Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

My iPod Is No Longer A Virgin

This post chronicles my first evening with my iPod. I originally started writing it like last week but due to the Lunar New Year, I decided not to post it until later.

That day, I got home feeling very excited about my new iPod. Yes, I know I’m like a little kid with a new toy but shut the f78k up while I try to tell my story ok? This is a story of how really rotten windows dialogue messages will totally confuse a newbie.

The kitchen door had gotten stuck when a sudden gust of wind blew it shut. But did I give a shit? No!

I was running a slight fever from too much unhealthy chinese new year goodies. But did I give a shit? No!

6pm
The first thing I did was to install my USB2.0 card. I’m a lazy dick and I simply detest opening up my pc and getting jiggy with it. But there was no choice because my iPod demanded either firewire or usb2.0. This took me nearly an hour because I got a free usb2.0 card (the salesman practically threw it in my face and asked me to stop being indeceisive over getting a Zen or iPod) which my WinXp failed to detect correctly so I had to install it manually.

7pm
Then the nightmare began. When I connected my iPod to my pc, a message appeared saying “Your iPod needs to be formatted before it can be used on your Pc. Please click the update button to continue“. There were only 2 buttons, ‘Update’ and ‘Restore’. I clicked ‘Update’ and waited for the formatting to be done.

12am
Formatting still not done. WTF?!!! I check the apple forums and it seems like almost every other newbie who bought a 4th gen iPod to use on a pc are having similar problems. I reboot, reinstall the latest firmware updaters and try again. After clicking on ‘Update’, the same thing happens.

1am
I’m cursing Steve Jobs. The message that popped up earlier about clicking on ‘Update’ to format my iPod was totally wrong. To format the iPod for my pc, I have to click ‘Restore’. Once I do that, my iPod is ready to use in about 3 mins.

1.30am
Now iTunes cannot detect my iPod. Arrhghghghg FU Steve Jobs. I reinstall iTunes and reboot. Now it detects my iPod.

2am
I load my entire collection of pirated mp3’s culled from the internet over a period of 3 years into my iPod. It takes a few mins to load a few hundred songs.

2.30am
I go to bed and fall asleep listening to my iPod.

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Btw, I named my iPod. She’s called Lucy. She has a tendency to play Led Zeppelin and Badly Drawn Boy on random shuffle mode for some reason.

And I’m now looking to purchase music from MP3tunes.com and AllofMp3.com because the damned iTunes store won’t allow me to buy music online from Singapore. How ganked is that?

I had the same problems with WinXP too. Each synching process took 3-4 hours as I had do all those things you did, plus I have over 6,000 tracks.

So I bought a Mac.

(BTW, people who name their cars and appliances freak me out)

my rice cooker is named Joe

`it does come with a Steve Job voodoo doll to relieve frustration does it? Heard it’s included in limited promotionnal editions of the i-shuffe.

I had tons of problems on WinXP too.. both the iPod and the iTrip.. Mine’s called Celeste..

maybe its your xp problem? I dun have problem with my iPod and my XP. first install nice and clean, first sync also nice and clean.

yeah, my girlfriend had the same issue with the one I bought to her 2 weeks ago… we had to download the utility to restore the iPod shuffle. Not so funny… anyway I’m gonna get my 1GB shuffle in the next days :D cannot wait for it…. gaaaaaaa

I even had major probs using my mac. I swear it was not my fault. Just did not detect the itpod in itunes. But once it’s hooked up it runs OK. What I hate is that my ipod seems to drain batteries when not in use.

My friend had the same problem with her iPod Mini too. Remedied the same way.

ipods are a total waste of money half the time they dont even work