Review: Logiix Optic Alloy Case for 2nd Gen iPod Nano
For the last year and a half or so, I’ve had a black Logiix silicone skin on my 2nd generation iPod Nano, and I’ve been more than impressed with it. iPods have a tendency to scratch fairly easily, although I hadn’t seen much of this with mine, thankfully.
But it was getting to be time for a new skin, as the Nano was starting to slide out the bottom of the skin and I had visions of it bouncing off the floor sometime. Not something that you want to have happen.
So I decided that I’d see what I could do about picking up a new silicone skin, preferably something other than black, as it was time for a change. Headed to the store where I’d purchased my last one, and they didn’t seem to have any for the 2nd generation Nanos. Lots for the 3rd gen, but I didn’t feel like buying a new iPod just to get a skin for it, y’know?
As I was getting ready to leave, I saw that they were on a different rack, kind of out of the way, so I spun the rack around looking for something that caught my eye. That turned out to be the price. Silicone skins were marked down from $12.99 to just 99 cents. Cool. Sometimes obsolescence can be a good thing. I wound up buying three, a Logiix clear silicone, a black iSeal skin, and a Logixx Optic Alloy case, which was the expensive option ($1.99)
I put the clear Logiix skin on after I bought them and it worked out about as well as its black predecessor had. The one complaint that I have about silicone skins is that you lose a fair bit of sensitivity in the click wheel. The center button will be fine, but dragging my finger on the wheel has been sluggish or even non-responsive at times.
So this morning I opened up the Optic Alloy case to see if it was any different. First thing I noticed was that, being a hard case, the screen protector is built in. I don’t have much in the way of scratching on the display of my Nano, and it’s nice to see that I won’t be getting any more in the foreseeable future.
I slid the Nano into the case, and gave it a spin. The whole thing feels a lot more substantial, and not quite as ‘delicate’ as the Nano felt when it wasn’t encased in the silicone skin. The Nano doesn’t slide around inside the case like it did with the metal one that I bought for my holidays last year. The wheel isn’t covered, so it’s as responsive as I would expect it to be if the device wasn’t encased. The edges are rubber coated as well, so I don’t feel like it’s going to slip out of my hand when I’m trying to find something else to listen to.
Had I known about this case a year and a half ago, I’d have picked one up and used it all along. Of course, then it was probably $39.99, but it would have been worth it.
If you’re not ready to be upgrading your 2nd generation Nano to a 3rd gen, or even a Touch, this would be the case I’d recommend picking up for your device, and quickly if at all possible - I wouldn’t imagine that too many retailers are going to be stocking 2nd gen accessories for too much longer.
I’ve emailed Logiix to ask them if they’ll continue to make the cases available for order online, but the response from them was that the case was no longer available, but new designs were being worked on.
If you’re able to pick up an Optic Alloy case from Logiix for your 2nd gen Nano, I highly recommend doing so. This the only case that I’m going to be keeping on mine until it’s time to upgrade it to something newer.
Backup, Backup, Backup
Yesterday I got a call from my dad asking if there was anything I could do about the fact that his six year old XP machine wasn’t booting. I got that sinking feeling, and immediately headed over to see about downloading a copy of Knoppix, as it’s generally the best utility for recovering systems that appear to have died. Someone also suggested Ubuntu, which I had multiple copies of at home, so….
I didn’t intend to go over last night, so I left the Knoppix CD at work, and then when I made the decision to go work on the machine last night, grabbed a copy of Ubuntu, and my external hard drive, on the off chance that I’d have to pave the machine.
When I arrived, I powered up the machine and the external hard drive, to see where we stood. It was dead, all right, reporting that Windows\System32\Config\System was missing or corrupt. Dead registry. Great.
I rebooted with the Ubuntu CD in with the intention of backing up and reinstalling. But when the desktop came up, it wouldn’t (or couldn’t) mount the hard drive. The internal one. This was not good. Now I had to proceed even more carefully.
But at least I had a working net connection with Ubuntu running, so I headed out and tried to find some tips on recovering this train wreck. I found the answer fairly quickly (sorry, but I didn’t keep track of the URL), but it took me a fair bit longer to get it resolved.
There were essentially two solutions - copy the registry files over from the last restore point, or copy the *original* registry over the corrupted one. From 2003. Uh, let’s try solution #1 first.
After a fair bit of checking and double checking, making sure I had all the information I needed (because I obviously wouldn’t have a working net connection while attempting this) I was ready to give it a go.
Unfortunately, copying the registry from the last restore point didn’t work. The machine still halted almost immediately after the POST. I didn’t think about trying the one prior to that because I didn’t know how far back the corruption went.
So I decided to try the 2003 copy of the registry, and amazingly, the XP splash screen came up on reboot, and the machine booted into the desktop. I wasn’t quite out of the woods yet, though. All of the drivers (and things like NAV) were no longer installed. But a quick run of the driver CD, and everything seemed to be back up and running.
The next task, of course, was to back up the My Documents folder to my external drive. Something that should have been done more frequently, and hopefully will be done so after this experience.
No matter how bulletproof (or new) your machine is, please backup everything that you can’t afford to lose. Photos, documents, music. All of it. Regularly. We dodged a bullet this time, but might not be quite as lucky next time.
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