Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on dell http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic dell Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Dell sinks to a new low (who even knew it was possible?) Fri, 29 Aug 2003 18:11:51 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001312.shtml">Dell Takes Click-Wrap 'Agreements' to New Low</A>. Ian Goldberg and Kat Hanna: Dell's Software License Policy. I'm just bewildered that Dell corporate policy is that users need... [<A href="http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/">Dan Gillmor's eJournal</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> As I said in my comment on Dan's post this is utterly disgusting but entirely typical of the contempt I think Dell has for it's customers.  I really hope Dan follows up on this. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001604.html HateDell Fri, 30 Apr 2004 06:58:32 +0100 If you own any <a href="http://www.dell.com/">Dell</a> computers, or have ever had the misfortune to need Dell customer service then you owe it to yourself to take a stroll over to <a href="http://www.ihatedell.net/">I Hate Dell</a> which is a site run for disgruntled current & former Dell employees.  It makes for fascinating, if depressing, reading. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002148.html Here's hoping for a better life Wed, 13 Jul 2005 13:35:41 +0100 <blockquote>Begin by turning off all the LEDs on your keyboard. My keyboard doesn't have any LEDs. You must turn off the LEDs on your keyboard. My keyboard doesn't have any LEDs. I can't help you if you don't turn off the LEDs. -- Excerpt from a Dell customer service call [<a href="http://theobvious.typepad.com/blog/2005/07/modern_times.html">Modern Times - The Obvious?</a>]</blockquote> You don't have to track very far into this story to find out that Dell are <a href="http://www.socialcustomer.com/2005/07/all_about_dell_.html">closing their online customer service forums</a> either as another cost cutting exercise or, possibly, to stifle criticism from customers. It wouldn't surprise me if, rather than engage with critics and attempt to resolve their dissatisfaction, Dell would rather try to suppress them. Let's not try to work out the value of happy customers who want to sell your brand for you:<blockquote>Me: Withers! Withers: (for it is he) Yes, sir? Me: Prepare my clue-by-four post haste! Withers: I'm sorry sir, but it's not back from the menders after the <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/2005/07/02.html#a1889">Adobe incident</a>... Me: damn and blast!</blockquote>I've had my share of fights with Dell support over the last three years. Most I could resolve by keeping a solid log of everything said and walking them back over broken committments and errors until they gave in although, in one case, I did have to get in touch with the MD's office and make a nuisance of myself before anyone would talk sense about solving my problem. Dell kit is not expensive but crappy service is one of the reasons. This time I've gone Apple and am hoping for a better life. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002747.html My 7 month Mac report Thu, 19 Jan 2006 18:19:06 +0000 I just read <a href="http://www.scripting.com/2006/01/19.html#sixMonthMacReport">Dave Winers 6 month Mac Report</a>. It occurs to me it is just over 6 months since I got my first Mac, so heres my report. I bought the 12" PowerBook at the end of June 2005. I choose the 12" model because I wanted portablity over power. After 3 years of lugging a Dell around I was looking forward to something that wouldn't leave creases in my shoulder. For reference my Dell was a 15" Inspiron 4150 with a 1.6GHz P4, 1GB of RAM, ATI Radeon 7500 with 32MB VRAM, and a 40GB 5400 RPM HDD and boy was it heavy. Performance: The PowerBook seems faster than the Dell but not heaps faster. I guess you'd expect that given the relative parity of CPU speed and the poor bus architecture of the PowerBook. Certainly with 1.25GB of RAM the PowerBook is plenty fast enough for everything I do (including development work, I don't play games on it though). Where the PowerBook really scores over the Dell is how it performs under load, it stays very responsive even when the CPU is running on overdrive. That really does make it more usable. I've not suffered from the kind of typing lags that Dave seemed to have with his iBook. Usability: MacOSX is streets ahead of Windows XP in my book; they're not even in the same city really. The UI is generally well done, pleasant to use, and doesn't have too many surprises. I was able to switch in no time with only two things catching me out for a while: 1) In most Windows apps Alt-W gives you the window list, in MacOSX Cmd-W closes the current window. It took me a few weeks to learn to stop doing that. 2) Maximize doesn't. But I quickly adapted to whatever it is that it does do. In short I was more or less immediately productive with MacOSX. When you add that I can drop to Unix whenever I need, that QuickSilver is an incredible productivity tool, and access to a wide range of excellent applications like Omni Outliner Pro, OmniGraffle Pro, KeyNote, TextMate, and XyleScope. The only application I really miss is Trillian Pro although maybe Proteus is a replacement. Stability: MacOSX just doesn't crash. As I reported the other day I have had continuous uptime of over a month. I restarted at that point to install 10.4.4, who knows how much longer it might have run for. This is a compputer I am working out every day. That's a pretty good definition of robust to me. So, what don't I like? <ul> <li>Battery life isn't great. It's not a problem the way I work, but I imagine it would be disappointing if I were away from a power socket more often and for longer.</li> <li>Screen brightness isn't great. I didn't notice it before but now I have a 20" Dell panel next door you can see it. And if you want to get 4+ hrs from the battery you need to turn the brightness down.</li> <li>Safari still crashes or behaves unpredictably. Not enough for me to switch to Firefox but, after 3 point releases of Safari 2.0 it's pretty much unforgivable that it still crashes.</li> <li>Mail.App is bleh</li> <li>Firefox looks awful and Camino has few pluses over Safari.</li> <li>Some UI glitches as reported earlier.</li> <li>Umm... that's about it</li> </ul> Summary: Nicest computer I ever owned. I love it. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00003260.html