Slashdot Mirror

Check it out at the Dell site.

I've used this program to recycle a dead 17" monitor, and it worked like a charm.

Yesterday afternoon I received a Dell ad in the mail. On the back cover, they advertise a new PC recylcing service. For $7.50, you can recycle up to 50 lbs of computer equipment, up to three items from any manufacturer. Additionally, they give you a handy 10% off coupon for use toward a new Dell purchase.

Furthermore, they have also launched a new Dell Donations program to benefit the National Cristina Foundation. If you have hardware (ad says 'above Pentium I'--ambiguous as to whether or not your P-166 would be accepted), they'll take it and fix it up for disabled/disadvantaged children and adults.

Instead of forcing you to drive or UPS it to a distribution center or a warehouse, they send an Airborne Express guy out to your house or business to pick it up. I have to admit, I'm rather impressed by this program.

More information available here.

if your trying to go with low power (watt wise) but reasonably decent high power (cpu wise), the intel pentium-m notebooks are a worthy option. Pair it up with a decent video card and you can even do some reasonable gaming on it.

Here is a good sample machine for you, customize it as desired.

I owned a 1G iPod that had a battery failure. Yeah, it sucked. But the difference is that I abused that little thing and it lived. I also put it through some harsh conditions and it lived. I bought a 3G 10 GB iPod on eBay for $225. Microsoft couldn't do it and not many other companies could because Apple has a loyal fan base. If you ever use an iPod on a daily basis, you'll realize why people continue to buy them. There are also fixes for the battery problem and replacements that are 3rd-party solutions for less than what Apple charges. It's a rechargable battery smaller than a credit card. It's not something you can just go out to the store and pick up. Ask Dell if their new music player has a user-replaceable battery. $5 says it's not. To quote their own website "Fixed rechargeable battery with up to 16 hours battery life." Key word there is FIXED. And if they have a battery problem, they'll have a replacement program.

Holy crap. I can't believe this hooplah! Batteries do not possess infinite lives. The iPod batteries are NOT PROPRIETARY. Any 3rd party can step in and sell replacements. It's not like these are Hewlett Packard ink jet carts. Apple is not selling iPods at a loss, then charging a fortune for the things that wear out (batteries / ink carts).

If you want to be taken seriously, step up to the plate and tell me how much a replacement battery for a Dell mp3 player costs. Hell. If you visit the Dell site and check out their mp3 player, the silly FM transmitter thing is $50. I bought one of those at Best Buy for $21. The cassette adapter is also $50. Uhhh. I think I got one of those for like $7... or else it came for free with some other crap device I bought.

According to this Dell website, the PowerEdge 650 (the lowest end rackmount server I could find on their site) is 21.9" deep without the bezel.

Also, I looked up the dimensions of the Sun V1280 that you mentioned. It is 22 inches deep.

I guess I was a bit exaggerated in my statement, but the Cisco equipment is still not as deep. Plus, as other people have pointed out, the brackets on Cisco equipment are not flush with the front of the device, making the mounting closer to the center of gravity. The two servers I've linked to, plus every other server I've worked with at three jobs, do have the brackets flush with the front, increasing the torq on the brackets and rack by quite a bit.

The difference here is the fact that it's a Mac, not a PC.

I mean compare the two:

Laptop
Apple Dell

Desktop
Apple Dell

MP3 Player
Apple Dell

Monitor
Apple Dell

The bottom line is, most Macintosh computers are aesthetically pleasing as they are functional. Modern-day works of art, if you will. Most PC's are still plain, square, boxes. At least, for better or for worse, they're not all beige anymore.

The difference here is the fact that it's a Mac, not a PC.

I mean compare the two:

Laptop
Apple Dell

Desktop
Apple Dell

MP3 Player
Apple Dell

Monitor
Apple Dell

The bottom line is, most Macintosh computers are aesthetically pleasing as they are functional. Modern-day works of art, if you will. Most PC's are still plain, square, boxes. At least, for better or for worse, they're not all beige anymore.

The difference here is the fact that it's a Mac, not a PC.

I mean compare the two:

Laptop
Apple Dell

Desktop
Apple Dell

MP3 Player
Apple Dell

Monitor
Apple Dell

The bottom line is, most Macintosh computers are aesthetically pleasing as they are functional. Modern-day works of art, if you will. Most PC's are still plain, square, boxes. At least, for better or for worse, they're not all beige anymore.

