The fun just never stops when I’m around. Here’s the last adapter I’ll write about for a long time. Really.

If you’ve ever had an iPod die on you, there’s a good chance it was due to a hard drive problem. The software may have gotten corrupted or the drive may have had some mechanical issue…all kinds of things can go wrong with your beloved mobile music machine. The good news is, there is hope. With this 1.8″ to 2.5″ IDE adapter, pointed out by a user in the Command-Tab Forums, you can connect your iPod to a laptop IDE bus. With yet another, but more common adapter, you can connect that whole assembly to a regular, rune-of-the-mill desktop IDE bus. In short, you can plug your iPod drive into your desktop and run standard disk repair software on it. My personal favorite is Hitachi’s Drive Fitness Test under Advanced mode, which will run a full scale hardware and disk surface scan test of the drive and allow you to repair any bad sectors. For an easy way to run this test (on PC hardware), download the free Ultimate Boot CD which contains a myriad of utilities. Burn and boot the CD, then hit F2 followed by F1 to launch the program.

So the next time your iPod stops working and all seems to be lost (as far as Apple suggested fixes go), try opening it up and running a test. You might just be able to repair your iPod’s drive with a little work and a handy adapter or two.

Jon pointed this item out to me. It’s a bit dated, but still worth a look. In June of last year, Steve Jobs gave a speech at Stanford, of which I linked to audio version. Recently, on Stanford’s podcast, they published the video of the speech. Like the audio-only version, it’s worth saving for a day where you find yourself lacking inspiration and enthusiasm for whatever it is you do.

Less than a week ago, my iPod Shuffle gave up on me and refused to play any music. Pressing buttons resulted in flashing orange-and-green lights, and plugging it into various computers had no effect. I started thinking that maybe the refurbished 1 GB Shuffle wasn’t such a good deal after all.

At a loss, I went to Apple’s iPod Support page and requested some help. I submitted my issue in the hopes that they could either fix or replace my iPod. Two days later, a brand new iPod Shuffle arrives at my door, courtesy Apple and DHL. All I had to do was post back my non-functioning unit. I packaged it up, included the requested cap (what they do with them, I don’t know), and sent my dead Shuffle back. Earlier today, I received an email from Apple Support stating that my shipment arrived and that they hope I’ll be happy with my new iPod Shuffle. Indeed I am. Never have I had such a great customer service experience with any company. This, among other reasons, is why I don’t mind paying a little extra for Apple hardware.

A small follow-up to my earlier post about the Xbox peripheral adapter… Here you’ll find a pinout of the Xbox controller expansion port, as well as a diagram of the headset unit itself. I found them to be quite helpful when wiring up the adapter.