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Customer: Dell Denies Speaker Repair Under Warranty, Blames VLC
An anonymous reader writes "VLC is incapable of increasing the actual power past 100%, all that is being done is the waveform is being modified to be louder within the allowed constraints. But, that didn't stop Dell from denying warranty service for speaker damage if the popular VLC Media Player is installed on a Dell laptop. Also we got a report that service was denied because KMPlayer was installed on a laptop. The warranty remains valid on the other parts of the laptop. VLC player developer [Jean-Baptiste Kempf] denied the issue with VLC and further claimed that the player cannot be used to damage speakers. How can I convince Dell to replace my laptop speaker which is still in warranty? Or class action is only my option?"
Grasshopper ALWAYS wrong, in argument with chicken.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Find some way to ruin the whole unit in a way that doesn't void the warranty. Start a process that uses lots of power so your chips are working hard, and wrap it up in a hot blanket. Or something along those lines.
IANAL, but your first path for court action is small claims, not a class action.
Any decent hardware engineer would not put out electronics for mass production that can be destroyed by software. Hopefully an EE from Levono or HP will reverse engineer the circuit and determine if the is bad engineering and put all of the information on the web. This may be the only way to get Dell to put out quality (or at least not defective) products into the marketplace.
So to keep,a long story short, I had to sue Dell over a overheating Alienware M11x GAMING notebook.
I had a friendly but non helpful support case with Dell and a short also friendly but also non helpful discussion afterwards. Then I sued.
I won.
Option The First:
1. Buy Dell Laptop
2. Do first-use OS initialization, power down, remove HDD, store away in a safe place
3. Add new harddrive, install OS of choice
4. If at any time you have warranty service needs, swap original HDD back in
Option The Second:
1. Don't buy Dell
.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
I had a problem with a dell computer in the past, and I would never get any other never again
1) for class action you would need other people who had the same problem.
2) Go see a lawyer and bring the warranty service contract. You can take them to small claims court and possibly get a judgement simply because they aren't likely to show. Just keep track of your lawyer's billing rates, and the filing fees for small claims because you're going to need that info when comparing your time, effort and money against option #4 I list below.
3) Build a time machine and then go back in time and tell yourself to return the laptop for warranty service, and when they ask what's wrong, say "the speaker quit working, I have no idea why"
4) Or the real thing you can do hit a pillow and get the anger out. Then grumble about Dell to your friends and let them pat you on the shoulder. Then buy a pair of external speakers that aren't shitty, and don't stop worrying about small potatoes. Really man, it sucks to get screwed on a fine line of a warranty issue.. we've all been there. Let it go.
so i was watching INCEPTION with all that awesome sounds when movie started, i had no headphones, and guess what on speaker was blown out. Called dell, guy came to office replace the speaker.
I'm not sure what makes them not to do so in your case.
*unless you are using a Dell(TM)-branded speaker
I don't know what VLC player is, but any laptop that allows its speakers to be damage by software has a design flaw. Why is it that companies will try their damnedest to screw their customers over until publicly shamed with a bad-pr article like this?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Enough said.
It's their product and no proof you victimized it, unless using it at all isn't allowed. Escalate (with more noise) up the food chain, try another dealer, etc. until they realize keeping a customer happy is more valuable than a 22.1 cent speaker and the time to swap it/them out would ever be.
That's the beauty of a digital signal: You simply can't put in a stronger signal than the bits allow. Yes, a "clipped" signal has high energy harmonics, but the same harmonics could be encoded right in the audio source signal without additional player amplification. For example, using mp3gain to set a high gain on any MP3 file will cause the decoder to happily produce a clipped time domain signal. Even Windows Media Player will play it clipped. Designing an audio system such that it can't handle any signal you could put in a WAV file is just idiotic. Such penny-pinching certainly isn't the user's fault and would not void legally mandated warranties. Dell can of course exclude anything they like from a voluntary warranty, if they make it clear upfront what is excluded.
Call a lawyer. That is all. Do not post another word. Do not speak publicly about it. Just pick up your phone, take your attorney's card out of your wallet, and dial the number.
..it uses Windows system calls which then call the sound driver
If the damage was caused by software, it's clearly the fault of the driver
VLC is too far up the stack to cause anything abnormal
Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.[7] This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions,[8] and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
First of all, they mention VLC only because it happens to have a volume-clipping feature. There's nothing "destroying" about VLC per se, and Dell acknowledges this. Secondly, by booming your speakers with high volume and high-energy audio signal is just asking for trouble. I'm sure that many small tweeters would be damaged by that. You can always find corner cases like this from hardware. Task all CPU cores and all GPU shader units at the same time and many laptops will overheat.
I call this bullcrap. All music nowadays is already compressed to death. The waveforms in the article suggest that tunes normally only reach the maximum value every once in a while. This is simply not the case with modern production. All music is compressed against 0 dB. If that would be problem than playing a regular cd would fry your speakers. The only thing that VLC allows you to do, is clip the audio tracks accompanying films, which are usually not as heavily compressed and may at time even be heard to hear over computer speakers.
Send your laptop for repair without the hard drives.
You can damage speakers by putting too much sound through them. I do not know why there are not more safeguards, but this happens (at least for normal stereo system speakers).
So any program that allows you to increase the original file volume would only help you do this. Based on what I have seen with the quality of dell laptops, it probably is possible to break the speakers by pumping too much noise out of them, and using VLC to up the file volume could help you do this.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Do you realize that the "fuck beta" comments are already much more annoying than the actual beta?
Fuck "fuck beta" comments.
So is it be possible to record VLC output and play it back with, say, windows media player?
Unless some players have filters for low frequency square wave or direct current component, they would play it like VLC.
Some sound card drivers could have this kind of filter. and Linux + VLC probably do not.
So Dell might have some point in this. Reason for this kind of design would be money. (surprise!)
It would be expensive to use components that can always handle the worst case for long times.
Facebook if you must. Then send them the link.
The correct answer is: why the hell did you buy a Dell, you idiot? Buy a real laptop! The best 5 with the lowest defects are Asus, MSI, Toshiba, Samsung, Sony and they also have the highest rated support quality.
Playing the devil's advocate here, but most audio waveforms look like sine-waves (so to speak). Converting the waveform to a square-wave (what VLC's clipping does when you push the volume above 100%) puts a prolonged stress on the speakers even if you don't increase max output, which most speakers can't withstand. And the VLC dudes have helpfully mapped the volume controls to the scroll wheel, so you 'll probably push the volune above 100% accidentally. Thhe ability to push volume above 100% should be disabled by default IMO. Anyway, if your Dell fries speakers but can stilk boot, uninstall VLC and KM Player.
You don't speak for this old timer. Stop bloody ruining every thread with your immature anti-beta posts.
Beta is not ruining my time on Slashdot, YOU ARE!