The difference here is the fact that it's a Mac, not a PC.

I mean compare the two:

Laptop
Apple Dell

Desktop
Apple Dell

MP3 Player
Apple Dell

Monitor
Apple Dell

The bottom line is, most Macintosh computers are aesthetically pleasing as they are functional. Modern-day works of art, if you will. Most PC's are still plain, square, boxes. At least, for better or for worse, they're not all beige anymore.

Listen to music

Play games

Write Documents

Read Email

Internet(read slashdot)

Calender

Contacts

Looks slick

Reasonable price i.e. $200( Dell Axim)

Look again and you'll find the $700 Dimension 2400 with 17" CRT and 80 GB HDD, being sold with a free upgrade to 256 MB.

Sure, depending on the service level I will have to pay $5/mo for service. It'll take years before I've caught up with a home built unit in cost.

My question was - how buying a $3000 Plasma TV or a $3000 LCD TV any different from one of the $2000 LCD monitors Apple sells in their online store (non linkable to the product pages) ? Wouldn't you want to see it before buying as well?

Here's what they recommend:
http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?dn=1 068833

The memo said don't recommend any spyware removal programs, it didn't say don't help with spyware removal.

I don't see how they only got 450 computers for $1 million. That's over 2 grand per computer. You can get four Dell computers for that price. I know it's the government and they like to overpay for stuff, but 4X the price is a bit much! Instead of firing teachers, they should spend some time thinking about how to be more frugal with the little money that they do have.

... I wonder how they came up with the numbers here.

A blade chassis full of dual PIII's similar to what they showed in the "render wall" photo will, in my experience, pull 300 to 600 watts of power depending on CPU load and configuration - the maximum power use is 850 W. At least a third of that is turned into heat.

This puts the minimum heat load at around ((1600 servers / 6 servers per chassis) * 150 watts average heat output) = approx. 40,000 watts.

While I've never heard of "farenheit weight" before, "tons refrigeration" is pretty common in the air conditioning world - 40,000 watts heat load = 136,500 BTU/hr = 10 tons of refrigeration (in UK units, 11 in US). It's amazing how well that 1/2 ton air conditioner is operating!

Really?

I remember the iMac dropping the floppy drive in 1998, three years before Dell made it an OPTION rather than removing it all together, where it still sits.

I also remember the iMac in 1998 having exactly ZERO legacy peripheral connectivity. Dell STILL is using PS/2, parallel, and serial COM ports, and on models that they aren't, guess what - there is still an ISA bridge in the chipset from Intel, and the IDE controller is sitting on it.

Even earlier than that, with the Power Macintosh 7200 / 8200 / 9200 series where they eradicated all internal connectivity in favor of PCI. In 1997. Dell didn't do this until late in the Pentium III models where they finally got rid of that last ISA slot that was on the bottom of the board.

The first two companies to standardize on Intel's PCI architecture were not using Intel processors. They were Apple (PowerPC) and DEC (Alpha). This is widely known.

Oh, and I guess that Apple didn't ship the 20th Anniversary Mac with an LCD screen in 1997 did they?

Care to try again?

Really?

I remember the iMac dropping the floppy drive in 1998, three years before Dell made it an OPTION rather than removing it all together, where it still sits.

I also remember the iMac in 1998 having exactly ZERO legacy peripheral connectivity. Dell STILL is using PS/2, parallel, and serial COM ports, and on models that they aren't, guess what - there is still an ISA bridge in the chipset from Intel, and the IDE controller is sitting on it.

Even earlier than that, with the Power Macintosh 7200 / 8200 / 9200 series where they eradicated all internal connectivity in favor of PCI. In 1997. Dell didn't do this until late in the Pentium III models where they finally got rid of that last ISA slot that was on the bottom of the board.

The first two companies to standardize on Intel's PCI architecture were not using Intel processors. They were Apple (PowerPC) and DEC (Alpha). This is widely known.

Oh, and I guess that Apple didn't ship the 20th Anniversary Mac with an LCD screen in 1997 did they?

Care to try again?

Before you ping on Gateway for turning into Kmart, you should know that Dell has started selling plasma (ok, LCD) TVs

FYI, there are a couple of well documented fixes for being afflicted with an Apple notebook. And your wallet will thank you:

One
Two

Get well soon.. :)

I don't believe your figures, 'cause I just went through the same exercise at Dell's web site.

