A different perspective.

You get what you pay for (mostly).

2008-09-24T10:28:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to do a follow up about my father's purchase of a new Dell notebook. I had tried to talk him into a Lenovo Ideapad but instead he bought the Dell due to the price difference. He was having some difficulty with his new Dell so he asked me to do some troubleshooting. His wireless connection was running slow and he couldn't get his printer to install. Both problems were due to Vista and IE issues and were easily fixed. He did explain that he called Dell for assistance and was turned away because he bought the system at Best Buy and would need to contact the Geek Squad. Geek Squad was very nice and offered to come over to fix his issues for a small fee of $149 or would do it remotely for $79. Dad was smart enough to turn the offer down and wait for me but who knows how much money people have wasted with them?

Since I was there I decided to poke around the Dell and compare it to the IdeaPad. The Dell is very thin and only had a slight heat issue to the left of the touch pad. The heat was not a major issue and was about equal to the Lenovo. The Windows Experience score was 3.1 which caught my attention since the IdeaPad scored 3.4. The WPrime score was 53 seconds compared to 43 seconds on the Lenovo. Poking around I found that the Dell had an Intel T2390 1.83 Ghz processor 2GB of RAM and the Intel R965 chip set. All in all the reason for the Dell being cheaper was attributed to the system using older and lesser equipment. I'm not so sure he is as happy with Dell knowing the extra $100 would have gotten him a much better system.

Dell Precision M6400 has been released

2008-09-24T05:08:00.000-07:00

Dell now offers the Precision M6400 17 inch mobile workstation for sale on its website. The starting price is $2599 but is on sale for $2299 after an instant rebate. A product being offered with a rebate as soon as it is released screams desperation but the specs you get for the price shows that Dell plans to pump up your cost with upgrades. Here are the specs for the base model.


Module	Description	Show Details
Mobile Precision M6400	Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1067MHZ) Dual Core
Operating System	Genuine Windows Vista Business Bonus-Windows XP Professional downgrade
Memory	1.0GB, DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM, 1 DIMM
Internal Keyboard	Internal English Backlit Keyboard
Graphics	NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M, 512MB Discrete
Primary Hard Drives	80GB Hard Drive, 5400RPM
Fingerprint Reader Options	No Fingerprint Reader
LCDs	17" UltraSharp™ Wide Screen WXGA+ (1440x900) LCD Display
Modem	No Modem
AC Adapter	210W 3P, A/C Adapter
Media Bay Devices	8X DVD with Cyberlink Power DVD™
Camera / Microphone	No Camera, with dual digital array microphone
Wireless LAN (802.11)	Dell Wireless™ 1397 802.11b/g Mini Card
System Documentation	Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers
RAID Configuration	All Hard Drives, Non-RAID, 1 or 2 drive total configuration
Primary Battery	9 Cell Battery
Hardware Support Services	3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year NBD On-Site Service
Complete Care	No Onsite System Setup
Processor Branding	Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
OS Labels	Vista Basic Label

First off they are practically forcing you to spend more money as nobody willing to spend $2299 on a system is willing to settle on 1GB of RAM, 80 GB 5400RPM hard drive and a dual core processor. Dell has hyped this system to be a true powerhouse, quad core monster system with RAID but offers little in the base system. So what will it cost you to upgrade? Lets start with $900 to move up to quad core. The system comes with Vista Business and the XP downgrade which Dell usually charges more for but if you don't want the downgrade you don't get a reduction in price. Dell advertises up to 16GB of RAM but doesn't offer Vista 64bit OS or anything bigger than a $210 upgrade to 2 DIMM 4GB of RAM. Then they nickle and dime you with upgrades for hard drive, camera, wireless N and other small upgrades most people would want. The M6400 is still cheaper than a Lenovo W700 but I wish Dell would stop using the bait and switch by simply offering a decent system at a reasonable price to begin with. Let the customer decide if they want to upgrade or downgrade from there.

Price wins again.

2008-09-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

My father's Toshiba notebook died so he sent it off for repairs against my best advice that it would cost him as much to fix it as to replace it. The system was over 3 years old and needed a new screen and hard drive at the minimum. When he was given the estimate he decided that maybe I was correct and we started shopping. He looked over my son's new Lenovo Ideapad and really liked it but felt that it was too expensive even though it was on sale for less than I had paid.

