory-based MP3 players. One could be forgiven for thinking they’d written it specifically to discourage people buying iPods. First it says Flash-based is better. Then it says you should make sure you have voice-recorder and FM (so not iPod). And you should have a display (there goes iPod Shuffle) and of course concludes that you should look for WMA support. No surprises there.

Well the response when plugging the iPod into my computer at work was the same as that at home: nothing. It appears something caused the battery to stop working.

So I rang up Apple support, and after they had me attempt resetting it again, put me on hold. When the guy came back he proclaimed it to be a battery problem, and said it would need servicing. Sigh. He then gave me the URL for requesting service. I clicked through to this, only to find their server down, returning a 500 error. Terrific, this gets better and better!

A couple of hours later it was working. It leads you through various disclaimers including having you read a long list of terms and conditions in a small font. (Why do they put it in a small font? It’s a web page fer chrissake – it doesn’t use any more paper or bytes to be in a normal-sized font.)

I tapped in all my details and ended up with a form to print and take with the iPod to the post office. There the bloke scanned off the form, and gave me a PostPak and bubblewrap to put it in, and sent it off, postage-free.

Unlike when you get a battery replacement, apparently they will actually fix your iPod, rather than sending you a replacement one. And the bloke said it may take up to 14 days… which is a helluva lot better than some repair places.

So now, I wait. Sigh.

I don’t smegging believe it. I’ve had the thing less than a day and it’s playing up.

Yesterday during a spare moment at work, I set up iTunes on my work PC. All okay, set up the iPod, copied a dozen songs onto it, all good.

Took it home and tried to set iTunes up on my home PC. When it came to plug the iPod in, it wouldn’t play ball. The small print says it needs a high-power USB2.0 port… which to be honest I’m not sure my computer has. I’ll be looking into that.

But anyway, at this point the iPod stopped working. It now only does anything if it’s plugged into the mains, through the dock or directly. The battery indicator says it’s charged, and it plays merrily, until it’s plugged in. I’ve tried resetting it a couple of times, which it’ll do if it’s plugged in, but otherwise, nothing, nada, zilch.

You smegging what?!?

Assuming it’ll respond to the work computer again, I’ll do a full factory restore on it, and/or try refreshing its software. If that doesn’t work, however, I’ll not be very bloody happy. (I’m not particularly ecstatic right now, to be honest.)

A standard 20Gb iPod sells for A$439 retail.

40Gb iPods are being discontinued, but if you can find one, you’re likely to pay around A$479. Which given it comes with a dock that the 20Gb, makes it a bargain.

I just found one for $449 at ht.com.au, which makes it an utterly completely irresistable bargain. So I bought it.

Well the advance warnings the other day were a bit muddled up, but Apple has announced new iPod models and a price drop in the old ones. I don’t have one, but I’m certainly thinking about it… if you buy one in the next little while, make sure you don’t pay the old price!

To me the full-size iPod appeals because you can literally chuck all your music onto it, and the wide range of accessories available. But the iPod mini (especially the new bigger capacity ones) appeal for the smaller size and longer battery life. Maybe I’ll go shopping.