I Hate My Dell Computer
I had a long post about Fred Thompson’s and his pernicious love affair with “will” and its dangers to democray all written up and ready to go. It was brilliant, I assure you. But six months after I bought my laptop, my primary computer, it stopped recognizing the power supply as valid and thus refused to use it to charge the battery. Said battery is now deader than George W. Bush’s legacy. So when the cats, in their evening fisticuffs, somehow turned off the power supply, the computer died and took with it my brilliant post.
While Tgirsch does bear quite a bit of the blame for this (if he hadn’t told my wife about the kittens, we would still have one cat and there would have been no cat-style UFC shenanigans this evening), the real culprits have to be Dell. What losers make a computer that refuses to use a perfectly good power supply to charge the battery? When did electricity start coming in special Dell-only varieties?
My next computer is going to be an effin Mac.
amen brother. well, not exactly about the mac part, but I hear you on the Dell. Same thing happened to me. Hadn’t even had my laptop for 2 years and it died because the AC adaptor plug-in thingy stopped responding to my power supply. crappy Dell. one word: neverbuyingadellagain.
Hate your new look. Hard to read and too hipster doofus. Can you make the text just a little smaller? Just saying…
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Better?
Much better. Thanks, you can read it now. Better look also.
Hey, all the kitten did was to delete all the typos. If there wasn’t a post left after that, you can hardly blame me for it!
Surely you can make the comment text smaller. I can still read it with a microscope.
While we’re griping about format, where’d the next post and previous post links go? They used to be up there, by title, at the top of the page…
tgirsch:
I’ll get them back – -as well as some other elements – -over the next few days.
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What system are you on? On my firefox on windows, the lettering looks the same size.
My next computer is going to be an effin Mac.
Yeah – I think that’s true for me, too.
I’ve been hesitating just because of the entry-cost barrier: even with a low-end MacBook, a reasonable selection of ancillaries, and some applications software, you’re looking at $2K – $2500 to get back to the functionality you probably have with your long-term accumulation of Wintel hardware and apps – especially if you’re handcuffed to Microsoft Office. (Yes, you can now run Windows apps on the Mac, but, (1) that defeats the purpose, and (2) you really only want to do that with Windows-only apps; anything you can get in a native Mac version you do want to get in the Mac version, because you lose all the Mac functionality when you shut down and reboot in Windows.)
I do want to upgrade, but I simply don’t have that kind of bread lying around. In the meantime, my legacy system gets clunkier and clunkier, and I keep kludging it up $100 at a time to keep going rather than take the plunge and start from scratch.
What system are you on? On my firefox on windows, the lettering looks the same size.
IE 6 on Windows 2000, as the Good Lord intended. IE 7 sucks. I have Firefox but don’t use it.
I do like the new look. Very readable and a good top banner.
This is by far the best left leaning blog I know of. I may not agree much with you but the tone and the content is light years ahead of the Daily KOS, PatriotBoy, Steve Gilliard, Fire Dog lake, KnoxViews and others.
I can confirm the judgement of dell laptops. My charger is the special dell charger, and it still won’t charge my battery! Though mine still works as a power cord, I have to plug the thing in whenever I want to use it.
Comment text and menu text on the right is small again. Looks like about a 5 font. Almost unreadable.
IE6 on WinXP looks fine to me, as does firefox. Have you tried holding down the control key and rolling the little wheelie thing on your mouse?
IE6 on WinXP looks fine to me, as does firefox. Have you tried holding down the control key and rolling the little wheelie thing on your mouse?
Yep, works great. Just couldn’t understand why it defaulted to micro-print. Whatever it was it seems to be fixed.
Hello,
My name is Mike, I’m a Technical Analyst located at Dell corporate headquarters in Round Rock, TX. I’m part of an internet outreach team developed to interact with the online community regarding technical questions and issues that customers face with Dell products. I’ve read your post and wanted to offer some help and clarification.
First, my apologies about the lost post. I had a similar experience when I was in school and can very clearly remember the disbelief and shock of watching my screen go completely black, and then realizing I hadn’t yet saved. This, of course, was before Microsoft had their auto save and recovery features built in to Word. I remember cursing the computer and swearing that from then on out I would only use paper and pen, which only lasted until my hand started cramping from writing too much. I also have 2 cats that, although impress me with their mission impossible acrobatics and specialized hand to hand combat tactics, have cost me quite a bit in both monetary funds and mental frustration.
Next, I noticed that you said it was 6 months after you purchased your notebook that this problem started. This would indicate that it would have been under warranty at the time, and perhaps still is. You can check warranty status here: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/en/warranty_information?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~ck=ln&lnki=0. This type of problem is covered under the hardware warranty which would replace any part that is causing the problem, be it with the motherboard, the ac adapter, or the battery (which comes with a standard maximum one year warranty.) I would be happy to help if at all possible so please feel free to email me at customer_advocate@dell.com with this topic in the subject line, ATTN: Mike B (Lean Left Blog Post) and I’ll get back to you ASAP. I hope to hear from you soon.
Thank you,
Mike
Dell customer advocate
I use both of the mac and dell, well still mac is the best computer i think…but dell ok lah…