A friend said to me the other day that he buys a new iPod every time the battery fails. When I told him that he could very easily change it himself, he was absolutely shocked. All that savings he could have made by changing his own iPod battery! I must warn you that doing it yourself will void the warranty but hey, it saves you all those service fees in the long run. This is quite a delicate operation so please read the instructions carefully before you proceed.

1. You have to buy a new battery and ebay or amazon are good bets as they give you the best price. Just look for iPod replacement parts on either of those and you will find lots of listings for batteries. It should not cost you more than $30 but do make sure you buy the right battery for your iPod model.

2. A tool to open the iPod like a plastic wedge. The battery replacement kits usually comes with a little tool to help you with this. This is the most difficult part of this whole process so you must persevere.

3. Open the iPod. The iPods are held together by some plastic tabs and you ahve to try and wedge the plastic tool in between the seemingly solid join. Slowly, slide the wedge along the opening and push back on the plastic tabs and open the iPod carefully. be careful not to pull the two sides apart as they are joined by a thin ribbon. Carefully place the two halves on a desk so that you don't do any damage.

4. Now that you are in the guts of the machine, you will need to remove the hard drive which is buffered by some blue rubber and sits on top of the circuits. Carefully lift the hard drive as this is also connected by a thin cable. You should now have access to the battery.

5. Using a small screwdriver or a plastic wedge tool, slowly remove the battery from its compartment. Warning: Do not touch the circuit board under this as this will damage the machine. When you have done this, you will need to disconnect the power cord. You will find this wrapped around the circuit board. Disconnect this cable carefully.

6. Finally the old battery is out, to put the new one in is really simple. Make sure you put it back in the same way that it was taken out. It will only fit in one slot so don't force it. Just plug in the new battery, wind the power cable back where it was before, slot the battery back in, reconnect the hard drive and reverse the process in putting the parts back together.

7. Before the battery is functional, you will need to charge it up again for about 3-4 hours. That's it, all done!

If you don't want to do this yourself, Apple has a battery replacement program but it will take them about 2 weeks to ship it back to you. To do this, just go to Apple's iPod Out-of-Warranty Battery Replacement Program (http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/service/battery/). Send in your old iPod and they will send you a replacement and it could be a new, old or refurbished one. This will take a couple of weeks and it will cost you $59 and $6.95 shipping costs. Also be aware that everything on your iPod will be lost, so make sure it is all backed up.