The pen alignment on my Palm Vx has been giving me major problems. In trying to repair it, I’ve been using Palm Computing’s Chat Assistant, a Java-based chat applet that lets me talk to a member of Palm’s tech support staff, very much like the services available from LivePerson.We need more of this kind of tech support, if only for the fact that it’s infinitely preferable to hanging on a phone line. The queue for help was much more bearable than waiting on hold because I was actually able to continue working on other tasks. What’s more, chatting online with a technician entails far less pressure than talking on the phone — there’s no sense of being rushed for time, no battle of personalities expressed through passive-aggressive conversational nuances. By the way, I’d still rather have a PocketPC.