So I'm posting this from my MacBook Pro....

Friday I went to the Genius Bar at the Apple store. I told the guy what had happened and everything I'd tried. He was also unable to boot the MBP from an external drive. So he pulled the drive and discovered he couldn't mount it on a different computer. So it was just a dead HD after all. (Which is weird, as usually when a HD fails you can at least still mount it, right? Anyway, it seems the dead HD was preventing the MBP from booting from the optical drive and USB ports as well.)

So the guy told me, "SInce it sounds like you know what you're doing, I'd recommend you install a new drive yourself." I have to admit it was nice to have my geek ego flattered by a Genius Dude.

Yesterday I bought a new 750 GB drive and installed it. It took about 16 hours to restore data from my Time Machine backup.

The only problem is the last backup was three days before it died. So I lost some mp3s I bought from eMusic, which gives me the option to "repurchase" them. I think I'll call eMusic tomorrow and see if they'll let me download the mp3s I purchased last week for free.

Stuff I bought from the iTunes store will just copy from my iOS devices back into iTunes, right?

glad you got the new drive, tommy!

Yeah, I got hundreds of GB of music and movies, and there's still 428 GB free. Exciting!

(I woulda' bought a 1 TB drive but they didn't have any with the higher RPMs of the 750 GB drive.)

I've spent the last three days in an escalating cycle of frustration with Audible. I bought The RiddleMaster of Hed from them--it's one of the audibooks produced by Audible themselves, rather than recorded by the original publisher--and at every chapter break, the audiobook freezes and it crashes my iPod.

I have deleted and re-downloaded the file: no luck. I have changed the format of the file to one with less data and smaller file size: no luck.

And all Audible keeps telling me is: delete & redownload.

I have used all my Google-fu on this, and can only conclude that it's the age of my iPod that's the problem--it's an 80GB iPod I bought in 2006, and it's been a workhorse ever since, with almost no problems. But something about the chaptered audiobook file from Audible is beyond its capacity to handle.

Anyone have any links to freeware where I can convert this from an .aa file to .mp3? That would strip out the chapter breaks and might fix the problem.

x-post with Literary:

If anybody is interested in a lightly used Kindle Touch in good condition (with the "special offers"), I'm selling mine. Going to downgrade to a non-touch Kindle (with buttons!). I'm trying to get $70 including shipping. E-mail me if you're interested.

I finally pulled the trigger on a Mac mini via Amazon marketplace. I opted for the version with the superdrive. The seller assures me it is like new condition. I'm terrified, but had to do it. I hope it's a good deal.

Next up, finding a decent video camera. The one that was the most highly recommended doesn't seem to be made any more...Flip Ultra HD.

Now I don't even know where to look. The Sony Bloggie gets such mixed results, I just don't know.

I don't need to take action shots. This will be a stand up or interview style production.

Anyone have a video camera (under 3 bills) that they can recommend?

The fact that most smartphones have video built in has pretty much killed the small portable video camera market. Flip was the best and they couldn't survive.

Most compact still cameras will shoot HD video now, so you may want to look into that.

You can still buy the Flip Ultra HD on Amazon. We have one and it works great.

Okay. I found a Flip on Amazon (Thanks Rob). It does not, however, have a mic input. How do I get quality sound without having the acumen to do wild editing?

I've seen a suggestion for a separate video pac with a lapel mic. If I do that, would the Screenflow software make syncing relatively easy?

It's frustrating that I have this beautiful Snowball but no way to use it for this!

eta: Jeez. I obviously meant AUDIOpac with a lapel mic. Brain disengaged from too much internet research!

Here's a pretty extensive discussion of camcorders: [link]