Send your feedback via the email they they have provided and leave it at that. If they do not listen to your feedback, then feel free to vote with your feet, but stop ruining the site for everybody else.
ps. Why hide behind anonymity?
Are you driving the audio past 100% ever? If you are, you are only distorting the signal before it hits the power amplifier. The more distortion that hits the voice coil and the spider, the more likely it is to be damaged by driving the amp and speaker hard. Class D amps should not be driven beyond 50% either as it only adds more and more distortion to the waveform produced at the speaker. Plug in an external for movie watching. If you are driving the amp at 100% and VLC volume at 200%, I wouldn't warrant you either. That's negligence. Good luck.
If dell's speakers are damaged by playing clipped audio, couldn't the same damage be caused by playing a poorly-mastered CD?
eg: http://mastering-media.blogspo...
Life's so unfair, boohoo. Idiot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Ask Dell what the cost of the repairs are then fill in small claims court for that amount.
Some other things you might do are:
1. Complain to BBB
2. Talk to your credit card company you have have additional warranty service under them.
3. Email CEO. michael@dell.com & link to Slashdot story
4. Nuke option. Have Slashdot email CEO michael@dell.com
(Would we crash their email server?)
1- Why would you want to drive your laptop speakers that hard?
2- Reading the explanation of what VLC player is doing on the linked forum, why would someone want to listen to boosted, clipped audio?
- I know it's fun to bash Dell as the bad guy, but VLC is basically hacking the audio playback to get much higher average amplitude. So Dell's options are to -
a) Over-engineer the speakers to be able to handle higher output than the system would be able to deliver in normal circumstances so it can handle VLC. This would of course increase cost.
b) Artificially limit the volume in normal conditions so the speakers can handle the boosted/clipped output. This would decrease normal volume.
c) Have some sort of VLC (or similar) blocking logic in the firmware or driver. In which case Slashdotters would be up in arms at Dell blocking functionality of some poor third party player.
You would think that cinema speakers (those big honkin' speakers that sit behind the screen at the movie theatre - mine are about about six feet tall but there are many larger than that) would be impervious to damage but some movies occasionally overdrive the speakers to a point that the drivers are damaged. The most recent one that I'm aware of is Paranormal Activity 2: The Marked Ones, where there was 7 seconds of high pitched buzzing on reel 4 that could destroy the speakers.
Here is an email from Paramount that describes the problem:
QUOTE:
Dear Projectionist,
Paramount has had reports of speaker damage from some theatres playing PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES. In several cases we have been able to research, the volume had been turned up to high levels at patronsâ(TM) requests.
We are currently working to get information on speaker/amplifier brand and model to see if any particular combination of hardware might be more susceptible to damage. At this time, most of the damaged speakers have been identified as JBL model 4632â(TM)s, but this is preliminary data.
We are also working on an audio patch which may lessen the potential for damage.
For the time being, please do not set your volume at a high level on this film.
Thank you for your cooperation.
END OF QUOTE
Technicolor sent out a new soundtrack for that movie without the 7 seconds of buzzing and as far as I know that solved the problem.
The point here is that even high-end cinema audio systems can be damaged by a poorly engineered soundtrack, so I'm not surprised to find that the speakers in a cheap laptop could be damaged the same way.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
C'mon, everybody knows that VLC is one louder than the rest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sRhuh8Aphc
Sorry for the Offtopic comment, but I thought I'd put this out there just before the anti-Beta boycott officially starts:
Whoever posts stories, comments, moderates or meta-moderates the coming week using the classic Slashdot interface is a hypocrite.
If you like the Beta or couldn't care less about it, then you should use it actively and prove by your participation that you accept it. I think we can be democratic about it and let the community choose. If the comment sections of the articles look alive and well by next Monday, this will mean that the community chose Beta. If AC comments are listening to the crickets, this will mean that the comments are by passer-bys and the actual community chose Classic.
Dixi.
1. Email CEO of Dell, Michael Dell (Michael@dell.com) with your problems with customer service. Link to Slashdot articles
2. Have Slashdot email CEO, crash email server?
* Mention beta to get troll comments and/or everyone's attention
I always include a $20.00 and a note when I send a laptop in for repair. In the note I explain exactly what I'd like done. Always works with Lenovo.
fnord.
...kills woofers.
Not enough amplifier kills tweeters, because clipping produces high-frequency (as in higher than you can hear) square waves and the tweeters cannot respond to that high a frequency and so the energy is turned into heat instead of air movement and it burns out their voice coils.
Maybe that's what Dell is trying to say happened here.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Yep FUCK BETA!!!
Didn't know how to give my opinion...
Oh by the way, just we are not against it because it's new, and we don't like change. We just don't like ugly change.
Same with windows 8, people don't hate it, because it's different. People hate it because it's terrible to use, and looks ugly too...
I want something new, that's easier to use, faster, or more features, or looks better... Not change for change....
"The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and..." -This is Spinal Tap
After 30 years, the debate rages on - is '11' any louder than 10?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
If I were a lawyer I'd provide you with legal advice. And charge you for it of course.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
In case Dell used speakers that are not rated even for their motherboard amplifier - it is trivial to detect audio clipping that VLC cause, just a plain resistor and current sensing circuit, or a comparator on output circuit and it will be easy to shut it, before speaker got damaged.
In car industry it will be a recall and faulty items will be replaced by modified ones, with "bugfix".
But it is very known - freaks like HP and Dell prefer to charge customers for each sneeze, and as soon as you paid and took your product - you are on your own. No bugfixes, no support, no improvements.
I had a user whose laptop was replaced by Dell under warranty, except that they sent him back a 17" monstrosity rather than the 13" machine he had at the time. They wouldn't budget on giving him something smaller. After filing a small claims court case, they reimbursed him for the price of his original laptop and I think told him to keep the new one, too. He was happy after that.
Another friend had a HTC One phone whose screen popped and shattered while he was browsing twitter. HTC refused the replacement despite being a month old, claiming he dropped it. After filing a Better Business Bureau complaint, they replaced it under warranty.
Either way, something like that will get someone's eye and hopefully the original poster will be happy. The bigger problem is that this is a thing Dell will break a warranty over, which is ridiculous.
Steps to take before court.
Step 1, Go back and ask for their denial to fix a simple problem under warranty in writing and signed by their manager. (you must get it in writing otherwise their story will keep changing and make sure it says why they denied the repair.
Step 2, Go to an independent computer tech and get a quote (ideally get 3 quotes) in Writing (this is important) Also ask nicely if they would put in writing that and software you have on your machine cant damage the speaker (say your fighting dell, most tech's hate them for their shoddy hardware and customer abuse)
Step 3, File for a small claim using the Documents you just got as evidence, also make sure you only claim for the lowest repair (from the quotes you got) and any associated costs (if the quotes cost you something) Don't ask for damages or emotional distress payments the judge will award you these if he feels its necessary but they hate when people take a small claim and ask for massive reparations to be paid.
