According to [DHL,](http://www.dhl-usa.com/home/Home.asp) my new hard drive and Windows XP install CDs are “out for delivery” and should hopefully be here soon. Yesterday, the Dell lady kept saying “2 business days” for delivery and I argued with her insisting that my 4 year “everything but the kitchen sink” warranty entitled me to next day delivery. She played the company line for a while and then said, “look, you’re going to get it tomorrow I just can’t commit to say that.” Ah, okay. Sure enough, the DHL site shows it shipped for “Next Day” delivery. Is it really that difficult to say?

I stopped at CompUSA this morning and picked up one of those [laptop fan](http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=306230&pfp=SEARCH) base things. It was something I always meant to look for and never got around to. I don’t know for sure if heat killed the drive, but it didn’t help.

Got a couple of good [Belkin USB hubs](http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Section_Id=200433&pcount=&Product_Id=158932) too. Tired of buying cheap hubs that my devices don’t like. The USB hub on my cinema display died last night. Technically, [yesterday wasn’t one of my finest.](http://www.momathome.com/viewfromhome/2005/08/clicking_is_nev.php) I had been having trouble with the ports on the display for a while. My scanner is plugged in to it and most of the time, I have to unplug/plug the cable in so the scanner would be recognized. Yesterday, no amount of plug swapping made a difference. Scanner worked fine in other ports. Other devices didn’t work when plugged in to the monitor. It’s dead, Jim. I have AppleCare on the monitor…but do I *really* want to call and bring the monitor in or deal with a replacement or do I want to just plug stuff in elsewhere? Elsewhere it is.