Skip to main content

Dell Rant

I have not been a fan of Dell as of late and here is why. I have access to a Dell printer(Dell 944 All-in-One printer/scanner/copier) that came in for cheap bundled with a Dell laptop. The printer is basically made by Lexmark, but sold though Dell with minor modifications and a Dell label. This presents two problems:

As a Linux user, I like printers for which Linux drivers exist, either through Dell or another party. The irritating thing about these Dell printers is that Dell only provides Windows drivers while Lexmark, the proxy maker of the printer, usually provides at least Windows and Mac drivers and often tries to provide kits for the development of Linux drivers. If one wanted to look for a Lexmark analog of a Dell printers, it is virtually impossible to do because that information does not seem to be readily available.


Another way Dell makes it difficult for all non-Dell users and products is in the cartridge business. The ink cartridge can only bought from Dell and no other vendor, which makes it impossible to shop around. This is Dell's way of cornering both the printer and ink cartridge business to itself, which, while perfectly legal, makes things very inconvenient for users like myself.


All in all, I am quite disappointed in Dell and will probably boycott [the purchase of] their products whenever possible.
Labels:

Comments

BT08 said…
I still despise Dell, but my affection for HP has also hit a new low because of the terrible design of the power jack of many Compaq and HP notebooks (including mine) and HP's negligence. That problem and its cheapest solution are chronicled in another post: http://btemelso.blogspot.com/2008/02/solving-power-jack-problem-with-certain.html
February 6, 2008 at 4:27 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slow Acroread Startup in OpenSuSe 11.0

It takes more than 30 seconds for acroread to load on my Opensuse machine the first time and the startup time gets shorter in subsequent attempts. Why? This is not the first time I have come across this problem of slow application startups in OpenSuse. Apparently a lot of people had encountered this problem and they found a simple solution - uninstalling the version of acroread that comes with OpenSuse and installing one from Adobe site yourself. Fortunately, that prescription seems to have solved the problem. My acroread startup time is a few seconds now. Why does a very good Linux distribution like OpenSuse with its wide support and following make so many of these mistakes?!?! Over the years, I have seen Suse/OpenSuse sending buggy distributions that make you wonder if they do much testing before releasing their distro. Here are a few bugs I have come across: The extremely slow startup of Openoffice in OpenSuse 10.0 was one of the reasons I switched to Fedora Core for a while...
1 comment
Read more

The Pervasive Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux Analogy

I'm sure everyone has seen the Mac vs. PC ads on TV where the Mac appears to be confident while th PC is in denial about its deficiencies. Missing from that picture is Linux which is robust, but seeks no attention because it has no commercial ambitions. This Mac vs. PC vs. Linux model can serve as a analogy for many things/phenomena. I would like to make a list of those analogies here. For example, The New York Times recently characterized Hillary as a PC and Obama as a mac on the basis of the design of their websites. The analogy would also work if you think of Hillary as the status quo much like Windows, and Obama as the new thing with great promise, cachet and appeal like the newly reborn mac. It is not obvious who would play the role of Linux, but my choice would be Ron Paul. He has some bold and independent ideas along with a very loyal following even though he has no chance of winning. PC Mac Linux Candidate Hillary Clinton Barack Obama Ron Paul States Northeast West Co...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tax-and-spend Liberal My Ass

This is a continuation of my earlier posts on economic performance of democratic and republican administrations. My earlier posts include: Politics of the Federal Minimum Wage Democrats Have Kept Unemployment Low Democrats care about poor people Truth About Economic Performance of Political Parties I like to think I have shed light on some facts and debunked some conventional wisdom. In this post, I will attempt to examine the tax-and-spend liberal label put on democrats. Republicans often try to label democrats as tax-and-spend liberals who are soft on national security. While the latter point is based on anecdotal evidence, the earlier is amenable to empirical examination. So, I set out to prove or disprove the notion that democrats often tax and spend in a way that does not yield economic growth. The implication of tax-and-spend liberal is one that puts excessive tax burden on its population and finds inefficient (think socialistic) ways of spending that tax reven...
Post a Comment
Read more