I wanted to point you to a very good post about the aforementioned tools at the " All your base are belong to us " blog. The post describes several tools that can be used to debug issues that cause instability and BSOD on systems.
OK,we have all seen it. We have all feared it. We didn't tattoo it though: http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/28/man-gets-bsod-message-tattooed-on-his-arm/