March 4
My Nano (That sounds funny, doesn’t it? Like a baby’s toy) has been on the fritz for about two weeks now. One day a little green icon that looked like a lock appeared at the top of the screen and my Nano would not work.
I started out dumb: What does that little green lock icon mean, I wondered to myself. And I checked the Nano features guide pdf I’d downloaded from the Apple site (No sense wasting all that paper and packaging expense by including such with the iPod! Apple is so smart that way.), and I found that the lock icon means the hold button is in the on position. Hold button? I looked at my Nano and sure enough, there it was, right on the top.
Hmm, I wondered, how come I didn’t know about this switch before? (I should note that I am one whom the techies of the world scornfully admonish to RTFM before I run into a problem.) Would have saved me lots of battery life wasted when the thing got turned on accidently while bumping around in my purse. Anyway, the hold button was now off. I turned it on and turned it back off again. The green lock on the screen remained.
OK, next step. What other reason could there be for the lock icon to persist?
The features guide told me that you can also lock your iPod using a code, so that nobody who happens upon it can play it (in case you’ve got porn on there, I guess, or maybe a podcast like OpenSource Sex). I was pretty certain I hadn’t locked Nano this way, either, unless I did it while sleeping, and to unlock it in this case requires remembering your code. Then I thought, Uh oh. What if the Nano made up its own code and locked itself? How would I ever crack it?
Not to worry, I learned, reading further. When you plug Nano into its original computer, it unlocks automatically.
Uh … no. So then what? On to the troubleshooting section, where, on page 43 is a cleverly memorable list of five things you can do if Nano doesn’t work: Reset, Retry, Restart, Reinstall, Restore. These range from the "duh" (restart your computer) to the scary (restore your device to the original factory condition). Long story short, I tried them all. No luck.
Time for a trip to the Apple Store (yes, we have one in Grand Rapids).
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So I wrote all that, like, three weeks ago. I didn’t finish because the narrative was getting long and I got tired of it. These days I’m so concerned that every writing minute needs to be paid, that my personal writing has gotten the short shrift. It’s a balance I’m trying to achieve — just the same way I’m learning to balance writing with housework, exercise, cooking and mollifying teens who have no appreciation for why I need quiet when it seems that all I do is surf the web all day.
Anyway, back to my Nano. My trip to the Apple Store was an outstanding experience. That place has a lock on customer service along with everything else Apple does. And because "we don’t repair those here," the guy at the "Genius Bar" was set to replace my iPod right then and there. I would have taken him up on it, except for the little problem of the engraving.
If you’re a regular here, you know that Clay and the kids gave me the Nano for Christmas engraved with "Merry Christmas 2005 (from me and the kids)." But as good as they are at taking care of customers, the Apple Store does not offer engraving. The only way I could have that replaced was to get my new unit directly from the factory. So while I was there, the Genius showed me how to do a repair ticket on the Apple website.
Two days later, I received an empty box, packed up my iPod and sent it off to China. In less than a week I had my shiny new iPod in hand, no charge for anything, not even shipping.
So now I’m catching up on all my podcasts, and my Nano is safely ensconced in a rubbery silicone jacket, hopefully keeping it from getting scratched and protecting that hold button from breaking. The jacket is a kind of ugly blue-on-green, but I bought it at a "refreshed" price of $15 vs. $30 (regular stores call this "clearance"), so I can definitely live with it. I got my iPod and my engraving. And I’m happy again. 
