Customer called saying she is having problems with her email.

She is elderly. and uses dial-up.

She say when she tries to compose an email, she just gets a line across the screen.

Its difficult to get any further technical details, so I decide to visit.

When I get there, I notice the keyboard is doing strange things… the various keyboard shortcuts that I use don’t seem to work (the windows key in particular).

When I open up outlook express, the to: field starts filling up with the – character.

Ah, it looks like a stuck key. A tap of the keypad minus key stops the constant repeating, but the keyboard still refuses to work.

At this point, its just not worth mucking around. I take another keyboard out of the car, and replace the faulty one.

It works like a charm.