Base price for the Dimension 2100 is $599. I hit customize.

The iMac has an 80GB hard drive. Configure the Dell to have an 80GB hard drive too, add $60.

The iMac has 256MB of RAM. Upgrade the Dell to 256MB, add $70.

The iMac has a combo drive. The Dell comes with a CDRW free, so stick a DVD-ROM in, add $30, plus $40 for the "enhanced" software that includes DVD imaging, CD imaging, and other functions not performed by the basic version of RecordNow that comes bundled with the CDRW drive.

iMac has an optical mouse, add $30 for an optical Dell mouse.

Add Microsoft Office and Money, $129.

Dell's cheapest digital flat panel monitor is the 17" 1703FP, add $390.

iMac comes with Firewire and video editing. Dell charges an extra $40 for the Firewire card.

Grand total is $1,388 for Dell, $1,299 for Apple. Dell offers a $100 rebate, so after that hassle you've saved a massive $11 by buying a crappy Windows machine from Dell.

I encourage anyone reading this to go confirm the figures for themselves.

From Blogzine.net...

[Note: The following article does not address the subscription side of Napster. Only the features it shares with iTunes]

Two weeks ago, about this time I was ecstatic. I was telling everyone I knew about this wonderful phenomenon of the 21st century....*trumpet sounds* iTunes!

Ever since I realized that buying 10 songs to listen to 1 song was not only silly but foolhearty, I've detested the RIAA's efforts to thwart legal digital music transfer. Why? Because I knew in my heart if such a service existed I would use it...even excessively. I love music. I hate CDs. I hate the RIAA.

iTunes was going to answer that need, and in many ways it did. In fact, I was content with its drawbacks...legal music was all I ever wanted. Getting rid of Kazaa Lite was all I ever wanted.

iTunes was liberating. I downloaded the 20MB of software from Apple.com the first day it was released....at 340 KB/s, a speed I rarely reach with my cable service. I loved it immediately. It had my artists, the songs were 99 cents cheap, the download was nearly instant, and the quality superb considering the bit rate was only 128k.

More than that, Apple, as always, had a snazzy ad and uber sexy hype about it. And perhaps deservedly so. "Hell froze over." read the home page "The best Windows application ever written." Great stuff.

Yes, iTunes was the answer, and I was spreading the word. "Woe to ye, sinners, pirates forsake thy evil theivery and embrace the salvation of iTunes!"

But in the back of my mind there were several problems, problems I was willing to brush aside at the time, or perhaps fix. In an IM dated, oh, I don't know...sometime last week I said something like this:

"I'm going to figure out a way to automate the peacful transfer of music to my Pocket PC from iTunes."

The problem was realized, it was out in the open now. Apple supported portable music, but only with their elite iPod. I would love to own an iPod, but I cannot afford one and won't be spending such a large amount of money on one. With apple, there was no alternative. I couldn't port music to my Pocket PC. Impooossssible. I also couldn't easily convert the songs to MP3s or WMAs. (Let's see, 1. Burn a CD 2. Rip the CD into the format of my choosing. 3. Type in all of vital information such as artist name. 3 easy steps!) This was a huge hurdle, one that I wasn't sure if I could surrmount. After toying with different audio codecs and attempting to find away to defeat the blasted DRM, I gave up...it was for all intents and purposes, impossible.

It was about this time last week I checked out the Napster home page. It wasn't available yet, and I didn't really like the looks of this new software. But one thing did catch my eye. Napster was going to use the WMA format. This could spell "Liberation". Liberation beyond iTunes, true liberation.

Fast forward to yesterday, I checked out the Napster site again, but this time I was greeted with a big "Download Now" button. I immediately downloaded it.

The interface is what I would call "iTunesian". It's basically a shameless clone, though not quite as sexy. It's a clone in a annoying sort of way. It was the "Bizzaro iTunes"....the same but different and very annoying. But I can learn to love that. I started out my adventure with Napster by searching for the Don McLean ode to Rock n' Roll, American Pie. It quickly appeared in the list, and in 30 seconds I was listening to its goodness. This brings us to our first benefit Napster has over iTunes.

Numero 1. Apple wouldn't let me have the song.

You see, I tried to download American Pie from iTunes l

Ahh, but you do: The CD-Key. It is now no-longer illegal to have this nifty text file that describes the checksum for WIN95 CD-keys and how to create one.