I know very little about audio, but a cursory search turned this up from Wikipedia:
"Because the clipped waveform has more area underneath it than the smaller unclipped waveform, the amplifier produces more power than its rated (sine wave) output when it is clipping. This extra power can damage any part of the loudspeaker, including the woofer, or the tweeter, by causing over-excursion, or by overheating the voice coil. It may cause damage to the amplifier's power supply or simply blow a fuse."
The digital signal obviously has to be converted to analog at some point, so I believe this is what Dell is talking about.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
It's possible that they lurked for a l-o-o-o-ng time before signing up for an account (apparently about a year ago or a little less, judging by comment dates) and that's why their UID is so high.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
What you want is a "viral facebook outrage" class action. Go for it.
The reason I'm going to leave /. is the fuck beta comments, not the beta itself.
This is almost as bad as the reddit /r/atheism crap from a while ago.
Anything VLC or any other media player outputs can be put in a WAV file which produces the exact same output when played with Windows Media Player. You can put a full amplitude low frequency square wave into a media file and that is much like a worst-case clipped signal. It is still a valid WAV file though, and some music styles use square waves all the time. Another example of a "demanding" signal is the output of 80s era computer synths. Play a SID file, look at the waveform and weep, Dell.
Or, like me, lost access to their first id. (I no longer have access to the original email account and I had forgotten the password)
Seriously.
The people who advocate small claims are half right. In many states, you have to send a demand letter before you can do that anyway.
Some idiots will say to email the CEO, but if you're lucky, that will just get down to the lawyer, and the lawyer will already be miffed because you've piled more work on him from above. Better to go straight to the lawyer.
I have had several successes, some quite large, and no failures, with the following strategy:
1) Try sincerely to resolve it through normal channels, as you apparently have.
2) Document how that didn't work. If you don't have good documentation, do (1) again.
3) Find the attorney or registered agent's email address. I have never had a problem doing this, but I'm pretty good at the google-fu. Good starting points for names are corporate bios, 10K filings at the SEC, and the Secretary of State's office (which might require a phone call). Since Dell is in Texas, they are required to have a registered agent with the Texas Secretary of state. I live in Texas, and I got Fry's registered agent's name from the Texas Secretary of State when I had an issue with them.
4) Send the attorney an email POLITELY explaining exactly what happened, and what needs to happen to make you a happy camper. Give them two deadlines. The first one should be about two weeks out to let the legal department research the problem on their end. The second one, at the end of the email, goes something like this:
"Please acknowledge receipt of this email within three days to save me the time and expense of sending a registered letter."
A registered letter is exactly what you need to do, in most cases, to put them on notice before you file in small claims. So this sentence puts them on notice that you are preparing to legally put them on notice, and since your speaker repair is way cheaper than dealing with you in court (you're not claiming the bad speaker damaged your hearing, or lost you business when the presentation went awry, are you?), they should be more than happy to do that.
One purpose of the letter that cannot be stressed enough is that you are not arguing with the lawyer. You are essentially presenting the same case that you would present in court. Your letter should be polite, without speling or grandmar erors, and compelling. Do not attempt lawyerese, because that is not required or even encouraged in small claims court. Just write it in plain English. You are not arguing with the lawyer, but you are showing him that you will present yourself well in court, and after expending time and money to defend, he will stand a good chance of losing.
Yep FUCK BETA!!!
Didn't know how to give my opinion...
Oh by the way, just we are not against it because it's new, and we don't like change. We just don't like ugly change. Same with windows 8, people don't hate it, because it's different. People hate it because it's terrible to use, and looks ugly too...
I want something new, that's easier to use, faster, or more features, or looks better... Not change for change....
That might be so, but as someone who has been here almost since the beginning -- Slashdot community has always had a vocal negative reaction to change. I remember people here debating how stupid a thing mobile phones were, if they needed to call anyone they could use their landline, no need to change that. And when XP came we really hated it, the new UI and more, but 10 years later it is what many like to stick with. There are tons of examples like this. I think it might partly be that geeks invest more than others in how things are, so resist change.
this is why a buy a asus rog. these things can run at full load and not overheat but i have seen plenty of knockoff gaming laptops overheat. also how long has it been sense you cleaned the thing. dust buildup on the heat sync and fans is murder for a laptops thermal control.
Buy a new laptop crossing this of the list. Who am I kidding Now you know why Dell was already off my list.
The list of reasons not to buy a Dell is long the universe can not even hold it.
well then. If you don't like slashdot anymore, then please join us, currently at http://soylentnews.org/ (which will be up in few hours). Tomorrow we will start collecting suggestions for a new name for altslashdot. People will have one week to submit suggestions for a new name. Then we will have voting. If you are really an old timer, then you would know Bruce Perens. He is very excited to be working with us.
One option is what you did here on /. . . . but in a planned campaign that includes getting the VLC org on your side.
Another is civil (small claims) court. No lawyer necessary and guaranteed to cost Dell more than you if they fight it. You are very likely to get a judgement on your side if Dell doesn't send a representative. You can have oodles of fun serving the judgement on Dell. I have gone to civil court twice and both times the judge was very good.
In Alberta: http://www.albertacourts.ab.ca...
A bit of a windmill tilt since after all is said and done you could easily replace the speakers yourself for much less.
Your local state/provincial/federal government is bound to have a consumer affairs section which has an interest in making sure businesses treat consumers fairly. You could look into that.
Finally, go around the service desk if you can. See if you can make contact with someone other than a scripted service droid.
I had an HP inkjet that would not pick up paper no matter what I did. I had several trouble calls in with them while it was under warranty but nothing helped so I tossed the offender into the closet and got on with my life. About a year later (outside of the warranty) I happened to read online about a service kit from HP that would cure the problem. Free under warranty. Called HP up and you know they said too bad, so sad, your warranty has expired. They would sell the kit for $40 bucks plus shipping. Half the cost of the printer. I protested about my trouble calls and they said the tickets were no longer in the system.
On the off chance, I sent an email explaining my situation to the HP CEO as firstname.lastname@hp.com. Expecting nothing, I was floored when the next day I received a response from HP apologizing for the situation and that a kit plus a set of ink cartridges were being shipped to me.
I am sure that the email did not go to the CEO of the time (uh, about 8 yrs ago so ...) but someone read the mail and dealt with it.
Nice, but I wasted at least 40 hours on the issue. Wayyyyyyyyyyy more value than the printer. I shudda just thrown the darn thing out at the first sign of trouble.
How upset are you? How much are you prepared to put into it.
Have fun.
How about me? :)
Sorry, but the BBB will not help you. It's a front controlled by the businesses that they pretend to police.
Citations needed.
Here's how it works. Call the BBB & all those guys, even tell Dell beforehand if you want to, just don't say anything stupid. Once all that happens, you can clearly say you've explored all avenues EXCEPT for a court appearance. THeir lawyers will either settle with you or bring you in but all you gotta do is point out a few technical concepts for the courtrom, maybe include a few Simple Wikipedia printouts, & you'll win hands down. It would help to have someone in IT act as a professional witness. If the laptop was under $500, take them to small claim court.
