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.
Upgrading Wordpress Plug-ins the Easy Way
One of the great features that got introduced an earlier version of Wordpress was a plug-in that would actually check and notify you when newer versions of other plug-ins became available. Then it was just a simple matter of downloading the new plug-in, copying it over the old one, and calling it done.
But since Wordpress 2.5 was released, there’s a way to have it do the upgrades for you automatically, although you will need to allow the system to FTP directly into your account. I decided to give it a try, and it worked flawlessly. Without a doubt, it’ll make things a whole lot easier for some users who won’t want to take the trouble to upgrade their plug-ins manually.
Doing it manually is obviously a better method, for security reasons, but it’s nice to know that the feature is there if you just need to run a very quick update on a plug-in.
“Forced” Ads That Can’t Be Removed Suck
The other day I started looking for a new theme to use here at RTdN because I’d paid for the theme that was currently installed, and I wanted to use it on a different site. So the hunt began for a new look.
I thought that I’d found one, and I made it the active theme for a few hours while I worked on getting my ads configured in the footer. But when I opened the footer.php file, I was greeted with a copyright notice and a warning that any attempt to reverse engineer or decrypt the file was prohibited. Following that was a long string of encrypted gibberish set inside PHP brackets.
Uh, okay. I’ll just add my ads after that and give it a test. Hmmm….that didn’t work. I see other ads, though. Not ones I usually see. I decided to put the ads above the rest of the text in the file. Nope, that didn’t work either. Couldn’t see my ads. So I made the decision to remove all of the other text and just put my ads in the footer file. Upon reloading, not only were the ads not visible, but something in the CSS was now broken, and the site looked like garbage.
Putting the text back in made the author’s ads come back, and the CSS was now fine.
Needless to say, that theme is gone. I don’t mind an author putting links to their site or wherever to get a little credit, but there’s no way your ads are going on my site. Any ads that appear on RTdN are going to be by choice, and I’m going to have the final say.
It really is a shame, too, because I really liked the theme. But if I can’t use it in the way I want, I won’t use it at all.
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