This week I had bad computing karma. Our satellite broadband went out last Friday and remains dead. I spent lots of time on the phone with DirecWay and moved from regular dullard support to “Advanced” support, after they determined that yes, something is wrong. A technician finally called yesterday about coming out to fix it. Meanwhile, dial up is a big bad bummer. I think every web site developer should be forced to view their sites on dial up for a week. I can report that our sites are fine; the rest of the Internet is a huge drag.
In addition to my bad satellite experience, during a fit of cleanliness over the weekend, I managed to break my wonderful Avant Stellar keyboard. The Shift key was acting funny and I could see dog hair sticking out from under the keys. I tried to pull the Ctrl key cap off with a key puller, so I could clean it out. Instead of popping the cap off, I ripped out the entire switch. I was SO depressed.
I sent a panicked email off to Creative Vision Technologies (CVT), the manufacturers of the keyboard. The good thing about buying an expensive keyboard is that it can probably be repaired.
Bright and early Monday morning, I heard back from CVT with an RMA number. I packed up the keyboard in a huge box, and mailed it out. Later in the week, after the CVT repair folks took a look at the keyboard, they sent me an email. Realistically, the switch isn’t supposed to come off when you pull the key cap. Although I was fully expecting to pay for the repair (and happily since I love my keyboard), they are going to repair it under my 2- year warranty.
After fixing the Ctrl key, they even cleaned out the keyboard for me. During the email exchange, the person noted the level of HAIR they had found in the keyboard. I sent photographic evidence that my dogs are truly hairy.
In any case, I’m pretty thrilled with that kind of great customer service. Now if the guy from DirecWay can really fix our satellite broadband on Monday, my computing life will be complete once again.