I would like to publicly thank a couple of companies.
Unfortunately my rant blog has exploded—and even then I’m holding back. I have not needed to create an opposite blog because good things are so rare these days. As a result, I am putting this thank you here, a great way to start a blog. I have had bad experiences with many people and companies, so I am particularly happy with and thankful to the thus far two that have risen above the rest.
First, a couple of years ago, my EPoX motherboard died. It was no longer functioning and completely useless. For me, this is world-shattering because the vast majority of the many, many things that I do involve computers so most of my entire life came to a halt. Unfortunately, it’s warranty had expired less than a month earlier (yet another example of warranties timed to expire just before the device is expected to die.) Worse still, only a couple of months after I had purchased my motherboard, they had changed their policy to extend their warranties (on newly purchased mobos) from one year to two. I had just missed in two different ways and was now out of luck. Nevertheless, I contacted EPoX and asked them for advice and begged them for help. I did not expect to get the attention and help I received. They explained that I was not eligible for an RMA but they were willing to do a “courtesy repair”. I packed my board up and sent it to them. I do not recall exactly how long it took, but in the meantime, I put together an older (not too healthy) system to get me through the wait. Eventually I got a package from them. Not only did I receive a functioning motherboard, but it was in fact not mine. They had not repaired my board but actually sent me a whole new one! Actually, it did have some dust on it in some parts so it was not NEW—probably a test/display model or refurbished—but it worked well and was more than I expected. I had intended to send them a thank you email but forgot. I would now like to publicly thank them for their outstanding service.
Besides their excellent customer service and generosity, EPoX makes some fantastic motherboards. They always pack in amazing features into their boards and I will always check them first when shopping around.
(PS, the replacement board eventually suffered from the same problem as the original but I am managing to continue using it for now, until I can afford to get a new one.)
The other company I would like to thank is Western Digital. I have been using their hard drives for many years now and have been quite satisfied with them. The first hard drive that I purchased was an IBM. That drive died when I momentarily lost power one day. I was quite disappointed in that since hard drives should not die just because the power goes out. My next HD purchase was with the brand that I had always felt were solid, both physically and metaphorically. I bought a WD drive and it worked great. My next drive was also a WD drive of twice the size and it was just as good. Since then however, I have had some minor problems with them but have always been able to quickly and easily get them replaced with very little effort or cost. Western Digital provides the ability to receive the replacement drive before sending in your defective one, giving you the opportunity to copy over your data, which is good for people who don’t have dozens of spare drives. Furthermore, they have never hassled me about anything, they have replaced my drives whether they were completely dead, or just dying but usable. They even allowed me to purchase an extended warranty for a refurbished replacement drive, and extend another warranty to begin from the date of purchase instead of from the date of manufacture.
I will hopefully be moving from IDE to SATA soon and will naturally check with WD first when I do (there is a new vertical technology that can pack incredible amounts of data onto a platter, but I’ll just stick with WD for now.)
Well that’s it. These two companies have made life bearable in the face of so many other companies and people who are just evil, greedy, and selfish. Thank you EPoX and Western Digital.