It's so nice when companies make it easy to get technical support. Hitachi, which made my Travelstar external hard drive, is one of those companies.

I had a question about the drive. I looked on the Web site and found a toll-free customer service number. Within three minutes of dialing, I was connected to a live person who simply wanted to know my first and last name and e-mail address before proceeding. He answered my question comprehensively and in a friendly manner.

One time I had a question for Sony about my DVD player. I called Sony and was asked at least 11 different questions--name, address, e-mail address, serial number, purchase date and location, and probably favorite kind of pasta--before I could even ask my question.

Hitachi could have quizzed me also. But how many people are randomly going to call the Hitachi Travelstar external hard drive service line if they aren't legitimate customers? This is a smart calculation by Hitachi and makes things easy for me.