Well going to the Apple Store did the trick. I guess that is the real difference between mailing something and talking to a real person. I do have to give the online service some credit, when they received my ipod there was a pinch of metal that had separated from the top by the WiFi plate. If they had seen that they would have good cause to think I'd tried to open it. And since it was over mail they couldn't just ask me like the nice lady at the Genius bar.

The letter they sent was just a repair sheet with a checkbox checked. The reason it failed was.

iPod was not in its originally assembled condition, as the enclosure was either disassembled or opened; therefore, technicians were unable to perform any diagnostics.

Apparently having dust under the screen makes Apple think you opened your iPod. Sorry to tell you Apple, but the thing isn't dust proof. I wouldn't dare opening an iPod that I bought the extended warranty on. That would be stupid.

A letter? Seriously? They send me an email telling me they are sending me a letter. That's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I don't remember any accidental damage or misuse. We'll see what the letter says...

Friday night my iPod Touch died. I had plugged it in before going to bed and iTunes beeped at me with a sync error. Apparently it was having trouble talking to the device. Whenever I'm having trouble with my iPod I reboot it. So I turned it off and then back on again. Once it turned on i got the screen you get when you have a new iPod. A picture of iTunes with a standard iPod chord running to it telling you you must sync.

Having trouble synching your Apple TV? I've had issues on and off and found a few tricks to get things going.

The most likely culprit is your router. I have an old D-Link router, and I have always had issues going through it. I put a switch between my Apple TV, Computer and the router and things worked much better. I went from synching working 10% of the time to 90% of the time.

It's been about a week since Apple TV went 2.0. The experience so far has been good. Not perfect but good. I still get 3689 firewall errors. But after reading a bunch of forums I'm convinced it is a problem with my router. I'll report on that again if I find more info.

As for the new software I think it is a good update. I find it interesting how far the focus has gone to the iTunes store. Under every section there are several subsections that relate directly to the store, and a "My" section that holds my stuff. That means the iTunes store is 1 level deep, but my stuff is 2 levels deep.

Lame. Putting it in a footnote of the MacBook Air announcement is double lame.

We are expecting the 2.0 update any day now, and I must say I'm looking forward to it. But I thought before it comes out I'd give my impressions of how the Apple TV works right now.

Just after the announcement at MacWorld that the Apple TV would be updated in 2 weeks I purchased one of my own. It's a love hate relationship for me. I plugged the Apple TV into my network, entered a code on my mac and the content I selected synched up with the Apple TV. A wonderfully Apple experience. It just worked, and did what I expected it to. Thanks to those who tested first on the internet, because it works great in 480i mode on my TV.

So I decided to try out iTunes Rentals. Last week I rented Star Trek III. Things went pretty smoothly on the iTunes end. I had to do some updating to my account, but then I was ready to go. The movie downloaded pretty quickly, and although I didn't watch it right away, judging by the download speed I could have.

I decided to wait till I could watch it on my AppleTV. So I've been waiting and watching the 30 day countdown tick away. Well my AppleTV hasn't been updated yet and I was in the mood to watch a movie.

At Macworld Apple released the MacBook Air. If you live under a rock you can learn more about it at http://www.apple.com/macbookair/. This computer reminds me a lot of my current on the go setup. I have a 12" Powerbook with a broken DVD drive. Since I have a nice iMac at home I never use the firewire port. I use a bluetooth Apple Mouse (not mighty mouse). The only port that is missing that I use on an infrequent basis, is the ethernet port. We often do LAN starcraft parties and if someone doesn't have a computer I let them use my Powerbook. I don't think I'd trust the wireless for a LAN game so i'd probably have to buy the USB to ethernet dongle. Once my budget puts me in the market for a new laptop i'll seriously consider a MacBook Air.