Actually, yes, that is still quite illegal. Read it again:

(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

Windows 95 is stored on a CD and requires a PC to run. Last I checked, CDs and PCs are still being manufactured. I haven't checked in the last few milliseconds though, so you could be right. But probably not.

Nope, just checked again. You're still wrong.

In the enterprise, Dell's first-quarter server shipments rose 40 percent

Perhaps not...but it sure smells better!

• For one thing, it has about 2x the battery life of the iPod.
  
• The look and feel versus the iPod is more a subjective thing, IMHO, and not simply "worse".
  
• Does have a mic (see middle of this page).
  
• $100 cheaper price tag for the same amount of storage space (20GB)

• Remote and FM transmitter could possibly be offered as accessories.
  
• Software/firmware might be upgradeable, possibly allowing it to be used cross-platform, as a storage device, and with other programs besides from MusicMatch (although probably not if Dell has an agreement with MM).

Damn, what happened to my link?? here it is again:

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productde tails.aspx/dj_20?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

The form factor is exactly what you'd expect from something with Dell on the nameplate: it's totally nondescript. It's actually made by Creative Labs and rebranded. As far as looks go, it's not an iPod any more than my 1990 Accord is a Porsche 911. In other words, it's not bad looking, but it's not good looking either.

2) What advantages does it have?

It looks like there's one, and only one, big advantage of this over the iPod -- this thing has a 16 hour battery life (The Tech TV people tested it and says you will get 15 hours.) That is a really compelling feature; when I spend an entire day driving, or have a long flight with a nasty layover, I can toast my iPod's battery.

The Dell is also a bit cheaper, but not by a lot. A 20 MB unit goes for $329, while Apple sells its 20 MB iPod for $399 at its store. I'd personally want to see the Dell more like 50% cheaper than the iPod for it to be a compelling alternative.

3) Is it an iPod killer?

In battery life, yes. In price, sort of. In looks, absolutely not. Tech TV gives a slight nod to the iPod, but without saying why.

Dell's entry into the field just means that digital music players are no longer cutting-edge products, and are about to be commodified. Expect to be able to get a good one, though perhaps not an iPod, for under $100 within the next couple years.

Compare iPod's site with
Dell's Music Store First. Apple has tabs at the top. They're blue and rounded. Dell has something similar. Blue, tab-like devices. Next a grayish color for sub-panels. Dell has a grayish panel for subtitles. .99 cents as a price point for songs. And that's about where the similarity ends.
In my opinion Dell's site is visually . . . boring. Apple has a tendency to make their layouts some resemble, what I consider to be, professionally done (magazine-esque) style forms.
Secondly, the Dell device which I will now call "Dr. Device" (in honor of Ender's game) seems bulky. It reminds me of a calculator I saw that was from the early 80's, maybe late 70's.
I have a question, and I don't intend this as a troll or a flamebait, but why is it (and correct me if I'm wrong) that much of the Wintel side is too cautious to create their own markets and test innovative technologies in the same way that Apple does? I mean, Dell would have -never- come out with any of this if not for the iPod and the iTunes music store.
And then there's longhorn. Acknowledging the fact that XP was trying to visually compete with Aqua, we now have longhorn which attempts at a darkened brush metal theme. There's a billion UI ideas out there, and the only one seeming to make any progress in them in the commercial space is Apple.
So, what about Linux? I see a lot of WM's attempting to -be- someone else. LiteStep, etc - NeXT. A vast majority attempting to emulate Windows. Some BeOS. Some Mac OS X. I just . . . wish there was some more coherent creativity in product design outside of Cupertino, California.
That said, price points may attract people to the Dell device (ONLY) if they're not aware of the iPod. The thing looks detestable.

Nice interface, smooth, curvy, and durable design, sweetly glowing blue lights...

But the best I could come up with is the animation on their USA site

Also, I thought this was an interesting subhead for the article:

An Affordable and Easy Way to Legally Download Your Favorite Songs and Albums emphasis mine.

here

I'm probably not the only one more interested in photos than in learning that it has a 3.6h charge time. :)

And I've only Linux 2.6!

Here you go, ass-munch.

20GB MP3 player, $70 shipped. $50 with rebate coupon.

You Mac users... Jesus christ, I swear, you would buy a $500 turd with a ribbon on it if Apple put it in their catalog.

Too bad. I really liked the all-white design, it made all the difference from the gray mass.

Oh well, off to buy one I guess.

