Marcus Hamaker is The Sleepy Geek

Wow! I have long been telling people that one of the easiest computers to buy is from Dell. A quick phone call to their 1-800 line or a trip to www.dell.com and you can have a computer shipped to you in a week just how you like it. They aren’t the cheapest but they are not astronomically priced either.

The problem is now their service has gone down the tubes. Even before receiving the laptop we (my dear wife and I) had trouble with the sales rep we were talking to. With an attitude just slightly better than rude we had to get him to reconfigure the system we wanted so it would be precisely right. After a few revisions and a few contract adjustments as well for monthly payments we decided he had it right and we made the purchase.

A week and a day go by and we get a shiny new Dell box with a computer in it that had a french keyboard. I was upset because one of the contract revisions we asked him to make was to send it in English. This mistake is made all the time here in Quebec but after being corrected once I think they should get it right the rest of the time. Not the case here obviously.

We called the customer support line and I went through about 4 people before my parental duties took me away and I handed the phone off to my wife. After 1 or 2 more people she was speaking with a ‘manager’ who seemed very appologetic. Fantastic – we are making progress. It sounded very strange to me that they would have to rebuild a completely new machine and send it to us rather than have us go to a repair depot or send a repair technician (we did get the complete care warranty) but we were happy it was an acknowledged mistake and waited for the new package.

A week later and a new box arrived from Purolator. Open it up and boom – FRENCH KEYBOARD. At this point I am really pissed off and I call back Dell customer support again. I know how it is to get an angry person on the phone when you haven’t dealt with them personally from doing tech support in the past so I keep my temper to myself. That is until I am told that I have to return both laptops to Dell via RMA and when they have been cleared replace a brand new order for what I want.

Needless to say we fulfilled the first part of that arrangement but not the second. I even went as far as to tell the rep on the phone that I would in fact send them back but wouldn’t order a new one and he didn’t seem to care. Dell isn’t going win any customers working like this. In the past they had their service to go on. Putting a dude in a mall with a kiosk isn’t going to change the fact that you need to have good people serving the customer – especially at the time of PURCHASE!

One Dell customer lost now and probably a ton in the future. I will never recommend Dell again.

Hope your computing purchases in the recent past have been a lot more plesant than mine.

Geek on!

Not sure what it is – but I am not interested in Twitter since coming back from the beach. I will continue to post up my new blog posts to Twitter so my followers can come over for a read, but trying to strike up conversation is out.

I feel like it takes too much effort to try and get someone out of your followers group to answer you and actually have a meaningful conversation about something. Most people are following over 1000 people and probably have more than 1000 followers and so it’s like trying to be heard in an arena rock concert while everyone is standing around chatting and waiting for the band to show up.

I think that with some time off and time away from the blog/internet/twitter I am going to concentrate my efforts on 3 things. 1 – expanding my service company, 2 – concentrating on good blog content and 3 – moving forward with my podcast plans with my buddy Bryan.

Geek on!

It looks like Canada’s Rogers Wireless wasn’t content with merely jacking up its BlackBerry prices as it has just gone and made and a decision that is sure to aggravate plenty of smartphone customers

via Rogers changes minimum HUP length from 12 to 24 months for smartphone users : Boy Genius Report.

If you are Canadian like I am then this sucks! I am sure that this is not the fault of Twitter but the fault of the wireless providers in Canada. To be completely honest they all are pretty bad up here. In a statement release on their site they explain the reason is due to cost.

Unexpected changes in our billing have forced us into a difficult situation with our Canadian SMS service. We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212).

The ability to update Twitter over SMS will still be supported over 21212. But we know that this is only part of the experience and we want to make Twitter work in the way folks want … regardless of where they live.

There is a realistic, scalable SMS solution for Canada (and the rest of the world.) We’re working on that and will post more details on the Twitter blog as we make progress.

I hope that they are successful at finding a better solution. Until then I actually will have to get on my computer to look at twitter. DOH!

Have fun, and Happy Tweeting!

I have a son who is starting to use a computer and like his dad, getting very comfortable with it :) Makes me happy but given that he’s 4, yet I am weary of a mis-click or a something popping up on his screen if he is on the internet. Even when you are watching your kids on the internet these days, even sitting right beside them, there is still a chance that you end up somewhere that was unintentional by the child and not foreseen by you.

KidZui is in the business of making an alternative browser for kids. What is amazing about this kid product is that it is geared towards the child. The browser interface is something that I am sure my 4 year old will like (and we’ll be getting that installed soon) but something that would make you or I want to use a crayola crayon on the LCD. Their other huge selling point in my eyes is that instead of limiting the websites that they feel are negative or could be deemed inappropriate, the took the opposite approach. They have white listed sites that they feel are of good value for kids and parents. Their reviewers are “trained parents and teachers” so that makes me feel good about the filtering.

I am new to the service, but I think it has been around for some time. I found it because it is now free and they seem heavy into a marketing campaign to let us all know.

Check it out, it’s free! :)

When starting out hardcore on this blog a month and a bit ago I was trying to find a couple of good sites to help with the networking aspect of the whole endeavor. I chose a few different options, one of them being twitter. I like the simplicity of the interface, and everyone and their dog seemed to be on there tweeting away.

I am slightly disappointed with the service however. Many people have written articles about their up time. That for some reason didn’t bother me as much as not receiving an email when a person starts to follow me.

In a serious effort to gain a following an build a community, those email notices become quite important. This allows me to see who is watching, what type of reader I am attracting, etc., etc.

So my vote is to work on that outbound email system. It is an invaluable tool for myself and I am sure other people in my boat.