I've Hacked My iPod

After waiting weeks for the iVue front panel to come out, I finally plunked down my money and bought one.

Anyone who knows me knows that I like being different and that I often modify stuff I own to personalize it. My iPod is no exception. I wanted something so distinct and personal that I went to an extreme of sorts as opposed to getting a skin or case. I actually went to the extreme of nullifying my warranty and opened my iPod to do this. It's more along the lines of major surgery to replace the front panel and click wheel cover of an iPod. It's serious.

The level of seriousness made it imperative to conduct this modification under some special conditions. I was, after all, opening my iPod and the last thing I wanted was to introduce any particulate matter into the delicate works. I certainly didn't want to do this mod in my dog-hair ridden apartment (thanks Hoku) and I can't stand dust on the screen that I can't get rid of because it's on the inside of the panel. Luckily, I have access to a laminar flow hood which is dust and bioburden free.

After some major work and sweat under this laminar flow hood, my iPod now looks like this:There have been some comments from other people on the web about this being an ugly mod, but I like it and the whole point of this is to have my iPod be more personalized than anything else that's out there. I have yet to see someone else with this mod, so it's pretty safe to say that within the circle of people I hang out with and know, I have something very different. Add the firmware hacks I'm doing to change the look onscreen, and the combination will be uniquely mine.

No, I won't do this mod for you.

Clearing Out Mental Logjams, Dealing With Life

So this is the other blog that catches all the other stuff of my life. When I mean "other," it doesn't mean that this blog will be mutually exclusive of my other two (or is it three?) blogs in the ARL NorthAm universe. It would be difficult at best to try to compartmentalize my life into neat little blocks and of course you'll see some bleed-through here from the other aspects of my exponentially complicated life.

What you won't find here are rants complaining about how crappy my life is, because a) I refuse to beat myself up over it thus reinforcing the illusion that my life is crappy and b) my life isn't that crappy.

I use the word illusion when it comes to the perception of how crappy one's life is because it's excatly that: an illusion. Was Paris Hilton's time in jail tough? Probably not to us, but to her the perception of being in jail led to her having a nervous breakdown. Whatever. But enough already about this life coaching drivel, I have more important things to blog about. Like my upcoming iPod modifications.

Now some if not most of you have one or more of these devices from Apple and if you’re like me, you’ll want to make it more personal. It’s not enough that they come in different colors, or two if you own the full-sized versions. You have to make it more your own and personalize it so that you feel like it’s a part of you. For some people I know, their iPod is a part of them since I rarely see them without it on some part of their body.

I myself own four versions of the iPod: a 1st generation Shuffle given to me as a gift, an 80 gigabyte video iPod, a 2nd generation Shuffle, and an 8 gigabyte video Nano. Sure, I’m a little crazy when it comes to these devices.

What I plan to mod this time around is the 80 gigabyte video iPod. Right now it’s just basic black and encased inside an Otterbox waterproof case. When I bought the iPod I never bothered to take the plastic film that covers the front off, so it’s never been scratched and is essentially as pristine as it was in the box. The mirror finish back is preserved through the use of some protective film I bought when I bought the iPod.

So just what kind of mod will I be doing to this iPod? Well, as long as I can remember, I’ve had a fascination with things that are see-through and love to be able to see the inner machinations of things like radios and cell phones. In fact if there's an option for getting something with a clear case, I'll probably get that one. I've replaced cell phone cases with clear versions just so I could see their inner works. When I found out that RapidRepair came out with a clear front panel for the 5G iPod, I was right there to order it the moment it was available for shipping. I had the option of sending my iPod in for installation or I could do it myslef. I opted to do it myself. I wanted to opportunity to explore the guts of my iPod before I installed the panel. I also wanted to make sure that no dust gets inside during the disasembly and reassembly process. You might be wondering how I plan to do this. Here at my work we have laminar flow hoods that are are basically clean environments that are the size of a tabletop. Imagine a clean room shrunk down to bench size and you get the idea. Just in cse yu were wondering what one looks like, here's a photo:
It has a HEPA filter that will screen out all the dust, lint, and even microorganisms that might contaminate the surface. I'll avoid any problems with dust inside the facplate.

It's on it's way in the mail and I should be getting it sometime this week.I'll have a seperate blog for the installation when it comes in.

Other things I'm working on: getting the ARL NorthAm offices into order. However, I've been wondering about whether I want to keep living on the snoozy little island of Alameda or pick up and move to Berkeley. I really miss living there despite the obvious hippie-freak factor and Alameda just seems so bland. Actually what I really miss is having neighbors that interact with me. My current living situation would be great if there were neighbors that said more than three words to me a week. Being the highly social person I am, I get antsy at the thought of going home to four walls. Hoku is a great conversationalist, but her range of subjects is limited and she really doesn't care much for talk about iPods and driving around the world. I pretty much control the conversations we have and it would be nice to have a human being take over the selection of subject matter once in a while. Her main topics deal mainly with going outside, chasing fast moving objects, barking at those who might be viewed as invaders, and whatever I happen to be eating at the time. Ah, youth. Dog youth.

So I'm scanning the craigslist options and thinking that it may be time to get a place in Berkeley with roommates. As long as I have my own bathroom and enough space for my stuff, which was pared down substantially since the last move, I think I'll be fine. I'm not the stuff accumulator I was a few years back, and my collection of big bulky items has been relegated to the warehouse for a time when I can store it in a warehouse of my own.

Back on task. I did manage to clean up the ARL NorthAM office, currently located in my second bedroom. Gone were the styrofoam food trays from the take out places, miscellaneous paper trash and accumulated dog hair. Up went the ARL NorthAm banner and some photos and viola! ARL NorthAm headquarters.

Now if I could only get some work done in there.