I checked Dell's website and found a system for $499 but it had a Celeron processor and windows basic so I talked him out of it. I then checked a few of the local stores for systems and found a Dell on sale at Best Buy for $499 with a Dual core processor and Vista Premium. Even though the Lenovo was only $100 more and came with better sound and features he decided he would run out and get the Dell based on price and instant availability. I wasn't available to go out with him today so I printed out a copy of the Best buy system and made sure my cell phone was charged because I knew he would be calling me.

Sure enough at about 10:10 my cell phone rang and my dad said he couldn't find the system but they had a Gateway in stock for $499. I explained the specifications were not as good as the Dell and stayed on the phone as he looked around the store reading off the information of each system. After I convinced him to ask a sales person to help him, they were able to locate the advertised Dell system. Unfortunately they did not have one set up so he bought it sight unseen and took it home. A few hours later came the next call I was expecting, "so, whatcha doin right now?". I was still busy and asked what the problem was, seems dad can't get the wireless working so I'll have to go over this weekend and set it up for him. I wonder if I can bill Dell for the referral and service call?

Lenovo IdeaPad Y510

2008-09-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

Well, my son's Ideapad has been in the house a few days now so I figure its about time I put out an opinion on it. I'm not a professional reviewer so this is more of a usability review than a technical one.

System:

Lenovo Ideapad Y510

Intel core 2 Duo T5750 @2.00 GHz, 3GB Ram, 32bit Vista Premium 160GB hard drive and Intel graphics.

Initial thoughts:

The notebook comes in a nice compact black and orange box with minimal waste. Everything was easy to find and well protected. Upon removing the unit from the box I was impressed with the weight which feels like it is less than my old Inspiron 6000. The second thing that impressed me was the looks of the unit, fabric pattern lid combined with a glossy black finish looks very nice. Lenovo even included a wiping cloth to keep the unit clean and trust me it collects dust. The battery went in very easily and fits securely. I also liked the color coated ports which make it easier to pick them out. The power adapter plugs into the left side of the system which should alleviate accidentally pulling out the cord but I would have appreciated at least one USB on the rear to plug in a mouse. USB port aside, the unit is very well laid out.

After plugging the unit in I powered it up and completed the obligatory Windows settings and created my account as well as one for my son. I then removed the Microsoft Office trial, Norton trial and Earthlink offers. Having a clean system I went into parental controls and locked down my son's access to offensive sites and made sure that his favorites were allowed. I noticed that the keyboard was not a firm as my Dell. Hard to explain really as it didn't have any give to the board just seems that the keys are more springy. I'm not a huge fan of the touch pad because my finger kept slipping off due to it being nearly the same level as the case. The touch pad buttons were also level and flat, its hard to tell the touch pad from the case because they both have the same texture as well.

The next thing I did was install iTunes and import my son's music to the system and installed a couple of games he likes to play. After that it was time to really play around with the system. It has Internet Explorer but that is what he is used to so I didn't install FireFox. I did notice that the Internet was much faster on his system than my current one which made me a bit jealous. I quickly bookmarked the favorites and did a few tests of the parental controls which worked well. I then decided to listen to some music to test out the Dolby Home Theater sound of the system. WOW!! What a difference between the Lenovo and my Dell. It was far from a true home theater experience but much better than any notebook I've ever owned.

Movies looked nice on the system except for the glossy screen glare but sounded great with the Dolby system. Games also sounded much better. My only complaint about the Dolby sound isn't with Dolby but Lenovo for the wonky control buttons. The buttons are touch sensitive and only half show at a time which means you have to use a toggle button to go from set to set. Its not really that bad as one set controls play, stop, pause, etc. while the other set is to use different sound settings.

The other thing I was looking fore ward to was Lenovo's face recognition software. The system took a few pictures of me and then associated it with all my passwords. Every time you use a password on the computer an option pops up to save it in the password locker. I logged in and out of the system a few times to test it out and the scanning software worked perfectly. The password locker worked nicely as well. I then moved to another room and suddenly the system didn't recognise me. After adjusting my posture and making sure the lighting wasn't too bright the system was able to determine it was me again. Overall I would give the face scan a so-so rating and would most likely take it out if it were my system. My son still likes it and loves having the Lenovo to play around with. I had heard good things about Lenovo and I would say the praise is well deserved. If Lenovo would add the Dolby sound to the Thinkpads I would buy one in a heartbeat. Oh heck I'll most likely buy one even without it.

Scores:

Vista performance scores

Processor 4.9
Memory 4.5
Graphics 3.4
Gaming 3.5
Hard disk 5.1
Overall 3.4

W Prime 32m speed 43.8

Goodbye Dell?

