just so I don't forget, and in case anyone wants to know, i found this tip for showing voltage on an ipod
WRT checking battery life, you can ask the current owner to do this on
a Mac:
touch /Volumes/iPodname/iPod_Control/Device/_show_voltage
Or on a PC, create a file named _show_voltage (no file extension) in
iPod_Control/Device via notepad or something.
This will force the iPod to display a numeric readout of the battery
voltage ranging from 0 to 519. If you ask the owner to fully charge it
and then let it play for 10 minutes to see how much it depletes, you'll
have a good idea of the quality of the battery.
Published
30 November 2006