… Wikipedia may soon have Google, as C|Net reports.

For all the “Dell Hell” stories out there, particularly this one from Jeff Jarvis, I wanted to tip the scales a bit in the other direction.

I have a couple of Dell laptops, but fortunately I’ve never had to call customer service. My daughter got a Dell from her school when she went away to college this past September, but she’s never been able to connect to my wireless network here at home. Now that Winter break is here and she’s around for six weeks or so, the time came to solve the issue once and for all.

The college IT dept. suggested my driver. Did it. No help. They suggested deleting and recreating profiles. Did it. No help. So off to Dell Hell I went.

At first, I thought I had another horror story: I explained the situation to a customer service rep using Dell’s online chat, and was pretty wary when, after explaining that I downloaded and installed a new wireless driver , the rep asked, “have you tried to update the wireless driver?” Danger, Will Robinson!

But then I was put in touch with Dell’s wireless team. I dealt with one extremely helpful and knowledgeable guy who took control of the system, nosed around, and figured out that there was probably an issue with the router. I had to do a bit of router research on my own and call back with some additional info. When I did, I dealt with an extremely helpful and knowledgeable woman who updated the router firmware.

Problem solved. All tech support issues should be solved this smoothly.

“I take it not only a day at a time, but a moment at a time, and keep it at that pace. If you can be happy right now, then you’ll always be happy, because it’s always in the now.”
—Willie Nelson

The following question was raised yesterday on an email discussion list in which I participate:

“I personally feel that checking spelling is beyond the scope of a Web site developer, along with writing copy and even headlines, etc. If I’m glancing through and find something, of course I’ll fix it, or point it out so they can fix the copy used elsewhere, but I feel it should already be print ready when it reaches my desk. What are your thoughts?”

Well, a developer definitely should not be responsible for copy. But in the grand scheme of the project, someone absolutely should.

I would also argue against the notion that copy should always reach a developer’s desk in final form. That’s the ideal situation for the programmer, but depending on the nature of the project it’s sometimes best to leave placeholder text and have the copywriter write to fill. Or there may be instances where final copy is delivered to the programmer but there’s too much copy for the design. And, of course, there’s often copy massaging along the way — those massages need to be made thoughtfully by the copywriter, not arbitrarily by anyone else, in order to maintain the proper messaging while deleting the necessary verbiage.

All too often, though, companies will leave copy in the hands of — oh, let’s just say someone with less-than-professional standards. We’ve all seen the results, haven’t we? Do I really have to name names and provide links?

As someone who has been an editorial professional since the Reagan administration, I find it eternally frustrating that professional copywriters are so often dismissed. After all, everyone can write, right? Everyone can put a sentence together. Everyone can write an email. So how hard can it be to write a Web page? Or a newsletter? Or a marketing email? Or a direct mail piece? Or a blog post? Or …

Takeaway for marketers: Web sites are words, visuals and code. So when it comes to developing or revising a site, have a copywriter, artist and engineer on the case every step of the way.

Movie and TV sites, according to eMarketer.