This is not such a limiting factor. 512 Megs of RAM is far more than I need for the kind of work I would want to do on an ultralight with a mear 12" screan. I.e. That's not where I play games or edit graphics or rip DVDs. A desktop is used for that. Or a true desktop replacment like the 9 lb Dell Inspiron 8200 I am typing this on.

Playing videos, Listening to MP3s, Running a Web browser and most importantly; Terminal emulation software dosn't need 512 MB.

That last one is the single most important reason for an ultracompact. Sometimes I have to stand infrunt of a rack hooked to a network device via a Serial cable with my laptop on one palm while I type with the other hand. 9 lb starts to feal like 90 after a few minutes. 2.8 lb would take much longer to get there.

BTW: How is this significantly better than the Latitude X300

...and server blades save even more space...

...why can't I buy one at Dell?

don't forget that DELL sells Intel only!

...not mentioning the fact that Opteron beat the G5 to market by over 4 months...

*sigh* If we are going to get into a pissing match as to whose 64-bit CPU was introduced first, then it still goes to Apple/IBM/Moto. Anyone remember the PPC 620 which was released in 1995? Also, if AMD introduced their Opteron 4 months ago, why did they have to introduce their "desktop" CPU only a month ago (remember, Apple's claim was the first 64-bit "desktop")? And why can't I buy one at Dell? Geeze, get real. This article is merely for the benefit of their readers to make them feel good about being behind the curve with respect to innovation.

Seriously, think about it... 38 Mill / 600 = 63k per machine! Can anyone spell fraud?

After I modified both the eMac and the Dell to have the same size screen, same amount of ram, same perhipherals, the total (before mail-in rebate) came to:
Dell: $819 with 17" monitor and optical mouse
eMac: $849 with 256mb ram
Granted, the eMac has only a 800Mhz G4 and the Dell has a 2.4Ghz P4, so the eMac will be slower in terms of raw processing power (an 800Mhz G4 is about like a 1.2Ghz P4). However, the eMac probably has better video (Radeon 7500 vs integrated Intel; neither has an AGP slot). But, for the target audience for both of these machines , home, general internet, productivity and light gaming, the eMac is still the better deal. I know which one I would buy my parents.

This is by no means terrific, but would certainly beat the shit out of that eMac. And for less money, even without the rebate.

An extra wide monitor (1920x1200) from Sun will run you about $3,600, and a pair of ordinary 19" LCDs costs about $600 each.

Heck, you could get a 3 x 18" multiscreen direct from Dell for about $2900.

An extra wide monitor (1920x1200) from Sun will run you about $3,600, and a pair of ordinary 19" LCDs costs about $600 each.

Heck, you could get a 3 x 18" multiscreen direct from Dell for about $2900.

/* Sure, they can't compete with the Dimension 2400's $599 price tag */

Dimension 2400 here

Someone please correct me, but does anyone see a monitor in that configuration? If not, add $150-200 to total price and you get $750-800 (eMac is built-in, of course).

(Then again, there's always the "performance" factor that people play up...)

Why is this "Insightful"? He didn't give a single price comparison nor did he point to a link that does.

I priced out a top-of-the-line Dell (which is slower than the mac) and a top-of-the-line Mac. Here are the results.
Mac: $3395
Dell: $2917

Of course this doesn't include the fact that you get better case design (aluminum/super quiet) with the mac. Nor does it reflect the Unix based OS that you get with the Mac.

Right, big tech companies obviously avoid Linux -- say big tech companies like:

• IBM
• SAP
• HP
• Oracle
• Dell
• Intel
• AMD
• Sun

Or which big technology companies were you referrring to exactly? Sure, it was a troll, but hey -- who isn't supporting Linux that doesn't make a competing OS? I mean, heck Sun, HP and IBM do make competing OSes and they've all jumped on the Linux bandwaggon.

What about the Dell Digital Audio Reciever I bought years ago? They forgot that product like bad date. Now I'm stuck with a product that has buttons on the remote for features they never delivered!

I think I'll get my next DAR from someone who will support the product. Sure, the product is nicely made, and the open source community has rallied behind it, but it would be nice if the company that made it would at least deliver the things they promised about it. now they want us to buy into another one?

-Tom

There's a picture of the new music player, together with the bundled speakers here. Very nice styling :) Looks like they've combined Apple's iPod with Apple's G5 PowerMac in design terms.

Both.