Episode 197: Technology = Fail

Another day of blue screens of death. I'm beginning to suspect that my hard drive might be failing. I can't say for certain, but I've backed up my documents, music and pictures, just to be safe. Nights like these, William Gibson's cyberpunk future à la the Sprawl trilogy never seemed more distant. It's a bit odd, as I've managed to start up and shut down the laptop a couple of times with no problems. I've realised that the crashes seem to occur when I'm multitasking on the laptop. Do you think that might be the problem? Odd that it should only start being a problem recently though. Have already tried uninstalling some software that I seldom use, to no avail. Oh well. I could try doing a reinstall of the OS, I guess, but that's such a hassle, I'd rather keep my fingers crossed and hope the problem goes away as mysteriously as it came. Have I mentioned that Windows Media Player has also stopped working on my laptop? I discovered that a week ago when I tried to play my MobTV videos before the subscription expired. Unfortunately, Microsoft has integrated Windows Media Player so tightly with Vista that there's no easy way to uninstall and reinstall it. In some sense, I think Vista has been a step backward as an OS, so hopefully, Windows 7 will resolve some of the issues. Given that it's Microsoft though, I'm not too hopeful. Still not switching to a Mac though...