Ok, so before I start, I’m going to go ahead and give thanks to LifeHacker, and especially Adam Pash for this one.  His article can be found here on the “Self-Sustaining iPod”.

For anyone who uses multiple computers per day, or even per week, running applications and saving data to your iPod can be very useful.  First, it gives you comfort with any computer you’re on, because instead of using their outdated (or, sadly, very updated) Internet Explorer, you can use your own customized Firefox with your own plugins, etc.  Also, you don’t have to worry about not having the tools you need installed on the specific computer, because you can carry them all around with you wherever you go.

Also, the iPod acts as a flash drive, and since you most likely haven’t filled up your entire device, the storage capacity can be huge.  So, essentially, your iPod serves as a complete computer and mp3 player throughout the day.

Right now, in fact, I am writing this on a Firefox window that is running from a folder on my iPod hard disk, and I was able to use GIMP to create a quick wallpaper for my account here at the university.

To get tons of free, portable apps that you can run from your iPod, check out PortableApps.  You might also find this interesting about how to run Skype from your player (Thanks again to Adam Pash, Lifehacker, and MakeZine).

Ok, so, let’s give you the benfit of a doubt and say that you locked yourself out of your computer, and you were the only administrator. So how do you get back in? Actually, Windows makes it simple! Why did they do this? Because they hadn’t created Vista yet, and therefore did not know that they needed to make even the simple things nearly impossible. But we will have more Microsoft jabs later. On to the computer.

• First, you want to turn the machine off.
• Next, boot it up and tap the F8 key while the BIOS is loading. This will take you to a DOS menu.
• Depending on your BIOS version, you will have to scroll either up or down to select “Safe Mode”.
• Let Windows boot. You may notice that things look really wierd. This means you have done correctly thus far.
• When you get to the LogOn menu, type (or select, depending on your Windows version) “Administrator” and hit Enter.

That’s it! You’re in. From here, you should then go to the Control Panel, then Users, and change your personal user password. Now you can reboot the computer and use your new password on the user account you are trying to enter.

For those who don’t know, Linux comes in many different flavors, as well as Live CD’s and full operating systems.  Live CD’s are really neat, and they allow you to get a full feel of Linux before installing it on your hard drive.  As I recently learned, they also make a nice recovery tool for any system.

Recently, my parents computer started to act up.  It is an HP Pavilion laptop running Windows XP, and it’s about 4 years old.  I have been extremely satisfied with the computer, and it has served us well throughout the last years.  However, it is on the verge of a crash.

Needless to say, I wanted to back up all of our music, videos, photos, and documents before it passes.  However, when Windows boots up (after about 10 minutes), and you click on ANYTHING, it freezes up.  This is where Slax comes in.

I remembered I had a Live CD version of Slackware Linux, Slax, on a disc somewhere in my room.  I hadn’t booted it in several months – first because I saw no purpose to it, and second because I wasn’t very familiar with Linux.  However, Slax is amazing.  It is a fully independant bootable operating system, complete with web browser, music jukebox, games, file manager, etc – all contained in 189MB.

Now, at first, it may seem very cool, yet useless.  However, it makes an incredibly effective and smooth recovery tool.  I simply popped it in, logged in with “root” and “toor”, and plugged in my portable hard drive.  From there, I could back up all the files on my XP hard drive without ever entering Windows!

Another neat thing is that Slax doesn’t necessarily require any type of Linux skill!  Sure, if you know Linux commands, you can do a lot more with it, but version 6.0.7 is SO easy to use, even at boot up.

So, if you’re looking for a simple, fast, clean recovery tool or just something to play around with, check out Slax Live Linux.  It has saved my families precious documents, pictures, and videos, and it has appealed to the geek in me to experiment with linux.  Check it out!

You can imagine my shock and anger when I plugged up my iPod, only to find that iTunes “could not read it”.   I was told that I needed to restore my iPod to factory settings, thus erasing ALL of my 40G of music, videos, photos, and games.  Needless to say, I was a little, to borrow a British expression, “cheesed off”.

Since my iPod is enabled for disk-mode (which I strongly suggest, and you’ll see why in a minute), I opened My Computer and saw “Ryan’s iPod” under “Devices with Removable Storage”.  I opened the folder, and there were all of the iPod folders, in perfect (it seemed) condition.  The weird thing was that when I turned my iPod on, I could see cover art scrolling in the side bar, and it showed my 38.4G of storage that had been used in the Settings tab.  When I would go to play an artist, however, it said that there were no artists, songs, or albums on the device.

To make a long story short, I was forced to back up ALL of my music and videos to my computer, reset my iPod, and then put them all back on again.  As I had almost 40G of stuff, this took several hours to accomplish.  Apple could not, however, make this process remotely simple.

After googling my problem, I found that the music is in a hidden folder in the “Ipod Control” folder.  After accessing this, however, you are faced with 40 separate folders, each containing numerous songs and videos, though few are actually labeled with their appropriate names, and the few that happen to be are all jumbled together.   So, I had to open 40 separate folders and copy every song into a main folder on my desktop.  Over 3,000 songs, split up into separate folders, with names like “XYAB.mp3″.

Oh no, the process isn’t over yet!  After trying several ways, i found that the only way to put the music back on my iPod was to import it all back into iTunes, (which took close to an hour, since iTunes also had to search for the cover art) and copy it from there to the iPod.  This also took over an hour.  Finally, I had my original iPod.

That night, I went out and bought a 320G external hard drive for about $100 to back up my music.  It’s just not worth the time, stress, and effort to go through that again.  But you can be assured that if it happens again, Apple will be experiencing it all with me, as an involuntary passenger on my trip of loss and anger.

So I had my iPod.  Well, sort of.  All of my games, notes, and pictures still weren’t replaced, and some cover art from lesser known bands was missing, but it was a lot better than nothing.  I still, however, am a little ticked at Apple.  I received this iPod for Christmas this past year – scarcely 6 months ago!  Is this why I spend $250 on your product, for it to cause me hours of frustration, anxiousness, and anger?!

The iPod has brought me much joy, amazement, and boredom-killing fun, and some may argue that it is to be expected to have problems and bugs.  However, for something so expensive, and as an average consumer, should I have to deal with them?

Ok, so I cannot stand Norton software anymore. The thing is, the software itself isn’t that bad, though it is extremely annoying. The problem I have is with the difficulty and downright deception of the product.

So first, I decided to let Norton run for the free 60 days after getting my new laptop. The next day, Norton informed me (with a dialog box in the middle of the window I was working on), that it needed an update installed. I decided not to install at the moment, since I was, after all, in the mid of something.

So what did Norton do after I clicked “Do Not Install”? It said that it was closing, and after a few minutes, informed me that the update was installed and that I needed to now reboot my computer. What?! Why would I trust you to protect me from viruses? I guess the idea is that I can’t protect myself from you, so I should pay you to protect me from people like you. I’m confused already.

Ok, so obviously, I wanted this thing off my computer. Should be easy, right? Wrong. So I went to “Uninstall Norton”. But wait…apparently I have a browser window open, so I am unable to uninstall. Hmmm. So I then have to close my browser and re-open Norton Uninstaller, then wait 5 minutes for the software to completely uninstall from the system. Wait…no…there’s still a Norton file in my Start menu! In 5 minutes, you can’t uninstall a DEMO version of a product, and maybe remove the folder from my computer? Or is this because I haven’t restarted Windows, and may therefore encounter “errors”. Errors in what? Obviously, I’m not going to try and run your “Anti-Virus” software after I UN-INSTALLED it!

So my advice: get FireFox, don’t open email attachments from people you don’t know, and forget about this so-called “Internet Security”.