replacing the hardrive of an ipod

By Josh Highland in hacks, hardware, iPod, software, tutorials

Follow me on twitter for more great tips. CLICK HERE – twitter.com/JoshHighland

My brother Justin loved his 20 gig 4th generation ipod until he dropped it at the gym one day. It stopped working all together and would make clicking noises when he would try to start it.
He had gotten it as a gift and didnt have the reciept for it, so he couldnt take it back unter warrenty I guess. Apple said that it would cost $250 to fix. Instead of fixing it, he spend the money on
a 30 gig 5th generation. I asked him for the broken ipod so I could tinker with it. After I got it from him, I decided that it would be cool to own an ipod, and that if i could fix it for less then the
retail price, I would be a head of the game. I documented my adventure of trying to fix my ipod, check it out.

  1. When I would start the ipod, I would get an icon of a folder and a warning sign. The ipod would then make a bunch of clicking noises. That make me think that the hard drive was crapped out.
  2. Since it was already broken, why not take it apart and try to make it work. There was no clear way to ebter the ipod, so I decided to pry off the metal back using the thinnest screw driver I could find.
    It wasnt that hard to work the screw drive between the metal and the plastic. I worked the screw driver down the side of the case, until it popped off.

  3. I flipped the ipod over, and opened it up slowly, I noticed that there was a ribbon cable connecting the guts if the ipod to the jacks mounted to the metal back. I was careful not to mess this connection up.

  4. The ipod uses an ide harddrive, the connector pulled directly off without any problems. I now hard the bad harddrive free,

  5. The drive had blue rubber bumpers wrapped around it, and on the back, there was a foam mat that was glued to the drive.
  6. Removing the bumpers was no problem, they pulled directly off with out any fight.
  7. I tried to pull the foam off the drive by pulling on it, but that wasnt working, so I desided to get a razor blade scraper and screape it off. It worked well.

  8. Once I had the foam off, I could see that it was a toshiba drive. Model MK2004GAL. I looke dofr replacements online, but was only able to find the model MK2006GAL. I compared the MK2004GAL and the MK2006GAL, and didnt see any big differences, so I ordered one. 3 days letter I had my new drive. It didnt have the apple logo on it, but who cares, it was only $100!
  9. The blue bumpers went on with out a problem, and fit like a glove.
  10. To get the foam to stick to the new drive, I went super ghetto and reached in my desk, and came up with a glue stick! Hey, it goet the job done.
  11. The new drive went in, just like the old one came out. I connected the IDE connection, and I was ready to close it up.
  12. I put the back on, and pressed down on it evenly. The back snapped without any problems.
  13. Next, I downloaded the ipod updater (11-17-2005) from apple.com, and installed it. I hooked up my newly rebuilt ipod, and did a restore. It went really fast.
  14. After the restore, I had to hook up my ipod to the wall charger. I didnt have one on hand so i tried all kinds of methods of going around it. In the middle of me trying to hack around it, My buddy chris called, I told him to bring over his wall charger.
  15. 5 minutes later Chris showed up with a charger. I plugged in the ipod, it reset itself, and then I was up and running with my newly rebuilt ipod.

I was really supprised at how easy it was to replace the hard drive in a 4th gen ipod. Im sure that someone is going to call me an idiot for opening the case that way. I dont care though. I got this thing working and that all that matters, and I did it for under $100. Screw apple for wanting to charge $250 for 20 minutes worth of work and $100 worth of parts.

I hope that through my experience, someone else can bring back to life one of their dead ipods.

Follow me on twitter for more great tips. CLICK HERE – twitter.com/JoshHighland

screen capture of windows media player 10

By Josh Highland in software, tutorials

Today at work, I needed to take a screen capture of a movie running in windows media 10. I loaded the movie and pressed the "print screen" button on the keyboard. When I pasted the image into photoshop, the media player was black.
After some google searches and playing with the horid media player 10 interface, I figured it out.

  1. Open Window Media Player
  2. click on the "down arrow icon" in the upper right corner of the app
  3. navigate to options
  4. click the performance tab
  5. click the "Advanced…" button
  6. uncheck "use overlays"
  7. click "ok"
  8. click "apply"
  9. click "yes"
  10. click "ok"

Now when you press the "print screen" button when windows media player is running, you will capture the movie frame, not a black box.

