Helping Hand

Helping Hand

Today I worked till late. I got a can of beer from 7-11 before I get into the MTR. While I am finishing the beer in the street, I saw a sweating Kweilo empty handed rushing out from MTR. His look is obviously in lost. He approached me and I expected him asking me for direction to somewhere.

'I am just back from Macau and I lost my bag and everything ... I will be going to embassy tomorrow .... could you give me help and I can pay you back...' he asked.

As a traditional Chinese of course I doubted his truthfulness .... My mind run fast.....

'What if he is telling the truth and he is in real trouble ??' I asked myself.

In a split second and I made up my mind ....

'You are really unlucky ... I am also running out of cash ... I've got only 40 (HK) dollar in my wallet ...' I said to him while I emptied my wallet and handed the 40 dollar to him.

He took my 40 dollar with appreciation and without any trace of 'dissatisfaction'.

'Thanks so much ! BTW, where is Lockhart Road as somebody told me I can find many tourist there for help ...' He said.

I told him the direction and we shake hand and I say good luck.

Five minutes later I am at MTR platform, starting to write this ... still unsure whether I was being cheated.

In the reflection of the platform glass panel door, I have the glimpse of that Kweilo, but with a small plastic bag in hand ....

I did not looked back.

A 40 dollar lesson.

My iPod is dead ?????

My lovely iPod who accompanied me everyday for 3 and a half year is dead ???

I brought this dear 2nd Generation iPod (Touch wheel) of mine in Sept 2002 and have been in use almost everyday !!! Recently I note my iPod sometimes fail after I unplug it from charger or from the computer. It will go back to the language menu and then all songs would seems gone !!! But the song wasn't really gone as the iTunes would shows that all songs are still inside the iPod if I reconnect it to PC.

The details are as follows :

My setup :
2nd Generation 10G iPod
Windows format FAT32
Upgraded to version 1.5 with Windows iPod updater dated 17.11.2005

Background :
For the past 2 years, the iPod may sometimes report no songs. But after several reset (i.e. holding menu and play keys together), the songs will suddenly re-appear. The situation get worse recently and repeatitive reset now cannot bring back the songs.

Symptoms :
1. Reset will only go back to 'choose language menu'
2. "About" menu report :
- Songs : 0
- Capacity/Available : 4294967295 GB (yes, it said GB)
- Version : 1.5
- S/N : [correct s/n]
- Format : Unknown



Action taken :
1. I did complete reformatted the iPod in Windows 2000 to FAT32
2. Run the 17.11.05 updater with PC for version 1.5 (Restore option used)
3. Then connect the freshly restored empty version 1.5 FAT32 iPod to iBook
4. iTunes 6.0.2 at iBook works perfect with the iPod
5. Updating (songs) to iPod runs smoothly and observed all songs transferred to iPod successfuly (about 7 GB of songs)
6. iTunes automatically disconnect the iPod after completed updating (songs)
7. Unplug the iPod from iBook --> Apple logo appeared on iPod ---> Boom ... No songs ... symptoms above appeared !!!!

Additional info :
I tried to reformat the iPod with iBook and used appropriate Mac version updater to restore also into Mac version 1.5 iPod and the above symptom will sometimes appears also, normally if after I drained the battery ....
i.e. After drained the battery, then after rechage of the iPod it will also report no songs and capapcity/available 4294967295 GB .....