2008-09-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

After a year and a half of trying to push Dell to change on the Ideastorm site I have done the unthinkable... I bought a Lenovo notebook. I have been looking to buy a new system for myself but my son came first this time. My daughter races four wheelers and has been getting a lot of new toys lately so I had to even things out. He has wanted a notebook for years and since his desktop is a hand me down that is almost as old as he is I figured it would be the way to go. I started looking for a cheap entry level 15 inch notebook that would be good enough for him to play casual games on as well as school work.

I checked out the Dell site and looked at the Inspirons since they advertised a low price of $499. I then discovered that the system was powered by a Celeron processor and decided I couldn't give him a totally crippled system. The next step up was priced at $599 with the following specs.

Jet Black

Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz/533Mhz FSB/1MB cache)

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1

Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz

Size: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

CD / DVD Writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)

Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini-Card

No Webcam Option

6 cell battery

High Definition Audio 2.0

I figured that I would look around and see how Dell compared to other manufacturer's products. I don't like HP or Toshiba so I decided to check out Lenovo. I ran across a sale on Best Buy's website of a Lenovo Idea Pad for $674 with the following specs.

Processor Intel� Core(TM)2 Duo Mobile
Processor Speed 2.0GHz
Display Type WXGA widescreen with VibrantView technology (1280 x 800)
System Bus 667MHz
System Memory (RAM) 3GB
Hard Drive Type SATA (5400 rpm) 250GB
Optical Drive Dual-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW
Graphics Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Built-in Webcam
Wireless Networking

Intel® PRO Wireless network connection (802.11a/b/g)
Security Technology

Face recognition via webcam and included VeriFace software
Operating System

Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1
Included Software

VeriFace 2.0; EasyCapture 2.5; OneKey Recovery 4.65; Energy Cut 2.1; Adobe Reader 8.0; Power2GO 5.5; Shuttle Center 2.0; Microsoft Windows Live portal

After upgrading the Dell to match Lenovo's specs the price soared to $774. Then I factored in that the Idea Pad has Dolby sound compared to Dell's usual bargain basement sound options and decided on Lenovo. Lucky for me I had a couple of Best Buy reward zone coupons that brought the price down another $30 which almost covered the sales tax. The system is set to be delivered between the 11Th and 16Th so we will see if they are able to meet that date. I know Dell doesn't usually meet shipping estimates so it will be interesting to see how it goes. I figure that the Idea Pad will give me a chance to really check out Lenovo and see if I am going to make a full break and give up on Dell.

Vacation photography tips

2008-08-19T04:27:00.001-07:00

I'm a camera nut on vacation and often times only see the scenery through the lens of the camera. Over time I've found a few tricks to help me take better pictures to capture the memories. The most important thing is to be prepared for anything.

I usually carry a camera bag filled up with my Nikon D40x, a basic 55mm zoom, a 300mm zoom lens with vibration reduction, 200mm zoom lens, lens cleaner, extra battery and an extra HCSD card. With that many lenses I decided to get a backpack to carry it all without killing my shoulder. After much research I found a great bag from Lowepro which has a side load which makes it easy to access my camera within seconds without stopping to put it down. The bag came in handy in Europe because I could take pictures and change lenses without losing the rest of the group.

The next most important thing is lens selection. Excursions usually include some kind of travel in a vehicle which means the possibility of shooting through a window without much time to think about setting up a shot. I learned the hard way that a 55-200mm lens is a bad idea for these situations and recommend something a bit smaller to enable shots of the occasional statue or building. There is nothing worse than seeing a great potential shot and loosing it because you left the zoom lens on the camera the night before. I find that I use my smaller lenses much more than my zoom while out and about but my zoom more when I had plenty of time to set up a shot.

I tend to buy large memory cards so I don't have to worry about filling it up. I tend to take multiple photos of the same thing. While my wife finds this annoying I have saved myself a lot of grief over time when the first picture doesn't come out but the second shot is perfect. Remember that you can always delete extra shots but once the opportunity has passed you can't usually go back to take more pictures. Seeing how most of my shots are taken from a moving vehicle there is a high probability that a picture will have blur, improper framing or an object (person walking, tree or light pole) that ruins a shot. Taking multiple shots improves your chances of a great photo.

