Mac-maniac Mark's maddening MacBook and Apple aggravations!

Question

Hello! I've been a Mac fan for over a decade. Less than a year ago I got myself a MacBook, having finally found enough reason and money to upgrade to OS X.
Since then I've mostly been happy with my purchases, but I have accumulated certain problems that are steadily driving me nuts.
As a rather timid computer science student, I've tried to troubleshoot things myself rather than make a fuss, but I've made little progress so far. Please help me!
Here's what's been on my mind:
••• I ordered my MacBook over the phone from George Hurley, an Apple salesman who promised me a total of £160 in rebates if I bought an iPod and a printer at the same time.
I chose a first-generation 2 GiB iPod nano and a HP Photosmart C4180. I downloaded, filled in and posted the required forms within the deadline.
Since then, Apple sent me several letters rejecting my rebate applications. I completed the forms again, but to no avail. They ridiculously suggest I call some premium-rate number to ask why they can't get their act together. Just give me my money!
••• A month or so ago, after I let my MacBook's battery go flat, its built-in keyboard and track-pad stopped working, despite the fact that I plugged it in to the mains and the Mac worked with my external keyboard and mouse.
I tried resetting various things according to the instructions, but it stayed that way until the next morning, when it was fully-charged and mysteriously started working normally.
A few days ago I upgraded its RAM from 512 MiB to 2 GiB. Crucial delivered promptly and I installed it myself. The new RAM seems to be recognised and working, but the built-in keyboard and track-pad stopped working immediately afterwards.
I can't seem to revive them this time. As you can imagine, it's pretty silly needing an external keyboard and mouse for a portable computer. I have an AppleCare warranty. What should I do?
••• My iPod nano hasn't seen heavy use and I fitted it with a soft plastic cover shortly after getting it. Cosmetically it's fine but its performance is gradually worsening.
Sometimes it crackles or the screen freezes or it refuses to play a track all the way through. I use it with cheap headphones but they seem to work well enough elsewhere (they don't crackle).
••• Having put up with obsolete stuff for years, I'm now obsessed with installing the latest software and firmware updates. Even so, my MacBook's optical drive disappoints me when I do occasionally use it.
It is so slow to mount and eject CDs. Is this normal for portable drives? If I put in a CD it doesn't like (some of my old CD-Rs are going bad!), it whizzes for ages with a useless spinning cursor (I want to multitask!) before spitting it out.
••• I'm much happier with my new Apple software than hardware. The software does, however, come with these stupid flaws:
I can reduce my MacBook's speed to that of treacle by putting a big-enough number into the Dashboard calculator. (For example, try 999,999,999 x 999,999,999 then press = more than 13 times.) It would be bad enough for the calculator to crash, but it instead makes the MacBook need a restart.
My iTunes Artwork screen-saver only picks one piece of artwork from each album, which is a shame. System Preferences crashes persistently if I set the number of rows of artwork to two, which is ridiculous. I had to edit a plist file by hand to increase the number of rows.
My iPod refuses to play even slightly-unusual sound files (such as a WAV that some loon recorded at 8012 Hz). iTunes will play these files and copy them to the iPod without warning me of any potential problems.
iTunes also crashes without any meaningful messages when asked to convert these strange files. It leaves me to figure out what went wrong, convert the files using some other program, then remove any half-converted rubbish from its library folder.
And why doesn't iTunes convert WMA files even with the appropriate QuickTime plug-in (Flip4Mac) installed? How do I report these silly flaws? If Apple helps me and ensures that nobody else has these problems, they may gain my respect once again.
First-generation white MacBook 2.0 GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.10)   Bought with 80 GB HD and Superdrive; recently upgraded to 2 GiB RAM

Answer 1

I'll attempt to deal with a couple of your questions...
I can reduce my MacBook's speed to that of treacle by putting a big-enough
number into the Dashboard calculator. (For example, try 999,999,999 x
999,999,999 then press = more than 13 times.) It would be bad enough for
the calculator to crash, but it instead makes the MacBook need a restart.
Why would you use the dashboard calculator to figure this out. I don't think there are that many calculators that can figure that out too quickly. There is also a calculator program in the applications folder which might be quicker, but even that would bog down with 999,999,999 to the 14th.
My iPod nano hasn't seen heavy use and I fitted it with a soft plastic cover ?
shortly after getting it. Cosmetically it's fine but its performance is
gradually worsening.
Sometimes it crackles or the screen freezes or it refuses to play a track all
the way through. I use it with cheap headphones but they seem to work
well enough elsewhere (they don't crackle).
While it *****, I would restore the iPod to the original settings. You might get more answers regarding this in the iPod forum.
A few days ago I upgraded its RAM from 512 MiB to 2 GiB. Crucial delivered
promptly and I installed it myself. The new RAM seems to be recognized
and working, but the built-in keyboard and track-pad stopped working
immediately afterwards.
I can't seem to revive them this time. As you can imagine, it's pretty silly
needing an external keyboard and mouse for a portable computer. I have
an AppleCare warranty. What should I do?
Did you try the old Ram to see if the keyboard and trackpad are working with it? Also there is a setting in preferences to ignore the built-in trackpad if there is an external one being used so I would check that as well. Other than that you do have the applecare, so you can always get it checked out for free.