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In the past month or so, I’ve been having more hardware-related problems than I’ve ever had at any other point in my lifetime.

First the CD drive on our laptop stopped working, then the same thing mysteriously happened on the desktop I was using at the time (which is strange, because we rarely ever used those drives), then the desktop machine stopped booting from the DVD drive (which recently prevented me from cleaning up the hard disk before giving the machine back to UltraBob, from whom it was on long-term loan), and then the machine just stopped booting altogether.

At around the same time, a USB hard disk that I had just started using with our new computer stopped working.

And finally, to top it all off, we’ve just had a massive and spectacular blowout of the hard drive on our brand-new desktop PC, which is just slightly more than a month old. Any attempts to boot this new machine are met with cryptic messages about seek errors and read sector failures.

Six significant hardware problems in just over a month, all unrelated, all with hardware from different manufacturers. I’m not sure why all of this is happening just now (I normally don’t have problems like this at all), but one thing seems to be clear: Hardware hates me.

Although technology plays a very important role in my life, the feeling is quickly becoming mutual.

Update: As if to add insult to injury, my cell phone broke shortly after this entry was written. On top of that, my wife reminded me that our refridgerator is on the fritz. Why are all these things happening to me right now? A friend at work summed it up neatly: “Clearly you have angered the gods,” he said.

Right. So how does one go about appeasing hardware gods? Offerings of upgrades?

We’ve been thinking about getting a new computer recently (to replace my Linux desktop and my wife’s Windows laptop), but I’ve been having a hard time making up my mind about whether to go with a typical, run-of-the-mill PC or one of the new Intel Core Duo iMacs. On one hand, the new iMacs look great (Luis would no doubt enthusiastically approve), but I’m a bit wary about being a beta-tester for new hardware. Also, one of my goals for this year is to deepen my knowledge of VBA for an Access-based project at work, which I wouldn’t be able to bone up on at home if we had a Mac (yes, I know I’m ignoring the talk of dual-booting OS X and Windows XP).

Anyway, if anyone out there wants to attempt to pursuade me one way or the other, now is the time to do so. 

I’m somewhat frustrated with Dell Japan’s refusal to support Firefox. Whenever I attempt to order something from the Dell Japan site, I am greeted with the following Access Denied screen.

Yeah, sure, it was easy enough to install the User Agent Switcher for Firefox and pretend to be using Internet Explorer on Windows XP instead of Firefox on Linux, but the point is that I shouldn’t have to do all that just to order a computer.

The ironic thing about all this, of course, is that rumor has it that Dell will start pre-installing Firefox in some markets in 2006. Somebody should let Dell Japan know that its own customers may be unable to use its Web site with the browser it may soon be providing.

...that is the question. Well, the question of the moment, anyway.

A friend from work has offered me a reasonable deal on his Zaurus SL-C760. I’ve borrowed it for the evening to see how well I like it. Actually, I’m using it right now to write this blog entry.

Although this model is currently using one of the Sharp ROMs, I plan to try out one of the alternative ROMs—which supposedly make the Zaurus into more of a mini-laptop than a PDA—if I do end up getting it. The form factor is perfect for use during my daily commute, and if I can get it to run a decent editor (of which there seem to be plenty) I should be able to get a fair amount of work done during that time. If I can also get it to run Perl or Python, that would be even better! I understand that MySQL has been ported to the Zaurus, which would be handy for the many LAMP projects I keep finding myself involved in.

If nothing else, having a Zaurus would enable me to post to this blog more often, as this entry demonstrates.

So far, I’d say the prospects for this deal look pretty good. 

Spurred in part by a generous donation from Zachary (who unfortunately seems to have abandoned his blog like yesterday’s dead fad), I’ve been on something of a Michael Crichton binge lately. 

First was State of Fear, which I wrote about once before, and that Zachary offered to send—and later did. I found myself somewhat disappointed to discover that it did not really have much influence on my thinking about the story’s central theme, that of global warming, but then I probably expected too much from this particular book (come to think of it, of all of Crichton’s work, only A Case of Need ever really influenced my thinking).

Crichton basically uses the global warming debate as a pretext for telling a an action/adventure story in which the protagonists get trapped in an icy crevasse in Antarctica and chased by cannibals on a tropical island—you know, the normal day-to-day activities of global warming critics. Although Crichton tells this story in about 600 printed pages, you cannot help but get the feeling that this is a story he really wanted to tell on the big screen.

Next came Airframe, which I enjoyed a lot, no doubt because, like the protagonist, I work in QA for a large company (although I’m not yet a VP—I’ll have to keep working on that). If you have any doubts about the safety of commercial air travel, this book will either assuage your fears by showing how much effort manufacturers put into ensuring your safety or push you over the edge by explaining how the fierce competition in the air travel industry cuts away at profit margins and puts constant pressure on critical things like maintenance.

Airframe was chased by Timeline, which I think was designed specifically to appeal to the inner Galahad in all of us. You may have some experience with extreme weather phenomena or even extreme turbulence, but extreme time travel is something that none of Crichton’s readers can relate to on a first-hand basis, so he gets to have a bit of fun with this one. Although the supporting characters come off as a bit two-dimensional, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable bit of fantasy physics.

These last two were picked up at a charity book fair at work, so my total outlay for these three books (thanks to Zachary’s generosity!) came to about 300 yen, which is next to nothing for books of this entertainment value. I started feeling a little bit guilty about reading several hundred pages of his work without contributing to Crichton’s financial well being, though; so when I spotted a copy of Prey at one of my few remaining local bookstores, I felt compelled to buy it. Now I’m living in fear of my kids developing a sudden, unexplainable rash…

In any case, I’ve gotten much, much more than my money’s worth out of Crichton novels lately, thanks in large part to book fairs. Speaking of which, there’s a good one coming up soon, so stop by if you have a chance (you could pick up some of the Crichton novels I’ll be donating!) or donate some books—because truly worthwhile books are too important not to share.