DUDE, YOU DON'T WANT TO BE GETTING A DELL CONTINUED

So here we are, another day, another broken dell.....Or rather the same broken dell, just more information about the organization that is killing me with kindness. Dell, Inc.

If you peruse my blog you will find two bloggings that are a part of this story, "Dude, you don't want to be getting a dell," and "Interesting Link on the Mac Vs. Dell Issue." Please read those for back story and pay special attention to the comments sections.

There you will find droppings from our friends at Dell. Take note of the players, we have a "Brad" and we have a "Neil." Brad is a tech for Dell that offered (I'm not sure at who's suggestion) to assist me to find the part for my PC. Thank you Brad. Your help didn't really work for me, but I do really appreciate you taking the time to take a cursory look at my service tag, problem and recommend a new motherboard. As a human to a human, I appreciate your time.

So, here's a question. If Brad was going to help me, what was Neil's job? I present to you the following geo diagram of my Monday morning web traffic.



Do you see an abnormally large series of blips over the central Texas area? Do you know who has facilities there?

I bring this to your attention for two reasons. First, Neil indicates on his letter from last week that he was kind enough to post into my blog that we were at an impasse. Well, if it's Brad's job to help me (and he's done so) and Neil and I are at an impasse, what exactly is he doing clogging up my Monday morning blog stats? Is community outreach synonomous with monitoring public opinions?

Reason two, now that you can see this for yourself, I have a quetion to pose to you: What is going on in the net that my tiny little blog and broken Inspiron 6000 is getting SO much 'not fixing my computer' attention?

Word to the bloggers out there: If Dell was going to help me, Brad would have been sufficient.

Have your Monday Morning Coffee Neil. Come back and write something that has something to do with fixing a computer or saving a product evangelist, not saving the face of your organization.

Faulty products get reflective reviews. If you don't like what you are seeing, stop looking in waters of the blog of LukeStarDust.

I just started up an account with Technorati

Here you can view my Technorati Profile

I've just registered with the service.

Claiming your blog needs some work (or I need a better tutorial), but it's another service I've found useful so far.

Thanks for another free tool!

Interesting Link on Mac vs. Dell Issue

If you would have told me three weeks ago that I'd be even suggesting someone buy a Mac, I probably would have told you that while the world holds and infinite amount of possibilities, I can't see that one happening.

Well, the world holds an infinite amount of possibilities. Here we are.

A colleague of mine that is familiar with current Dell battle (my inspiron 6000 died after 15 months of use, I was less than impressed with the commitment to quality, service, etc. that Dell showed me and looked elsewhere for new gear) sent me a few links to peruse.

One link that I found particularly interesting was: http://www.apple.com/getamac/

While I've always found this particular advertising campaign particularly annoying (Mac's PC vs. Mac Campaign) as I feel it grossly oversimplifies issues that companies that support 84% of the computing world face, I found this article on why a single OS maybe the way to go.

A Mac link on my blog. I thought I'd never see the day.

Just a quick update on where I got with Dell as I know some of you out there are waiting.

The representative explained to me yesterday that Dell would not help me because "Doing so would be unfair to those customers that have purchased extended warranties."

Having spent several thousand dollars last year on Dell products alone, I feel it will be FAIR for me to find a new provider of technology that I may feel comfortable about suggesting to others. Stay Tuned.....

I Hope You Are Using LinkedIn

A few months ago I got a random invitation from a acquaintance to try a new program called LinkedIn. I investigated the site, wasn't convinced of the value to offer up the sacrificial contact information, and moved on.

About a month later I got another invitation, this time from pretty close colleague, to join the program. So, with a little less reluctance, I went in and registered as this request came with a bit of authority.

I need to tell you, upon registering, I was immediately impressed with this process and the tool as a whole. I've described it since as a smarter myspace for business.

Essentially, this service gleans information from you about where you've been, what you've studied, where you have worked, and hooks you up with other users that have had the same experiences.

Through this tool, I reconnected with about 20 contacts from previous jobs/businesses (z57.com,ClientShop.com,theLeadShop.com, etc.) that I wanted to stay in touch with, but weren’t exactly on the Christmas Card List so to speak.

In addition to just getting reconnected, there are a LOT of other valuable features. You can search the network of your contacts for people they know that you need to know in the places you need to know them. You can search job postings of your contacts, as well as provide a smarter web resume to others looking for your skills.

All in all, I'm a raving fan. Give LinkedIn a try or contact me and I'll send you an invitation.