Another great tip is to follow your instincts. The best shots most times are not set up but taken on the spur of the moment. I'll be walking along and constantly looking around for a photo opportunity. While a photo of flowers can be pretty, it can also be boring so try to incorporate something else in for a bit of contrast. In some cases patience is a virtue as it will lead to a better shot. Good photo subjects usually draw a crowd which makes it hard to get a shot without a bunch of people blocking it. Sometimes simply waiting a minute is all it takes for a crowd to disperse and improve you chance of getting a better shot.

The last tip is to always check your battery charge and carry a spare. It doesn't matter how big and fancy your camera is when the battery dies.

What's a guy got to do to get a decent notebook?

2008-08-17T01:46:00.000-07:00

Three years ago I purchased an Inspiron 6000 notebook when Dell was offering 40% off deals. Since then I've put many miles on my notebook, upgraded to Vista, upgraded to 2GB or RAM and filled the 60GB hard drive I thought would last me forever. I actually used my warranty to replace the power cord, DVD drive and Keyboard. Unfortunately Dell doesn't cover the faded wrist wrest issue or my degraded battery which now only lasts 30 minutes. I've needed to upgrade to a new notebook for over a year now but have been holding out for the right system to fit my needs.

Three years ago my needs were simple: internet, movies, email, finance, word processing and casual gaming were my main needs. I figured that a 1.83 Ghz Intel Processor combines with an ATI X300 video card with 128mb of RAM and a 60Gb hard drive would be a perfect fit. My needs have changed though after I purchased a digital camera and later a digital camcorder. Suddenly I find myself filling up my hard drive and grumbling over how long it takes to burn a DVD. I've also started viewing more video content online and downloading movies on my Xbox 360. I don't bother taking the notebook on vacation anymore because it is too bulky to carry around and I choose to just bring the camera and a large memory card instead.

I started watching the trends in processors and video cards, waiting for the right time to buy. I watched AMD buy out ATI, Intel go to the tic toc upgrades, AMD/ATI fall behind and NVIDIA take the lead in video cards. I decided to wait a bit since there were rumors of new technology coming soon that would better fit my needs and I wanted to see what AMD would do to make a comeback. Now the tide is changing again and I see AMD/ATI making a comeback. Intel has hit a few delays and NVIDIA has a huge fiasco with faulty video cards. I was going to keep waiting but with my daughter starting middle school she needs a better computer than her Inspiron 1100 which has been dying a slow death. I figure now would be the time to upgrade my notebook and pass along my old one that will be more than enough to meet her needs for now. My problem now is finding a system I can be happy with.

I want something lighter than my current notebook but powerful enough to edit video, music and photos easily. I know I do NOT want an NVIDIA video card but I'm up in the air over Intel or AMD processors. Intel is the leader but I like AMD's paring of CPU and GPU. Funny thing is that the only computers I can find with ATI video cards are either grossly underpowered or a brand I can't stand. It almost seems like Dell and Lenovo have something against AMD. Sure HP and Toshiba offer them but I can't stand them. I've looked at Sager but they are another NVIDIA supplier and Asus' site is too hard to use to bother trying to find out. So if anyone knows of a system that will meet my requirements let me know. Until then my search continues...

The return of the positive campaign ad.

2008-08-09T08:46:00.001-07:00

In recent weeks there have a barrage of negative presidential ads from both sides of the fence. There is a huge focus on name calling, false claims and finger pointing which does nothing to help the candidates prove their own worth. Finally both campaigns have released positive ads this week so I wanted to point them out. I'm a bit biased towards Obama but I think that most people will see his add as being more positive. I think the McCain ad is a bit ominous and could have been done better, then again I think he was trying to play the fear card. Anyway here they are.

McCain's "Broken" ad.

Obama's "Hands" ad.

A new appreciation for the USA

2008-07-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing makes you appreciate your freedom and the country in which we live more than a trip to another country. Recently my family took a European cruise and had the opportunity to visit St Petersburg Russia for 2 days. The ship was greeted by a band playing music to welcome us which was a nice touch but instead of having a cruise port we were docked in a shipping yard. I didn't mind so much but felt bad because it was a poor first impression for the county I was looking most forward to visiting.

We really enjoyed seeing the palaces, Hermitage, churches and parks that you can find pictures of on the internet. What was surprising was the poor conditions of the rest of the areas. Many broken windows could be seen in apartment complexes, sidewalks in disrepair and the port was surrounded by abandoned buildings and ships left to rot.

I was amazed by the contrast between the beauty of the palaces and city as compared to the condition of the surrounding areas.

