davedouglaselectronics.com in Toronto, anyone?

[Ian.MacAllan]

Has anyone any experience with this firm? They have a very attractive website and I (almost desperately) need a
new laptop, but they have no BBB listing and I have not figured out how to get useful info from the Chamber of
Commerce.

As the justly honored Mr. Burns put it, "The best-laid plans o' mice and men . . ." I have just been taught that
redundancy helps reliability but does not assure it. For several years now I have maintained at least two computers
concurrently so I could use one to help repair another, but this week two have failed before I could repair either,
leaving me with nothing but a crippled seven-year-old Sony Vaio which has no optical drive and will boot from
nothing but its 60GB internal HD. It also has only a 10.5-inch screen, so I get to use not only my reading glasses
but a magnifier to read it.

My laptop died without warning. It is 2.5 years out of warranty and won't run anything but its own BIOS. The
desktop has failed somewhat gracefully but is no longer trustworthy; it is still in warranty but the round trip to the repair shop is likely to take three weeks.

Life is just full of challenge, isn't it?

.