(Would we crash their email server?)
Not after the beta
We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
That may very well be the case (it is), but it doesn't change the fact that Dell had a responsibility to ensure that its speakers aren't capable of producing a sound that would cause them to damage themselves. Dell should have simply dialed back the amplifier, such that ANY signal produced by the computer would be below the rated maximum. Given that Dell has full control over the amount of power being used to drive the speakers, they have no excuse for throwing too much at them.
I love VLC and use it all the time. But I've needed to use it with the volume up to 100% let alone 200%. The fact that Dell could void a warranty just because of an installed software (even though that software is not the cause of the problem) is reason enough for me to avoid purchasing anything from them.
You're missing something important here.
Lets say a recording has volume numbers 01210.
Amplifying (doubling) that would give you 02420.
If the maximum hardware volume is 2 then the software clips it to 02220. (The 4 gets reduced to 2.)
The important point here is that a music file could have had 02220 in the first place!
Most music files won't have 02220 because it sounds like crap. But a music file can have 02220, and there do exist music files that have 02220.
So this has absolutely nothing to do with the software - the issue is that the Dell speakers get damaged if you play certain sound files! A sound system that damages itself when you play certain music files is clearly defective hardware. The only way that the software is involved is that it makes "common" music files look like those "rare" types of music files which trigger the hardware problem.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
VLC doesn't compress output when you increase gain and setting the volume in VLC above 100% is increasing gain. Increasing gain introduces clipping. Clipping starts hitting an amplifiers peak wattage (vs rated) and peak wattage will damage speakers. Paraphrasing the developer, it's embiggening the waveform which can easily destroy hardware.
Turn up some music in VLC above 100% and you'll start getting crackling and awful digital distortion. That clipping pushed out through any speakers (let alone tiny laptop speakers) will start damaging sooner or later.
me too!
You don't speak for this old timer. Stop bloody ruining every thread with your immature anti-beta posts.
Your low user ID doesn't mean shit to me or anyone else with a brain, so
take that pretentious bullshit to someone who might care, like maybe your mother.
Beta sucks, the MAJORITY HAVE SPOKEN.
If you don't like the protests, tough shit, you can leave.
I wonder if the same thing happens with blown speaker and Dell finds your stash of Polka music .mp3 on the HDD.
Dell will deny all claims because that speakers and ears are not designed for that kind of music.
Or us that never sign up for things we don't have to since we understand the issues with technology and identity. News for nerds apparently.
First they ignore you...
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Do you realize that the "fuck beta" comments are already much more annoying than the actual beta?
Fuck "fuck beta" comments.
How should people voice their displeasure with the potential death of Slashdot?
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
That sums up my situation. UID is a rough guide, not an absolute measure.
There are magic words that you can use when dealing with vendors and service providers who are unhelpful.
One of them is "lawyer". However, like all magic, there are certain rules to the ritual to make it work well. In this case, it's not black candles and a goat, but the word being in the letterhead on the official letter paper of an actual lawyer.
An actual letter from an actual lawyer not to the customer service but to the legal department will get a dramatically different treatment. So have your friend or neighbour who happens to be a lawyer write one as a favour in exchange for you having fixed his WiFi last month or whatever.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
How should people voice their displeasure with the potential death of Slashdot?
They have voiced it already and the engineer team is working on the fixes. Let's be fair and give them some time now. If there is still something to say, do it in the Slashdot Blog or send e-mail to feedback@slashdot.org with the subject "beta_feedback". Littering the article comments with "fuck beta" is not going to help.
Contact your countries consumer protection agencies.
My Dell's hard drive crashed after a few days or weeks so I posted my experience on my web site, and here. Some second level guy read about it and sent me an external drive as a token. Ultimately I was sufficiently mollified by this that I even bought another Dell a few years later -- Inspiron 530 Q6600 -- still using it. Looks like XP is going to outlast /.
I come here for the love
Sounding like crap has never stopped record companies before. It's the loudness war.
Thus, there's little VLC can do as the signal is already compressed up the wazoo.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
you could've brought to the Apple Store and walked out with a new one same day.
I agree that the F.B. information warfare[1] campaign here has been juvenile. But an on topic instance of the decreased beta features is this- I recently made this comment, which the pre-beta interface allows me to direct link[2] to for convenience-
" ...
> Overloading a system by running it as hard as
Not that I'm accusing Lennart Poettering of cyberwarfare, but a highly relevant anecdote is that when pulseaudio was first thrust upon me in fedora, I and many(?) others discovered that it was only software that was preventing our PC's audio out from being overdriven to the point of health and property risk. I discovered this as my volume, due to bug, instantaneously jumped to 400% as I had my sony earbuds in listening to music. The result was excruciating ear pain for the duration of time (about half a second) it took my body to react and rip the earbuds out of my ears. I wonder (not enough to experiment) what would have happened if my speakers had been connected. It would have certainly taken me more than half a second to cause things to stop, and I'm guessing permanent damange to my speakers may have occurred.
Of course, I'm not sure how expensive it would have been for sony to have put a safety in the earbuds. Still, quite the educational experience that was precisely illustrative of what you described, but in a more personal non-industrial sort of way.
"
[1] http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3156485&cid=41530745
[2] http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4741383&cid=46132559
[3] http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4766259&cid=46193879
Yes. The anti-beta nimrods can not leave soon enough. I like beta. I wish I had mod points. Mod ernest up please. The signal/noise ratio will drop and the IQ is bound to go up after the tard's leave.
JH
I've had 100% success with companies trying to stiff me by writing to the BBB and the Attorney General of the state the company was incorporated in.
Sometimes the letters back in response to the Attorney General are really funny. Basically they are bowing and scraping. Tinged with a definite aura of fear of God.
It's easy too. Most states have web sites for consumer complaints you can submit the the AG's office.
It works. Try it.
Fuck beta
Ignore everything you just read on wikipedia, what you quoted isn't just wrong, it's 180 degrees wrong. A gently-ramped up signal that sits at the maximum value forever and a day and then gently ramps down has the *maximum area possible* under it, and yet is one of the safest waveforms to play to a driver.
Boycott Dell. Boycott slashdot. 23:23 here - I'm outahere, no other stories look interesting.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Simple solution, stop browsing at -1 and you won't have to see the "Fuck Beta" comments.
And then we won't have to see your "fuck 'fuck beta'" comments.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I don't recall very many people who hated XP. There was a rather small cadre who were very loyal to W2K, but few even of those hated XP. Like your brother AC says, "Citations needed."
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Which is why a designer shouldn't assume the amplifier is going to just produce a sine wave.
The only businesses that advertise great bbb ratings are sketchy ones with skeletons to hide. I avoid any business that advertises their bbb rating.
