*resists urge to mock Apple users*

Get a PC.

Yay! First!

*runs*

Oh yes, I'll just run right out and get myself a PC so I can sit and watch it crash a million times per day.

*NOT*

:P

some of the older power/mac books had "gravity feed" latches
that sometimes stick up in the slot and hence no latching.. I fixed one once with a toothpick..the accidental clicking may be a static discharge issue .. you might want to disable the trackpad "click as button" setting and just use the real button instead.

SDY's right, although it's more likely to be a change in capacitance rather than static that's causing the odd results. If you are a tad more capacitive than usual or you're in a different environment (which would make sense, given your current travels), it's likely that the trackpad will give odd results

Try is try enabling (or toggling) the "Ignore Accidental Trackpad Input" option to see if that will filter out the less obvious inputs. It's on the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane.

What's wrong with the delete key?

I hate to join the fray, but I have to say that I agree with Piggy and Tazzy on that one. Who's PC crashes a million times a day? In our year of podcasting it crashed once at an unfortunate moment. (it may have eaten an entire show once, but who's counting...) A nice Dell XPS laptop would fix your little red wagon 4 sure!!! Actually, I did have a similar problem with things opening that I merely rolled over, and i discovered that the "clicker" on the mouse was stuck...

Do not het a pc Cindy :)

Get an other mac if need be.

But first I hope they will be able to repair the g4

blimey, you really don't have much luck with your laptops, do you ?

First things first, any Mac laptop would run circles around any PC, anyday.

I've had my G3 laptop for six years and itts NEVER crashed. Plus with OSX the machine doesn't crash, only an application can hang, and you quite the app and restart it. No big deal.

Zed - at least this one didn't have a drink :)

Oh my god, it's a festival of comments! Okay, let's see who's due for a response from moi:

Steve: your latch fix worked. I fixed it. Thankee.
Still have the other problem though and I'm not (personally) discharging any static (oh my, that sounds obscene.) Any other suggestions for things I should do/check/etc.???

Greg: your comment was so good that my friend Ken called me on the phone to discuss the word "capacitive." Obviously y'all are thinking that I'm emitting some sort of electric current (well my personality IS electric *wink*wink*) -- but I've not had my laptop with me in my travels (don't you READ my blog?) so that can't be it. I already tried the trackpad input thingie and that didn't help. My delete key wasn't deleting, or there was a lag/time delay. Maybe the keyboard's a goner? $#@*&

Kenneth: I suggest you Google "Dell Laptops" and see what you get. There's a whole lotta battery blowups going on with 'em.

Joost: Another new Mac is not an option, unless someone hires me and pays me oodles of $$$ ... then I can get one. Otherwise, I have to stick with what I have.

Zoe: don't EVEN go there. Don't jinx me!

Rob: Agreed. I also have a G3 blueberry which is my backup computer I keep just.in.case. It needs more memory though and is running OS 9 ... does Apple even sell memory for G3s anymore?

Greg (again): don't go there. We must let the dead R.I.P. and not bring bad karma to existing family members. Think POSITIVE THOUGHTS (I'm saying that aloud as I type.) I dare not think of the alternative...

The delete key incident is odd - it could be load related or your keyboard is indeed doing dodgy things. I've got one or two tricks up my sleeve which might help. I've sent through a Skype request - send me a message when you've got half an hour and I'll see what I can work out.

PS - Hi Ken!

I'll see what I can come up with for the next Word of the Week :)