Sorry to hear about your Dell nightmare. Your experience is, if not typical, at least amazingly common. Head over to www.gripe2ed.com and check out some of the Dell horror stories there.

Their support used to be top-notch, and that is when a lot of corps standardized on them. But they've always operated on the margins of the business, profit-wise, and as those margins have shrunk, they've had to cut everything to the bone to stay alive. Their support has been on a downward slide for at least five years now, maybe more.

I read that they just ousted their CEO and Michael Dell is coming back in to run the company. Dell has been slashing support AND PRODUCT quality for years to maintain a cheap price, and now the company is finally tanking and their stock is suffering as a result. We'll see if he can turn them around.

Building your own computer is not really hard. If you can hook up a vacuum cleaner and change the bags, you can probably manage it. It was an experience much like yours that got me started building PCs many years ago. Maybe life is giving you a lemon because it wants you to do something with it.

• Jimdoria  ~@>@