Digital Camera Gets Second Chance

I have been the owner of a Canon Powershot A300 for years.  Nothing fancy with this camera, but it did a great job for the simplistic photos I took.  Towards the end of last summer I noticed some hazy horizontal lines on several photos.  Being several years out of warranty, I assumed I had to take the hit on that one.  I replaced the camera with a new fangled one, leaving the A300 to a lonely life of collecting dust on the shelf. 

Recently, for no good reason I thought about that camera wasting away on my shelf.  I thought I would ask some folks on the Internet whether it was worth the repair cost.  So I posted a question at ask.metafilter.com, a web site that I peruse on occasion. Within 24 hours, I got an awesome response.  Canon apparently was having problems with CCR Image Sensors in their Powershot line of digital cameras.  What does all of that mean?  I don't know what the term means, but as a result I am getting my digital camera repaired for free.  Free?  Yeah, I can afford that!

After calling Canon and describing my problem, they said that they would email me some pre-paid shipping labels for me to ship the camera to them for repair.  Within days they will return my repaired camera at no cost to me.  I wish I had known about this when I gave up on the camera (especially before buying a new one).  However, now I will have a great secondary camera that I can treat in a haphazard manner.  Hooray Internet!