I think I have the oldest iPod among my friends — and I’m proud of it. Sure, it’s a bit scratched up and isn’t as skinny as a nano — but I’ve grown pretty attached to my iPod, which has served me well during our years together.

Until recently, that is. Suddenly, my iPod started acting up, freezing up mid-song and forcing me to reboot all the time.

Like all good bloggers do, I madly scoured the web to figure out what the problem was — and found a tutorial on how to fix an ipod — with a business card,** no less! Amazingly, this business card trick fixed my iPod problems — for about a month, when it started freezing up again. Still, I didn’t want to give up on my beloved iPod….

Enter ifixipodsfast.com.** Run by a guy called Blake Paulson, ifixipodsfast.com** basically sells both iPod parts and offers iPod repair services — at very affordable rates, if you consider how much new iPods cost.

With nothing to lose, I figured I may as well give ifixipodsfast.com** a try. Since I didn’t know what the problem was with my iPod exactly, I bought a “iPod Diagnostic Testing” service, which promised to figure out what’s wrong with my iPod. The service included return shipping and cost just $6 — all of which could be applied to repair services if I decided to let ifixipodsfast.com fix whatever was wrong — plus an additional $2 for optional shipping insurance.

Then I mailed off my iPod to Blake and waited to hear back what my iProblem was. A couple days later, I got an email from him, letting me know that my iPod was being shipped back. Confused, I wrote Blake: “I was hoping to find out what was wrong via email and potentially pay you to fix it…. Does this mean my iPod is unfixable?”

Turns out, Blake had actually fixed my iPod already! “I just simply swapped out the iPod’s hard drive connector,” Blake wrote. “I can’t say that it will fix it forever because it’s a defect in the 4G / iPod Photo models. I’m not going to charge for it since it took me about 2 minutes!”

Sweet! And sure enough, I got my iPod back in the mail a couple days later — in perfect working order.

So — before you decide to use your old iPod as a paperweight or recycle it through Apple’s take back program, see if you can get your iPod fixed. Not only will you reduce e-waste and the carbon footprint created by a brand new iPod, you’ll save yourself the trouble and expense of buying a new iPod.

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