Let's not forget: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://rt.com/usa/dell-appelbaum-30c3-apology-027/&sa=U&ei=bPf3UvX9D4byyAGiwIGICg&ved=0CA0QFjAB&sig2=RZcN_Ck62PU5g-Th6XudNg&usg=AFQjCNFOQd_iGo4h3DvFScq45cv_5iAChw
No mod points, but agree with you 100%.
Cant really read the posts anymore as they are just full of immature "f-beta" posts.
Most are AC's so you can just set the filter to +1 and get rid of most of them.
They probably know they are ruining the site, but dont care as their big "win" will be that their feedback is incorporated regardless of the inconvenience they caused everyone else.
Then they set a filter to get rid of most of you?
Seriously, posting anti-beta threads on EVERY post is just annoying everyone else. I would guess that they have read your immature posts already?
Just make sure that VLC doesn't set the output to "11". That will defintely blow the speaker.
BTW: Fuck the Beta. Boycott begins at 00:00 Hours UTC Feb. 10th, Lasts for exactly 1 week. Starts 2 hours from NOW.
Fuck the Beta!
Fuck the BETa!
Fuck the BETA!
A high quality sound system should be able to filter out such harmonics.
A very well designed sound system should be able to take any possible wave form, and play it without destroying anything in the process.
It's possible to filter out unwanted harmonics, etc.
The problem? Such a system would cost a few more bucks and laptop manufacturers are racing to the bottom for prices.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If you increase VLC's gain too high, it will begin to clip the audio signal (just like anything else would). Speakers do not like clipping. While VLC's volume control makes it easier to distort audio files than, say, Windows Media Player, Dell really should have some hardware protection in place. In this case, it sounds like the speakers were under-spec'ed with respect to the audio amp. Sounds like a design flaw to me!
I've been a user since 1996-1997. Fuck Beta. The most obvious thing is they don't seem to give a shit about our feelings. I'm sorry you are getting annoyed, but it won't be long before we won't have to worry about anything in the comments, because there won't be any comments any more. It's like sitting with a dying relative. You see death coming, but there really isn't anything that is going to stop it. Sucks, but Fuck Beta.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
That might be so, but as someone who has been here almost since the beginning -- Slashdot community has always had a vocal negative reaction to change.
That's probably because so many here have seen so many projects destroyed or greatly damaged by change for change's sake, seeing so many applications inflicted with the "let's just change" meme and end up being far less usable than the previous version. Gnome 3, Windows 8, almost any version of MS office after 2003. Now we get Slashdot Beta, which has no advantages and many many critical disadvantages over the current Slashdot system.
Others have pointed out the "when XP came we really hated it" as being false. Sure, a few people might have said "man, I just want to stick with ME," but most people, Slashdotters included, saw it as a great improvement. Same with the transition from Vista to 7. Same with the mobile phones -- that wasn't greatly panned either.
If they are claiming that software can modify a basic physical property like the power output of an amplifier, then simply go into your screen settings, put them manual and select a larger screen than you actually have. When the laptop's monitor fails to stretch before your eyes, return the whole thing as being defective.
Mostly random stuff.
They have voiced it already and the engineer team is working on the fixes.
It needs a lot more than fixes. At the moment there's nothing worth salvaging from the current beta, as point for point it's inferior to the current site. I'm willing to give them more time and see what they come up, but at the moment there's no reason to think it's going to get appreciably better, just as none of the major problems have been fixed since the beta's unveiling several months ago. Most of the people who hate the beta just want the site to be left alone, since they can see it only going downhill.
When I was having issues with my Alienware and their support stopped being helpful, I contacted the Better Business Bureau and the Florida Attorney General's Office (where Alienware was based at the time, not sure if they'd been fully acquired by Dell at the time). Soon thereafter I received a call to arrange for a 'please don't sue us' replacement laptop that worked fine for years after.
If I wanted a/an mediocre spec.'d, over-priced, walled garden, ugly toy, then yes, I would get an Apple PC.(or any smart phone/tablet)
Some of us actually have work to do, so we don't bother with Apple PC's.
And before all of you Mac fanboys jump in here, I have used Apple computers before.(NOT by choice) I have made my choice, and nothing I have seen or heard lately contradicts my decision.
I did however advised Mom to get one, and my 'tech support' to her has dwindled to almost nothing, but it is not the answer for everyone.
They(Apple) may have good customer service/support, but that's only valuable to a customer if the device is suited to the intended use of said device. If not, then the best support/service in the universe will not fix the problem for the customer.
I'm glad you are happy with your Mac(as with Mom), but it is NOT a 'one size fits all' solution to every problem.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I believe all the FB comments are coming from one poster... and it is none other than Mark Zuckerberg. Who else stands to benefit from the beta-induced exodus of users from slashdot to Facebook?
So you're saying fuck Fuck Beta? You know, that's pretty meta.
Yo dawg...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I remember lots of hate towards the "fisher price" themed interface and lots of hatred towards XP phoning home to be validated with many people planning on sticking with 2K.
Perhaps it is just confirmation bias with those hating XP noticing agreeing posts and those thinking of it as a step forward noticing posts that agreed with their viewpoint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
An ID close to a million doesn't make you an old timer. Thinking it does certainly makes you an idiot.
If you want to see who else is on it, you may go to: http://thewikiman.allsup.co/Do...
John_Chalisque
beta is no better now than it was before. The protests must continue. When entrenchment happens, both sides lose force. The side the loses less usually wins. Don't listen to anyone but your own inner voice when you're protesting. Continue.
You shouldn't have turned it up to 11!
This is a problem with VLC. I often hear from people who tell me their music is sounding distorted, with them blaming their speakers or the source content.
In nearly every case the culprit is rapidly found to be the rainbow volume slider in VLC set to above 100%, and the music undergoind severe clipping as a result.
Now over-driving beyond 100% is actually a useful feature for some particularly quiet source content, so props to VLC devs for having that option, but for goodness sake it should not be a seamless part of the Volume control!
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
And nothing of value was lost. Bye.
Said the infant to the adult.
I'm looking forward to the boycott so I can enjoy Slashdot without having to swim through whiny comments for a week.
That's why anyone with actual balls is boycotting Slashdot from Feb 10-17.
Indeed. It must take tremendous courage to stay away from a web site. I mean, while the rest of us are held here against our will, oppressed, downfallen, the truly brave and courageous have the intestinal fortitude to stay away.
So if I go to the new site and everything isn't set up just the way I want it, then I can shitstorm the entire site endlessly until I get my way? I'm just asking because I want to know the ground rules going in.
You're the dumb fuck who bought a Dell POS.
The 16-bit Windows -- 3.x, 95, 98, and ME -- allow DOS style direct hardware access for things like sound and serial hardware. The Windows NT derivatives including NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, and 8 do not allow application program access to hardware at all due to the underlying security model.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
reddit is what I wished slashdot would have been in 1998-99.
