techno-moron needs help

i am clueless when it comes to cell phones and the like, recently my phone started sending all incoming calls straight to voicemail, i asked my neighbor for help and he reset my phone to factory default, now i can't get it to do anything, it keeps telling me to create a new or use an existing account but when i try to do this it times out and prompts me to try again, is there anything i can do besides throwing it in the delaware river?
while i'm here, my daughter bought me an i-pod, when i hook it up to my computer all i get is a flashing circle with a line thru it saying DO NOT DISCONNECT whats up with that? thanx for any iIF any suggestions

what model of phone is it you are using?

another neighbor figured it all out, thanx just the same jack