What one buyer's experience with Dell tells us about customer service.
Loyal customers can be tough to find. So why do some companies run them off with crappy customer service? Often because the employees who care have no authority to fix problems, and those with the authority don't care. Today, let's hear the story of reader Boyd, his Dell XPS420, and the data corruption problems he had when running a disk array. Then let's hear how two other small service companies do much better support.
Boyd wanted a high powered desktop with RAID 0 (Redundant Array of Independent Disks). RAID 0 isn't really redundant, but it combines two drives into a single volume, spreading data across both physical drives which the user sees as one big drive.
Since two disks acting as one drive isn't typical on a desktop, Boyd carefully checked the Dell Web site to be sure the PC he wanted supported the feature. It did and he bought one. The Dell XPS420, with an Intel Quad Core Processor, starts at $799 and goes up depending on amount and type of memory, hard disk size and other details.
Continued
Recent Newsletters | Archive
Palm is set to preview this week its latest incarnation of mobile operating system - Nova - in a bid to re-ignite the company as a smartphone leader. Latest developments say that Palm will also release a new device that runs Nova as well. The unveiling is expected during the Consumer Electronics...
Here's the deal. Microsoft botched the code in the firmware for its Zune 30GB handheld players. Like a ticking time bomb, the problem started exploding for Zune owners once 2008 started transitioning into 2009. Users worldwide quickly found that their Zunes were completely locked out. Locked out as...
LG Electronics announced a range of Internet-enabled televisions on Monday that can stream movies from the Netflix rental service. The companies will show the televisions at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week, a year after they first announced their plans to work together on...
JVC is joining the race to thinner flat-panel TV and will unveil at this week's International Consumer Electronics Show a prototype 32-inch television that's just 7-millimeters thick.
It's not just televisions that are slimming down for this week's International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Samsung, which has already said it plans to unveil a 7-millimeter thick TV at the show, will also be taking the wraps off a new Blu-ray Disc player that's 39mm thick.
David Yarborough, President of Computer-Plus, talks about the printer support business while standing over the smoking printer he uses to catch attention during the ITEC conferences. Guess what's the most disgusting thing he ever dug out of a printer?
Enter Ancient Worlds And Ditch Glitzy Graphics
Jan. 05, 2009
ADOM ("Ancient Domains Of Mystery") is a typical RPG, in which you play an adventurer of a variety of classes (including Elementalist, Farmer, and Necromancer), from a variety of races (human, assorted types of elf, ...
Have a Healthy 2009 with DietPower Software
Jan. 05, 2009
Eating healthier food and losing weight are great goals for most of us--and also very difficult for most of us. DietPower helps you balance your diet by giving regular feedback on your dietary and exercise habits. First ...
Recover data from optical media with CDRoller
Dec. 31, 2008
CDRoller purports to recover data from any type of UDF/ISO9660/FAT32 disc that can be written: CD, DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray. It's always tricky testing recovery programs, especially those that work with optical discs. All I ...
Scan and send docs with digital postman pro
Dec. 31, 2008
Digital Postman Pro is a straightforward program that has one simple job and does it. It allows you to put a document on your scanner (or load one from your hard disk), and then e-mail it. While the hard disk use is of ...
Turn your PC into a piano With Pianissimo
Dec. 31, 2008
Let's get the eval out of the way up front: Pianissimo sounds great. But there are a lot of great-sounding software piano VSTi's (short for Virtual Studio Technology instrument, a software synthesizer plug-in standard ...
Newzie fulfills the need for RSS feeds
Dec. 31, 2008
Newzie serves up your RSS feeds and more in a good-looking, easy-to-use tabbed interface. It faces much competition from other good, free news readers, but it easily imports feeds from other programs and is worth trying ...
Ashampoo PowerUp: Optimization for power users
Dec. 30, 2008
All-in-one system optimizer Ashampoo PowerUp includes a slew of helpful utilities to make your PC perform faster, including a Registry Cleaner, bootup optimizer, overall system tuneup tools, and features that customize ...
One-buck gaming snack for iPhone: Dropship
Dec. 29, 2008
Dropship is a clever 2D shooter for the iPhone with flat-shaded, 3D backgrounds that will instantly remind you of the classic Atari game Tempest or the movie Tron. By sweeping your finger on the left side, you ...
Sticky notes have evolved into StickySorter
Dec. 29, 2008
Does your desk look like it's made of sticky notes? If so, you may well find a friend in StickySorter. This freebie does far, far more than either paper-based notes or other sticky notes software. Think of it as a ...
Delve into database files with CDBF
Dec. 29, 2008
DBF files, used by dBase (remember dBase?), FoxPro, and many other programming applications, are one of the great 'legacy' database formats. Although many newer applications store data in other ways, there are still ...
I am sorry to say this is the last column of the Branch Office Best Practices newsletter. I want to first thank all of the readers for the past three years who have communicated with me, challenged me, and most importantly, who have used this forum as a way to improve their branch strategies.... 2
Small businesses converging voice, video and data traffic sometimes end up with haunted networks, but you can exorcise the...
What can we do to protect our Cisco routers against the IOS rootkit software that was described at the EUSecWest conference...
Does packet filtering apply in case of MPLS? I am trying to join my main domain from a different town; I have a VPN tunnel...
Product Guides