The threading model in beta is a fucking joke. Digg did a better job and look at where they're at forcing horrible changes on their users.
For example, I've got to wait 3 minutes before posting again. Laughable. I've long since forgotten my old username (why bother). When they did the re-uid (you remember that right?) I had a 4 digit one (which I thought was high for the time, you know, street cred).
Maybe I'm missing something but isn't the entire point of the fuckbeta campaign to ruin the experience of coming here, to demonstrate to the idiots in charge of Slashdot that their website is worthless without our cooperative participation and contributions? By doing your best to quell our political dissent it could be said that it is you who are collaborating with Dice to flush our mutually favorite website down the toilet of corporate mediocrity.
The one last desperate chance we have to save this site (such as it is) is to destroy it, at least temporarily. I apologize for inconveniencing you during our brief struggle with corporate greed/stupidity.
And no, I will not hide behind anonymity.
Hopefully it's going to get real quiet in here in about twelve hours and you and your fellow collaborators can feel free to get together and blow smoke up each other's butts and pretend nothing is wrong in the resulting echo chamber.
Fuck beta, and boycott Slashdot Feb. 10th to 17th.
New campaign. Fuck ernest.cunningham.
Dell went private with a lot of help from Microsoft ($2G). Perhaps this all comes down to an anti-OSS policy mandate.
A SItE FOR ThE VISUaLLY IMpAIREd? I WEAR GLAssES, SO THIS IS HELpFUl.
i don't know why you got modded insightful. your comment is just as off topic as the beta busters, except you got modded + 5, so i started to read it.
Thanks for wasting my time while whining like a old man. Did it ever occur to you that beta man is trying to help you? Just like Obama. you don't see obama using the beta. you can't have it both ways.
So I guess the moral of this story is to uninstall any non-Windows-Media-Player sound applications before sending laptops in for warranty work.
BUCK FATE.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Want to know what my user ID thinks is pretentious? A bunch of obnoxious rabble coming along after some bloody years, presuming to tell me what my Slashdot experience should be like, and inviting me to sod off if I don't like their circle-jerking group troll.
BUCK FATE.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The boycott is supposed to have started already.
And that's why you use a bandpass audio filter to reject infra and ultrasound and then select a speaker with adequate margin.
This site used to be great. Even in it's latter days, it's been good. That is poised to change. Before long, it will be mediocre, and ordinary.
I didn't see a problem when Dice Holdings initially bought Slashdot. I figured there would be efforts to drive nerd traffic towards their job listings and such. That was fine. We all need jobs.
Things have changed now. Beyond the shifts in story choices, the slashvertisements, and so on, something fundamental has changed: Slashdot's owners do not appreciate it.
Their recent financials show that they have written its value as an asset down to zero. They have legally claimed it to be worthless. That is at the root of what is happening now. They want to fundamentally change the nature of this site in order to remake it into something with big growth potential.
Beta is just the latest symptom of this disease. It will not be the last. In striving to make it into a site that will bring them a growing user base and growing revenue per user, they have shown a willingness to dumb down the interface in the name of making it more accessible to newcomers, to cast aside essential elements of decade-spanning community culture, and to plow ahead with changes in the face of overwhelmingly negative user feedback.
This is not going to change. This will not go away. I will not support it.
I will be gone for this entire week, in protest. While away, I will work to create a new community where things can be run with quality user discussions as the paramount objective.
Be seeing you.
That's the question.
Dell is clearly making up magic bullshit. I've seen software replace ttl logic chips, but software can't make hardware do things that the hardware is incapable of doing. Example: can my software increase the speed of my computers cooling fans so that they act like a vacuum cleaner? No. There is a physical limitation. Software can 'ask' hardware to do things beyond its limits, but the physical limits "Physics" gets in the way. Its like a boss who asks you to do 200 hours worth of work in the next half hour. Ask away, we will try to accommodate, but in reality you get about 30 minutes worth of work done in a half hour. When I was in university, I told my house mates that in order to save time, instead of cooking chicken at 350 for an hour, you could cook the chicken at 3500 for 6 minutes, or 7000 for 3 minutes. I could 'ask' the oven for 7000, but it won't go past broil (600), and at that temperature, you scorch the outside and the inside is raw, and it doesn't work. Asking a speaker for 500% is like asking a football player for 110%. You can ask, but that damn reality keeps getting in the way. Oh, and Dell are cheap bastards. Sue em.
That's a little bit short-sighted.
Without knowing the nature of the failure, it's impossible to say what the problem actually is. Were the loudspeakers destroyed through mechanical stress or thermal stress?
Limiting the power output of an amplifier for the purpose of preventing loudspeaker damage is not a trivial thing to do.
In terms of damage, loudspeakers don't care (within reason and obvious mechanical limits) about instantaneous power. They care about long-term heating.
If you just clip the signal, you generate an approximation of a squarewave (which loudspeakers hate): This reduces peak power (which isn't normally a problem), and increases average power (which is always a problem), and reduces cooling, AND it sounds terrible (though some listeners seem to not care). Clipping, therefore, at any stage -- including within software (ala VLC), or even during the recording process -- is a problem.
If you add a simple limiter, you've got the same problems all over again, although with less harmonic distortion: Peak power goes down, but average power stays high. Voice coils cook.
If you add a complicated multiband limiter that understands heating, you might have a shot at solving it, but you're into real money in engineering dollars and DSP parts....over some $.50 laptop speakers.
That all said, companies have been selling and folks have been buying integrated audio systems for well over half a decade. If this is 1949 and I crank up my RCA tube set so I can listen to music in the garden and cook the loudspeaker, that's my fault -- not RCA's fault. The best I can hope is that RCA is willing to sell me a replacement speaker at a reasonable price.
Same with a 1980s Fisher "rack system," or a wall full of modern Krell and Martin Logan gear. Or any random boombox. And, I dare say, a laptop.
It is traditionally the job of the listener to ensure that an audio system is performing within its limitations, and not the job of the audio system to protect itself from the listener.
If I crank VLC up to 120 or 200% or whatever the maximum is, and it starts clipping samples and generating square waves, and I turn the other volume controls up so I can hear that distorted drone over the drone of my hot tub, and something breaks...gosh, I guess I'm going to say that it was my own fault for not hearing the plain and obvious distortion that was occurring, and you know, just turn things down. Just as with any other audio system, big or small.
Back to legal stuff: The Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act does not protect consumers from their own stupidity. If I drop my Jeep down a 4-foot embankment and break a front control arm, that's my own dumb fault -- it's certainly not the manufacturer's fault for failing to ensure that I would be unable to perform such maneuvers in MY Jeep (yes, emphasis: If I owned a Jeep, it would be MINE).
