It has not been a good week for HP - what with the troubling news the company hacked into the phone records of its directors and a CNet reporter to track down a leak. Now, they've gone and pissed off my friend, Drew Hasselback, who took his hard-earned dollars and bought a Compaq laptop from Best Buy in July but has had nothing but trouble with it. His efforts to get some love from  HP customer service have been a series of calamities and incompetence. Drew's recounts his sorry tale in a guest post called "10 Strikes and Counting".

I've had customer service problems with companies in the past -- who hasn't? -- but I've never gone through anything like my experience with "JD
Power-certified" Compaq.
I bought a Compaq Presario Laptop on June 6. The computer broke on July 16. I spent about three hours on the phone over three days trying to sort this problem out. I was told of a temporary fix that involved removing the battery and perfoming a "hard reset." This got the computer up and running for a few days, but the problem didn't really go away. Product failure is Strike One.
- I phoned on July 22 and arranged to ship my computer back to HP Compaq under warranty. I also asked for a Restore CD, in case that might help resolve future problems. I shipped the computer on July 27.
- According to FedEx, my Restore disc was shipped to an address in Port Moody, B.C. on July 25. I live at Yonge and Lawrence in Toronto.
Strike Two is forgetting what province Toronto is in.
- On August 4, Compaq emailed me to warn that the parts needed for my repairs were on backorder. I'd later learn that Compaq needed both a fan and a mother board. Strike Three is excessive delay for the repairs. I can understand how this happens, but I shouldn't be the one to suffer for it.
- On August 18, I phoned and requested an update. By August 21, I received emails telling me the parts were still on back order. On September 1, I called to request an update. Strike Four is that I would actually have to do this. Compaq should have been contacting me at least once a week, by email or by phone, to bring me up to speed. Anyway, Compaq asked me to fax my details to the Customer Satisfaction Department at Compaq. I provided my WORK telephone number for future contact.  I sent the fax over the long weekend.
- On September 5, Compaq called my HOME number and left a message. My wife called me at work and passed along the news. Strike Five is failure to read my fax, which was written in 18pt type. Eventually I spoke with the Compaq guy. We struck a deal: Compaq would send me a new machine, a superior model to the one I bought. The terms of this deal specificly required that the machine be sent to my WORK address, because I didn't want to have to truck out to the Purolator hub in Etobicoke to pick up a mixed delivery.  
- On September  6, Compaq shipped a product to my HOME address during the day. This meant I had to drive 60-km and clock 90 minutes on a round-trip to Etobicoke (which BTW caused me to miss the opening kickoff of the 2006/07 NFL season). Strike Six -- Failure to comply with my otherwise simple shipping instructions. 
- When I got home on September 6, I discovered the Compaq had shipped me not my new computer, but my old broken one. Strike Seven. Of course, the broken one hadn't been fixed at all. Strike Eight. I will likely have to ship the broken machine back to Compaq, a process that is bound to gum up another hour or so of my time. Strike Nine.
- I called September 7 to complain. I asked for the case mnager so I could ask how this problem will be solved. This wasn't possible -- Compaq's
customer service department isn't able to transfer calls (seriously --  this is a technology company that can't transfer phone calls). Compaq could only
say that someone will contact me within 48 hours. That's Strike 10 -- I've been waiting since July 16. I need someone to solve this now, not pass the
problem along to someone else for later.
- So that's 10 ways in which Compaq has failed to deal with my problem. I've owned the computer for 14 weeks. It worked for only five. I've waited the last nine weeks for a resolution.

Amid the flurry of photo and video-sharing start-ups, it is interesting to see Shutterfly file for a $73-million IPO. Remember Shutterfly - the online photo service company that popped up during the dot-com boom along with rivals such as Ofoto and Snapfish? Shutterfly's high-profile investors include Jim Clark (remember him?) and Tom Jermoluk. According to the company's S-1 filing with SEC, Shutterly had operating income of $4.4-million on revenue of $83.9-million last year. This compares with operating income of $3.9-million on revenue of $54.4-million in 2004. So, unlike all those Web 2.0 photo "newbies", Shutterfly is a real company with real revenue and profits. I wonder whether investors will snap up the IPO shares, which will be sold at $13 to $15.

Nokia, which plans to start giving its devices names rather than numbers, could emerge as a more viable rival to the Blackberry (including the impressive Pearl) than the Motorola Q. I just got hold of a review unit of the Nokia E62 earlier this week, and came away pretty impressed. It comes with a nice colour screen, push e-mail, Bluetooth and QuickOffice (for viewing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents). The E62 has a natural, intuitive feel that makes it quite easy to use. This compares with the Q, which was somewhat frustrating to manipulate. Perhaps this has to do with being a long-time Blackberry user. I'm not about to suggest the E62 will be the newest Blackberry-killer (editor's note: can we stop trying to promote this concept until a real rival appears?) but the E62 is pretty appealing. Nokia plans to encourage consumer adoption by aggressively pricing the E62. Rogers, the first North American carrier to offer it, will sell the device for $249 with a three-year contract.

Update: PDAStreet has a review on the E62 and details about Rogers' wireless plans.