This last month both of our two Dell desktop computers failed to boot. One of them started beeping instead of booting when we pressed the power button. The other one displayed a "bad disc error" instead of booting. I'd heard Dell had low quality, and I was now a believer, but I'd also heard that Dell had great service. Still, I procrastinated calling Dell, fearing that I'd have to spend a day boxing up our two desktops and running them to the post office. (Dell is exclusively mail order and doesn't have stores.) On top of that, I wasn't sure our PCs were still under warranty.

Finally today I got around to calling Dell. What a pleasant surprise! Toll free number. They picked up in less than one minute. (I ignored all the incomprehensible Japanese prompts to "press 33 if you have a computer being fixed today" and whatnot.) Our desktops were indeed under warranty, so Dell would fix them for free! After I told them I could probably install a new hard disc, Dell promised to mail me a new disc, and two days after that send a guy to our house to pick up the old broken disc. No trip to the post office! On the phone the Dell guy diagnosed our beeping computer with bad memory, and walked me through pulling out the memory and then pushing it back in, which, incredibly, fixed the problem! Woo hoo!