HOWEVER, what MMWA does do is ensure that if the manufacturer suspects that a failure is due to end-user modification, that the the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that this is the case. I can be rock-crawling in my Jeep with its trick aftermarket suspension, and if the engine dies from a broken pushrod, it's the manufacturer's responsibility to prove that it's either not a warranted fault OR that my modifications caused the pushrod to break.
Likewise, the onus is on Dell to prove that some software (such as VLC) caused the failure...or that the speakers aren't warranted to begin with due to signs of abuse. Dismissing a warranty claim out-of-hand because of the software installed on a computer, or the shocks on a Jeep (even IF it might be the case that the software did in fact cause the problem, as VLC might be capable of doing) is illegal in all 50 states.
Kid-proof tablet..
but what if you want a usable keyboard and mouse?
Apple keyboards are some of the best around.
You can use any USB mouse with a Mac, but the laptop trackpads actually work extremely well unlike any mouse replacement I have ever used on a PC laptop. They work so well, that along with my external keyboard I use an external trackpad with the mac. Gestures are way better than a scroll-wheel.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who uses laptop speakers anyways? If a nerd has an hourly wage of $30, and makes a 50 hours effort trying to force a corporation to honor a $50 warranty issue, assuming he wins out in the end, he is no the lucky owner of a $1500 3w speaker. Personally I've had a dell microphone fail. If i want to use skype, I just use a headset. The alternative would be several weeks of downtime, which is not an alternative at all. Not to belittle the OP, but if this is his biggest battle, I can already predict that he is not going to be a world changer.
Like calling folks idiots? Like this from you troll http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ??
Prove me wrong dumbass http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
It works, & gives folks what they want here (no beta site redirect foisted on them without asking, which is WHY I put it up... they did it to me 1 or 2 times, that beat it, & I gave folks what they wanted).
You're also FREE to *try* to disprove 17 points of FACT that use of custom hosts files gives users more speed, security, reliability, & even added anonymity that I list here where you can download it, free -> http://start64.com/index.php?o...
(Only thing is, on the latter, that FAR more skilled trolls than you have TRIED to, only to get shot down in flames each time, by yours truly)
APK
P.S.=> Come on big talker - go for it: I'll eat you ALIVE here publicly jsut to laugh @ your DUMB ass even more...apk
Like calling folks idiots? Like this from you troll http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ??
Prove me wrong dumbass http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
It works, & gives folks what they want here (no beta site redirect foisted on them without asking, which is WHY I put it up... they did it to me 1 or 2 times, that beat it, & I gave folks what they wanted).
You're also FREE to *try* to disprove 17 points of FACT that use of custom hosts files gives users more speed, security, reliability, & even added anonymity that I list here where you can download it, free -> http://start64.com/index.php?o...
(Only thing is, on the latter, that FAR more skilled trolls than you have TRIED to, only to get shot down in flames each time, by yours truly)
APK
P.S.=> Come on big talker - go for it: I'll eat you ALIVE here publicly jsut to laugh @ your DUMB ass even more...apk
I don't recall very many people who hated XP. There was a rather small cadre who were very loyal to W2K, but few even of those hated XP. Like your brother AC says, "Citations needed."
XP Fisher Price
Citations needed.
XP Fisher Price
Dell have a sordid history of denying warranty repair on flimsy pretexts (the bad caps fiasco had them invalidate warranty for using XPS systems as a "server"). Sounds like another lawsuit is the only way to get these guys to act reasonably. This problem is best avoided by not buying Dell. They either have cretins of scumbags working in their support and warranty department, either excuse is enough to avoid.
we won't miss you, its only the twats and old dogs who can;t learn new tricks going
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
by opening up the casing to replace the HDD?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
> It should be impossible for software to damage modern hardware.
Yours claim has already been falsified since ancient times, when the walls of Jericho collapse to the tune of the jew's shofar horn.
A simplified version of "hatikva.mid" is encoded in the Stuxnet worm binary, the thing that physically ruined Iran's uranium enriching ultra-centrifuges by hacking the Siemens S7 SCADA micro-controllers and making the drums spin out of control. Another variant of the Tilded cyber-weapon platform has AC/DC's Thunderstruck in its code.
i bought a dell machine for quality. i went for the expensive 'developer edition' 13 inch xps with ubuntu preinstalled and regretted it the day after it arrived. buzzing capacitors, sound card that cracks at 1000dB when it suspends or resumes (that's a few seconds after every single sound), really flimsy power connector that has no chance of lasting more than a few months and a touch screen that sometimes just doesn't work after a suspend.
d) Add a power calculation and limiting circuit to the sound DSP
e) Replace broken speakers and eat the cost as the cost of their shoddy engineering
In other words; buy a laptop from someone who actually makes laptops. Not some marketing firm that buys cheap off brand crap from China and sticks their name on it.
What is this so-called boycott supposed to do given people are allowed to browse the site?
1. Even when logged off, Slashdot can still correlate the IP addresses to your account.
2. Look up the definition of "boycott".
"#dell #sucks Dell won't fix my laptop under warranty because I used open source software." or "#dell #sucks #vlc Dell won't fix my laptop under warranty because I used VLC for media." Either one seems sufficient and complaining on Twitter seems to be where consumer complaints get the most visibility.
The BBB doesn't _do_ anything, but if you register a complaint with them it is publicly visible, and that makes a difference to some companies. We were having a terrible time with a phone we bought from Virgin mobile, and offshore support was being completely unhelpful. We wrote up everything that happened in a complaint filed with the BBB, and suddenly a nice lady based in the US called us. Rather than trying to go through basic troubleshooting and throwing up her hands when nothing helped, (as offshore support did on each and every call) she admitted that this was a known problem and gave us a timeframe when a fix would be available.
We talked ourselves blue in the face with offshore support. (to no end) The only thing that got us actual customer support was the BBB complaint.
Fuck "fuck beta" comments.
No , fuck "Fuck Fuck beta" comments, they are the only ones I see anyhow. Everything else gets modded down in the natural order. I'm tired of reading all these anti-anti-beta posts, you aren't helping the situation (and neither am I).
>I had a problem with a dell computer in the past, and I would **never get any other** never again [emphasis added]
So you bought a Dell computer in the past and had troubles with it. After that experience, you would never buy any other computer? I.e., you will only buy Dell?
Such loyalty. :) If only Dell had more customers like you, Michael Dell would not have had to take his company private.
It's entirely possible the script has been updated to try and fuck you over if you ever use non-standard software on the PC
What exactly is "non-standard software"? It's a general purpose computer so there is no such thing as non-standard applications unless we are talking complete operating system change.
This reminds me of the Chrysler paint lawsuit where the company's representatives blamed the peeling problem on acid rain, and the judge responded by asking them why mother nature was selective in singling out only Chrysler vehicles...
If they wanted to make changes why not just give us really good Unicode support.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
-1 is where /. comes alive.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Dell provides an amplifier of a specific power output and matches it to speakers with a specific power rating. How can software drive that amplifier to push more than its maximum power?
