Well, I had to make up for my blah-stricken previous post full of my woes and travails. So, anyway, I once had a nifty little iPod nano. I loved her like a cat and gave her a name and talked in soothing tones to her. Oh, little Beethovina and me were inseparable, yes we were.

*sniffle*

And then one fine day, Beethovina got a crack in her display. I cannot tell you how distraught I was. Ohhhh, I was nigh unconsolable.  Not to mention the fact that a 2-gig iPod shuffle sucks mightily, especially when what you really want is to be able to see the thingeys that you can’t see on the display.
*sniffle*

But I must tell you, dear reader, that this story has a happy ending. Today, I loaded Beethovina up into her original packaging and packed her (and my darling, patient bride and three wonderful children) into the Queen Family Truckster (“Now, I owe it to myself to tell you, Mr. Griswold, that if you are thinking of taking the tribe cross country, this is your automobile. The Wagon Queen Family Truckster. You think you hate it now, but wait till you drive it. “) and drove the required hour to the nearest Apple store… where, much to my surprise, the resident Apple Genius cheerfully replaced the little darling for me for free!!! I was SOOOOO impressed! I’ve never experienced such excellent customer service with anything computer-related in all my days. Wow.

Absolutely excellent service, Apple!!! Way to go, seriously.

And, coming back to my testey little post from days previous…. I suppose that my qualms with Apple aren’t really so much their fault. They are, all things told, a hardware company. And they do a most excellent job with it, truly. That was proved tenfold-over to me today, as I was so taken aback by the excellent customer service from the local Apple store that I luxuriously meandered through all the cool Appley stuff that they had like a kid with a sweet tooth and no money in a candy store.

Now, here’s another interesting piece of information that I didn’t know until just now: apparently, Apple has taken the high road in recent days and has admitted that there is a problem with certain iPod nano devices and has vowed to replace them for their customers:

Display screens crack easily on a small number of iPod nano digital music players, Apple Computer Inc. acknowledged Wednesday, saying it would replace flawed units.

Apple was responding to a flurry of complaints posted to online forums and community sites about faulty screens on the iPod nano, the tiny music player the company launched earlier this month to much fanfare. Most of the complaints revolved around screen scratches that made the displays difficult to read.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said Apple had received few complaints and the only real problem was cracked screens, which would be replaced.

So perhaps, just maybe, there was more at work in today’s enthralling replacement of my cracked iPod nano than just excellent customer service by the Apple Genius who was helping me, but still… they really do a very nice job with serving their customers, and the loyalty that they gain as a result is something well-deserved. Way to go, Apple! And, Microsoft, perhaps you should take notice (um, in case you haven’t been paying attention, Microsoft will only provide drive encryption technology called BitLocker with Enterprise-level licensing for Windows Vista)????

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’ve named my new iPod nano Paganini-nina. *hug* Now… anyone have any recommendations for a really cute, bullet-proof nano case?