It was truly an experience I will never forget.

The plot thickens.

2008-07-29T05:26:00.000-07:00

Everyone has heard about Nvidia's recent problems with a defect in their video cards. Now HP admits that they have known about the issue since late last year. So how long did Nvidia keep this under their hat?

Dell listens?

2008-07-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

This morning Dell announced a new service called "Your tech team". For a $99 per year fee Dell provides North American

hardware warranty support for your new system and all other systems in your household (that are still under warranty). Other technical support options, like performance tuning, wireless network set-up and anti-virus support are available for a fee but can be purchased while you are on the call with your favorite technician.

The option to have North American tech support has been asked for several times on IdeaStorm. For some reason Dell took a simple idea and instead of offering a reasonable upgrade decided to bundle other things into it for an unreasonable price. Adding $99 per year on top of the extended warranty service pricing is unreasonable for a single product household and in the end could in some cases double the cost of the product over 3 years.

Is Dell really listening?

LCD screen burn in

2008-06-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading an article about doing a way with screen savers. While the poster of the article states that LCD screens do not develop burn in the existence of image persistence does. Where I work the computers are on and used 24/7 and image persistence does happen. It takes a lot longer than burn in but has the same basic effect. Just something to keep in mind before you ditch those screen savers.

Mac's get hacked?

2008-06-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

A new article speaks about a recent Trojan that steal passwords and disables security on Mac OS 10.4 or 10.5. Seems to be a growing trend as the more popular Macs get the more they will draw the attention of hackers.

Best Buy warranty service: The worst customer service I've ever experienced.

2008-06-18T04:07:00.000-07:00

I've bought several appliances over the years and always get a service contract. For years I bought from Sears and whenever I needed service done I would call them up, explain the problem and they would show up the next day. Unfortunately when I was looking for a new washer/dryer set Sears did not have the one I wanted so we bought from Best Buy instead. Everything went fine until this week when the washing machine started to leak out of the bottom.

I checked all the lines running in and out of the machine and determined the problem must be internal so I called Best Buy's service department. I spoke to a female with a foreign accent but was able to understand her pretty well. She looked up my account, documented my problem and said she would contact the local service guys while I waited on hold. She came back to say the service company wasn't open yet so she would contact them when they open and I would hear from them later that day.

Around noon I still hadn't heard anything so I called back to make sure she didn't forget. This time I got a different rep who was much easier to understand and explained the situation. She then advised me that it would take up to 2 business days for the service guy to call me back and that since it was Friday I wouldn't hear anything until Monday. Needless to say I wasn't happy.

After going to the laundrymat all weekend Monday finally came and the family's frustration was high. While I was at work my mother-in-law called Best Buy for me only to be told that it could take up to 5 days to hear from the service people. She advised the rep that I had been told 2 days and basically was told that I'm a lier. She gave the rep a peice of her mind and suddenly the rep called me at work to tell me that the service guys would be calling me later that day. I advised her that they should contact the house instead as m mother-in-law would be available if they could respond today. She took the house number again and said she would fax the paperwork to the service company.

A little while later the service company (a local appliance business) called me at work to say they would be out the next day but couldn't give me a time frame. They told me to wait by the phone all day and the tech would call when he was responding to the house. Again I advised that they should contact my mother-in-law as she is home all day and can let them in and gave her the house number. My mother in law also called the company to give them her cell phone in case she needed to leave the house for a minute.

The next day at about 2pm the tech calls me at work to say he is going to the house. I asked him why he didn't call my mother in law as requested and was advised that he had 4 different numbers on the paperwork and didn't know who to call. I called my mother in law and she met him at the house.

The tech advised advised that the hot and cold water valves inside the washing machine were broken (very rare he advised) and that he would order the parts. When asked how long that will take her replied that he had no idea and left.

It seems funny that a large corporation would hire out the small business they are crushing to do the service calls and expect them to give quality service. It is even more puzzling that the different Best Buy employees didn't know thier own policy and procedure on how long it would take for a call back. The real kicker was being told I was lying about what I was told and the fact that they find the time it
takes to fix things acceptable.

6/23/2008 09:35 EST
UPDATE: Well I'm still waiting for a part that was ordered last Tuesday. I called the appliance shop and they say it is shipped but they have no estimated date of arrival.

6/25/2008 20:00 EST

Hey wouldn't you know the part suddenly showed up and they fixed the washing machine today. I still think that over a week and a half is way too long. Next time I'll buy at Sears again, there is something to be said for great customer service.

