Dell Doesn't Watch the Blogosphere
April 12, 2007

... or it's own blog for that matter.

There was a recent article over at Service Untitled about Dell watching the blogosphere. I was pretty impressed with the fact that a Dell Rep. actually responded to the article... and market-spoke around any questions asked. The latest thread over at direct2dell about their botched Vista Express Upgrade is up to 58 comments with no response. Seriously guys, why even open such a thing and not participate?

Their comments threads have repeatedly been dugg and reflect the lowest level of ire that the moderators let through. I know that Dell won't do anything, but I want this out there for the next time someone googles about Dell's business tact - or cites their blog as a great instance of customer service.

Dell Express Upgrade, Wow.
March 30, 2007

So, some of you may be aware of the recent "Dell Express Upgrade" campaign. It was designed to get consumers to purchase new Dell computers right before Vista was released, instead of waiting until after. Supposedly, once Vista was released Dell would ship the consumer a lovely little Vista Upgrade Kit. Well, here's the thing... We still don't have our upgrade kit and Vista been out for a long time.

Now, some of you may also be aware that I've talked about this before. We purchased a new machine here at work with the express desire to have at least one machine running Vista full-time (to learn its quirks and what-not) and we thought that the Express Upgrade kit was a perfect plan. Wow, were we wrong. We still don't have our kit.

Dell apparently watches the blogosphere, but really doesn't seem to care. Their campaign got dugg as a failed affair, but they still haven't gotten back on their feet to fix the problem and deliver the goods that were promised to consumers. Thanks guys.

Direct2Dell Censorship
March 01, 2007

So, I've been spending a lot of time trying to comment over at Dell's Blog and have been having a heckuva time. You see, I'm not too happy about Dell's recent "Vista Express Upgrade" bamboozle and I wanted to "voice my opinion". None of my recent comments have gone through at all. Dell recently made mention that they've started shipping packages. "About time!", says I, as I type into the comment box hoping to get first post. Nope, no sign of my comment anywhere.

Marketing Pro-Tip: Our generation is not as easily fooled as those of yesteryear. If you want your corporate image improved, you can't do it through trickery and pretending that you're letting customers have their voices heard.

Update - It seems that Slashdot picked up on this from Dell's IdeaStorm project. Go Dell!

Dell Dropped Ball With Vista Upgrade
February 12, 2007

So, just for the record - Dell's Vista Express Upgrade Deal flopped. We purchased a new machine here at $WeMakeLegalResearchSoftware in order to have a) a nice dev machine and b) a machine that would run Vista. We purchased it right around the time of RTM, so we figured that the express upgrade wouldn't be far off. Man, were we wrong. It's Feb. 12th and the public has had access to Vista since the 1st. Our order hasn't even been processed beyond "pending" status and all of the contact numbers (including other languages) have been disconnected. Way to go Dell! Dude, you're getting Vista ... someday.

The Great Unexpandable Dell
January 09, 2007

As my regular readers know, I've recently had a server death. It wasn't a complete melt-down, but the main O/S disk died. I seized this situation as a great chance to migrate my main server functions over to the much faster Dell Dimension that's been sitting in my apartment running OSX and feeling unused. I finished getting all of my server services setup towards the end of finals week and only recently have moved on to migrating my array of hard disks...

This array of hard disks is comprised of one 80G disk, one 100G disk, and one 120G disk. Imagine all of this and the one O/S disk running on an old Athlon 700 and you can have a short laugh that it ran as long as it did. Well, I cracked the Dimension's case to install these new disks and was instantly depressed...

There was one slot for a hard disk - the O/S disk. Well, that leaves me with two choices now. I have to decide whether to buy three external USB enclosures which stand to let me add extra disks with ease. Or, I could pony up the cash for a new 300G Sata disk for my main workstation which is now running on an old IDE disk. The first solution costs me around $40 while the second can cost me all the way up to $90, but it speeds up my main workstation and allows me quick access to my file-shares on the station from which I access them the most.

So, the moral of the story? Don't buy a Dell and expect to upgrade. At all.