Nope Wins 98 second Edition to XP were the best the new Windows is now being aimed to the Younger Generation heck just look at Microsofts commercials today. I'm hoping Windows 9 is 100% better then today's same old concept Windows, 7,8 I don't know if they made 8.1 better then the previews version.
parent.mod++
BBB only 'facilitates' communication with members. They do not police anyone. As long as a member responds to a complaint, even if it's just to tell you to fuck off, the complaint is considered settled and the member still has A+ standing.
Do you realize that the "fuck beta" comments are already much more annoying than the actual beta?
Fuck "fuck beta" comments.
Fuck 'Fuck "fuck beta"' comments.
How should people voice their displeasure with the potential death of Slashdot?
With fire?
Come on someone has to know someone who can buy out Dice and basically do the same thing to them they are doing here. Gut it. Nothing is funnier than when a company that goes around gutting places gets gutted itself.
You got what you paid for: a disposable laptop. The way it works is you just buy another now. Or you get tired of it and get some Apple gear because that is the only manufacturer who hasn't switched to disposable laptops.
With XP if you didn't like the UI changes you could turn them off. Activation was/is an annoyance but an annoyance that only comes up once every couple of years is easilly accepted/forgotten.
Whereas with more recent versions of windows the UI changes have not been optional. Yes windows 7 has a classic theme but that just makes the UI look sorta like older versions, it doesn't make it behave like them.
Also a lot of people upgrading to XP were not coming from 2K but from 9x which keeled over under heavy load.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
How about by not destroying the thing which you want to preserve, which is Slashdot's user base and moderations system.
so you are one of the 25% who've been asked to look at "beta", and you've decided to use the experience to ruin the site for the rest of us. Like, thanks man. If I find myself fucking off to avoid "fuck beta trolls" like you, I'm sure that'll make you so happy in your denuded and shrunken rump of Slashdot.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
What do you expect from a bunch of cheap speakers, when you crank-up the volume? Blaming it on the software, went out when the day after "the dog ate my homework."
Use some common sense. Oh, I forgot. You must be a low-information Obama voter.
Actually, "the volume goes to eleven". (sorry, I just couldn't resist interjecting this).
Amen to that! What's the op done to any of the F.B. trolls? The op has asked a genuine question which deserves an answer but do these trolls care? Nope. All that matters to them is what they want. Show some consideration to the op and help them out if you can otherwise go fucking troll another thread!
You could possibly get in touch with the Trade Standards Institute in your country. I know from personal experience with the Trade Standards Institute, UK that getting in touch with them gets you some excellent advice and telling the trader what they told you usually gets the trader to accept responsibility.
Lelz, too funny,.intestinal fortitude, lelz
Small court maybe your friend. Find your local TV statoin trouble shooter.
But legal matters and news make companies move, if they are actually carried through.
How should people voice their displeasure with the potential death of Slashdot?
They have voiced it already and the engineer team is working on the fixes. Let's be fair and give them some time now. If there is still something to say, do it in the Slashdot Blog or send e-mail to feedback@slashdot.org with the subject "beta_feedback". Littering the article comments with "fuck beta" is not going to help.
It's the only thing that will have an impact otherwise it's "Will you please direct your complaints to that brick wall over there". The proper channels were used, ignored and they tried to roll it out anyway. Notice how only a day or two after the fuck beta thing started they had an announcement story on.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I've got two Dell laptops - both are Vostro V131. One of them had numerous hardware problems soon after the purchase - the hard drive died and left button of touch pad stopped working. When I've contacted the support, they basically told me, that I've stolen my laptop.
I forgot to mention - I bought my laptop from my company, which is an official Dell distributor. It was absolutely new, no questions about that, in a never opened box.
Well, when the support "tech" guy asked for my company name, I said that this notebook is my own, no company assigned. Nope, - he said - try again.
And I tried - the company that actually sold me the notebook. No luck. In the end, he just said that there is no warranty for a notebook if I can't prove that it's mine. However, there is no way to show them the invoice or something, they simply play the game of "guess which company name I have in my head".
After that, I tried the same with second Dell notebook. I've got it from another shop a few months before. Although I had no problems with it, I just wanted to see if I have the warranty. You guess right - the company is not correct.
If I am able to learn from my mistakes, I will never have Dell again.
P.S. Just got my new laptop. It's Lenovo.
Protecting against thermal burnout doesn't require expensive DSP algorithms. The audio drivers could come close by simply maintaining a time-decayed value of the recent audio sample delta. Easy to compute. The time constant would be something a little faster than the rate a which the speaker can dump heat to the environment. That computation would track fairly closely the power dissipation (heat) in the speaker, and when unsafely high, the driver should stop and flag some sort of error popup.
Yeah, my father had a similar issue. His camera developed a crack that spread across the screen.
It was in the case and never dropped. The only explanation we could figure was that it actually got hot in the case which aggravated a minute flaw in the glass (I had a similar thing happen once with glasses left in a hot car, and this was summer).
Unfortunately any "cracked screen" issue generally gets blamed on user abuse, and there's little recourse that doesn't cost more than the item (attending claims court isn't "free" if one has to take time off work), which is what these companies bank on.
"Water damage" is also a claim similarly abused on both ends.
A "clipped" waveform also tends to sound like distorted crap. It's not really likely somebody is going to listen to horribly clipped audio long enough to damage a speaker (exempting idiots in crappy small cars with idiotically oversized woofers), unless the endurance of said speaker is terribly low to begin with.
In addition, Dell is denying the warranty based on the EXISTENCE of the VLC software on the machine, not any proof that it was used to produce clipped audio and damage the speaker. I know a lot of people that use VLC because it can open pretty much everything (including other-region DVD's), not because of the ability to pump up audio.
Right. Good work, son.
Now come back and see me when you have a solution that can profitably be applied to $0.50 laptop speakers.
Kid-proof tablet..
What I proposed was software. The implementation would be entirely in the driver SOFTWARE, not the speaker HARDWARE drivers.
Sorry about the ambiguity.
Doesn't that violate the basic theory of "software cannot cause hardware problems"?
Drivers can be changed. Operating systems get reinstalled or change completely.
And then we're back to warranty SNAFU....
Kid-proof tablet..
With XP, if you didn't like the UI changes you could turn them off, but XP would still insist on using 190 MB more RAM than a W2K system doing the same tasks. It was bloated garbage, the fact that computers were forced to catch up to its bloat didn't make it a better system. W2K ran well with 32 MB of memory, XP ran sort of OK with 256MB.
Why do we need 2GB of memory to run our operating system now? Why does the average PC come with 6GB of RAM when the average user just surfs facebook?
The Uniform Commercial Code, Addresses merchant fraud. It allows for treble damages to be awarded against a merchant that refuses to honor it's warranties. Just go small claims with a valid estimate from Dell, ON PAPER.!!!!! Triple it and also ask for filing and any other fees you have paid to serve the suit.