Open bottle of water while chasing a fly over my Dell

http://www.wikihow.com/Save-a-Laptop-from-Liquid-Damage

Follow these steps and wait it out. Maybe a day or two, depending upon temps and humidity. Drier warmer climates dry stuff out more quickly.

Keep this reference for future use. You never know.

You can thank me personally later, if this works. Good luck!

for the education, even if it doesn't revive my Dell.

DOH!

there are probably others.

Water, in and of itself, does little to damage the computer parts, but water CAN and DOES change the live voltages going through the components. It can fry them, short them out for good, or just give some of the components a good reason to remain unreliable for the future. It's a coin toss as to what will happen in each and every event.

Hopefully the power to the components was removed before water met up with many of them.

Wait it out! You want it completely dry before connecting to any power. It is the water and electricity that don't mix.

Be grateful it was just water and not something sticky like soda.

Spill proof laptop.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/news/25724/

They have a drain under the keys that less the water drain away. The last Microsoft keyboard(desktop) that I bought has them as well.

I had the same thing happen a while back. I waited a couple of days as suggested, but the motherboard still fried when I turned it on.

When I dismantled it to check it out for repair possibilities, it was evident that water had been trapped under the graphics card that sat on top of the motherboard, and it was going to be an absolute age before it ever evaporated, probably leaving behind corrosion that wouldn't help matters in the longer run.

If it ever happened to me again, after kicking myself in the ass for letting it happen again, I'd go the dismantling route, and use cloths, a hairdryer or whatever plus letting it sit in a warm, dry environment for a while to try to ensure I'd removed every trace of moisture before even thinking about crossing my fingers and powering up.

The Dell website has very useful guides that walk you through the dismantling process for all their models. If you're at all handy with a screwdriver, it's not that difficult given a few basic precautions and a bit of organization, just a bit scary.

I am assuming you have followed other advice like removing from power and battery....

Consider removing your hard drive and copying your data off using in a laptop harddrive enclosure/usb

it's unlikely it got damaged.