The Death of Electronics

Sometimes it seems that I'm plagued with dying electronics. It seems like it's always happening. When I think about it though, I suppose it's more of a law of averages. After all--I have a lot of electronics, and when you have a lot of anything, that's just more chances for something to go amiss.

The latest victim? My Dell Axim PDA. I haven't had it very long, but it was used when I got it, so I guess that's just the way things go. It didn't fry or go dead, so it's not quite like the way most things die. Instead, the power button suddenly stopped working. It won't turn off or on with it. The only way to make the unit come on is by plugging it into its cradle (it comes on automatically when you park it), and the only way to turn it off is to take the battery out.

Before the Axim died, the most recent victim was my cable modem. Actually, it wasn't quite a victim because it was still working, but something wasn't right about it so I replaced it.

Another ongoing battle I've been having is with my wireless router. It works then it doesn't work. It may work fine one day, then the next day it drops the signal constantly. I don't notice it here at this machine because I'm plugged into it with a cable, but downstairs I do. I have two laptops down there that use it--One is the "coffee table machine" that we use to surf things while we're downstairs, and the other is the one I have permanently plugged into my stereo receiver to play internet radio (nonstop music with no ads). Those will constantly lose the signal on some days.

I tried "hot-rodding" the router yesterday. I found an online community that has built and supported a hack that turns a standard $50 router into a the kind you would normally find powering a wifi "hotspot" somewhere. Basically, it "unlocks" features that the router is already capable of. I thought that if the router was already dying what did I have to lose? Well, the hack worked fine, but the router still drops the signal intermittently like it did before. Nothing really gained there.

Sigh. I wonder what's next? Time to do some buying and selling I guess...