A car that runs on water?

2008-06-14T04:36:00.000-07:00

A Japanese company named Genepax has created a prototype vehicle that runs on water. While currently the engine alone costs over $18,000 they expect to drop that to under $5000 when they mass produce.

SpursEngine proven to be twice as fast as 3Ghz Core 2 Quad for editing video.

2008-06-09T07:27:00.000-07:00

I've been watching the announcements on Toshiba's SpursEngine and waiting to see if it would be a viable option for decoding and encoding video. TG Daily posted an article from Computex 2008 where Corel tested the PCI express 1.0 card against a Core 2 Quad at transcoding 1080p H.264 video to a smaller resolutions such as 480p. The SpursEngine is basically a Cell processor with only half the power (1/2 speed, 1/2 the memory and 1/2 the SPE units) and the Core 2 Quad was a 3GHz version. The SpursEngine finished in half the time of the Quad and only uses 10 to 20 watts.

Unfortunately they still haven't announced a price. Too bad Dell isn't paying attention to my idea, maybe someone else is paying attention and building one into a notebook.

Will they ever learn? Companies asking for customer feedback.

2008-06-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

Lately more and more companies have launched websites asking their customers to give them ideas on how they can improve. Asking for feedback is nothing new as companies have done this with feedback cards for decades. What is new is creating specialized websites or using social media websites to accomplish the task.

I threw away comment cards in the past as I always envisioned them ending up in the shredder, maybe it was because no matter what I said on them I never heard back from the company. Then on February 16 of 2007, while trolling the web for articles on technology, I stumbled across one about how Dell was reaching out to customers by asking them to submit ideas on how they could improve. I knew Dell had been declining for a few years due to customer service issues so it seemed like a logical move to try and turn things around. Seeing how I had been buying Dell computers for years I typed in the website address http://www.dellideastorm.com/ to check it out.

I spend about an hour on the site that day looking through the ideas and comments but was afraid to post something (I can be a bit shy at times). The next day I decided to post something since nobody would really know who I was anyway. Creating an account was easy enough, email address and create a user name and password. I'm not all that great with making creative user names so I used my last name, year I was married and topped it off with the number 1. My first post was a bit of a feeling out process so I kept it simple, Show the Vista performance rating during system configuration. It wasn't a ground breaking idea but it was something I thought would be useful when buying a system. I felt a bit more confident after someone voted for my idea and decided to be more bold and posted a second idea that day. I figured why not tackle Dell's problems head on and posted 6 major issues to be fixed by Dell. I voted on several ideas that day and left some comments on other people's ideas as well. Watching my ideas get voted on and conversing with my new acquaintances was fun but Dell was silent on the site.

A lack of responses from Dell was frustrating to users and led to many rebellions in the form of joke posts and ideas complaining about the lack of interaction on the site. Dell slowly began to participate more but for some it was too little too late as they left the site to move on to something else. Another problem with the site was the software running the site. In Dell's haste to get the site put together they chose to use a beta program from a business partner (SalesForce) which amounted to the site users becoming test subjects for the software. Many ideas were posted complaining about the lack of common features found on normal forum software such as spell check, site navigation and HTML editing tools. Unfortunately Dell couldn't fix the problems and some of them still exist today. Even though the issues are out of Dell's control the frustrations are still towards Dell as most people do not realize it is not their fault or feel they should change vendors if they really care.

Another problem from the combination of beta software and lack of early moderation is that the site was and still is being flooded with duplicate ideas. Dell tries to remedy the issue by merging the ideas together and combining the votes and comments into one location. Unfortunately this process does not notify the duplicate idea poster of the merge, makes the comments confusing to read and results in complaints from the idea poster as well as the other users who care about the idea. This has led to many discussions on how to properly merge duplicates, who should be awarded credit for an idea and other issues. Unfortunately no matter what Dell does to improve the site people end up complaining about it.

While IdeaStorm had and still has its issues they have made improvements in the software and participation they seem to learning from their mistakes. Dell has gotten more employees to participate but SalesForce is still taking far too long to fix the software. I have also checked out similar sites from Starbucks (run with SalesForce software) and Cisco (using software from Brightidea) find that they are facing similar issues to Dell's early problems. It seems no matter how many times they are warned companies seem surprised that so many people submit ideas and expect some form of feedback. Will companies ever learn how to make the customers happy or will these feedback sites just become an online version of the feedback card?