I hate spyware

By Josh Highland in software, tutorials

The other night I spent hours working on another friends computer that was loaded down with spyware, adware, malware, and possibly trojans. It seems like a never ending battle. Someone I know is always having problems with their computer. Most of the time the problems stem from spyware being on their system; Most of the time I have to clean up the mess. I guess its poetic justice and Im reaping from what I have sewn in the past. I used to write password crackers, and other little programs that ranged from rebooting your computer randomly, to allowing me full control of yoursystem. (A quick google search found advisories against some of my more well known releases)

voltron kru annoy (1998)
http://www3.cai.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=46421

voltron kru unmask (2000)
http://www3.cai.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=61745

http://www.spywaredb.com/remove-voltron-krus-password-unmasker/

voltron kru aim cracker (2001)
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=55597

I now wear a different hat, and I'm not going to dwell on the past, but I am still very interested in malicious software. My biggest interest now is in preventing it from taking over my computer and the computers of my friends.

Here are some simple steps that I belive that any windows user should take to prevent their computer form being over run with spyware, and other nastyness.

1) BUY A ROUTER (firewall) !
This is possibly the easiest step in protecting your computer from over 99% of the nastyness on the internet. A router does a few things, it allows you to have multiple computers sharing the same internet connection, and it also acts as a firewall. A firewall is a filter between you and the raw internet. It doesnt slow down your connection at all, and it prevents attacks like internet worms and some spyware from attacking your computer. Most people that have problems with virus, worms and spyware do not have a router/firewall. I suggest a hardware firewall. they cost about $50, and require no setup, just plug them into a wall, and then into your computer. In 5 minutes you can save days of head and heartache. (I just bought a linksys 4 port router on ebay for $10)

2) KEEP UP TO DATE!
visit http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com once a week. Microsoft releases updates all the time. Many of the updates will prevent you from getting attacked and infected. If you are running windows xp, service pack 2 is a must! With service pack 2, you can schedule windows to update itself automatically so you dont have to remember to go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com every week.

3) ad-aware
Download ad-aware from http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/ (free!)
This is one of the best spyware detection / removal tools on the market. It is free and will help you keep your system clean, and will help fix current issues.
Always have ad-aware search for updates and download them before scanning your computer.

4) spy-bot
download from http://www.safer-networking.org (free!)
Use this along side with ad-aware. They do similar things but will detect different problems. Always have spy-bot search for updates and download them before scanning your computer.

5) Microsoft anti spyware
download from http://www.microsoft.com/spyware (free!)
Microsoft realized the problem that spyware was causing. As a reaction to the problem, they have released this tool. This is possibly the best tool for keeping windows clean of spyware. It acts like the other scanning tools, but has features that prevent spyware from installing, and taking over your computer. Make sure that have the autoprotect feature enabled. It will save your butt. This tool, like other tool will not catch 100% of all spyware, so it is important to have ad-aware and spy-bot installed and running also.

6) Dont get spyware in the first place!
dont click on random popups that appear on your computer. Dont click on random links in emails from people you dont know/trust. Dont download files from places that you arnt 100% sure about. Dont click popups from porn or casino websites. If a website asks you to install something before it will continue, dont let it! This is spyware most likely! Dont download or install other anti-spyware tools, many of these are actually spyware is desguise! Only use the tools I listed above.

7) Stop using Internet explorer!
download Firefox from http://www.getfirefox.com (free!)
Firefox is a web browser that is many times more secure then internet explorer. It is almost impossible to get spyware from webpages while using it. Its also faster then internet explorer, and offers cool features like tabbed browsing (multipe browsers running inside one application, so you dont have to minimize and maxamize browser windows when surfing). It also comes with a popup blocker built in.

It sucks that the avarage person has to be a computer expert to keep their compter safe, but thats just the way it is. If you have any questions about anything I wrote above, please leave a comment, or email me ([email protected]). If your computer is messed up, I might be able to help you fix it, so drop me a line.