Dell’s Service

I am writing to record my appreciation of excellent service by Dell.

I ran into serious technical problems on my home Dell Studio laptop (model 1558). It took 4 days to completely solve the problem. Yes, I was not happy with the time it took, as it has serious impact on family productivity as several folks use the same laptop and they complain about the loss of time.

Fortunately, we have another laptop (Acer Aspire 5580), which though old, continues to deliver decent performance for jobs and folks who do not scream at it. So, we were OK, but we did lose time and sometimes, patience with Dell.

There are a couple of points I wish to make, notwithstanding the loss of time:

1. The Dell technical support people were of high quality and handled me / my daughter quite well with prompt responses and resolution and they were totally committed to fixing the problems ;

2. They were reasonable when it finally came to the point when no further technical fixes could solve the problem for the long-term use of the laptop, and concurred with the need to replace the motherboard and the in-built stereo speakers. Usually, computer companies are stingy when it comes to parts replacement, though the laptop is under full warranty. Even in the case of Dell, they took a fairly long time in reaching the conclusion to replace expensive parts. But, they were nice about it and not picking holes in our arguments. It helps when the laptop is in its first year of what is a 3-year full comprehensive coverage !

However, Dell was not able to give satisfactory response why the battery performed in a sub-optimal way for just 60 minutes when it should have provided power to the laptop for atleast 2 to 2.5 hours. And the battery is rather new, with just 9 months of use on a new laptop ! The laptop has rarely been removed from mains AC power. So, why is the degradation of battery happening ? Dell refused to replace the battery though. I did not agree with them as I believe a laptop, being mobile in nature, should have a battery which atleast meets its specs as advertised. There is some drop in effectiveness of the battery as it goes through multiple charge/discharge cycles, but not to the extent of some 60% in just 9 months.

Nevertheless, I should say that Dell delivered an excellent technical service to me, and I am happy I chose Dell over other makes last year when I was shopping for a new laptop for my daughter.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
17th July 2011
Mumbai

Online Security

With the rapid proliferation of mobile internet devices such as advanced smartphones and tablets, it is now not uncommon to see people browsing the web using these devices in public places. Earlier it was just the laptop-toting executives accessing their emails and the internet using high-speed data cards. While those folks still abound in airport lounges, even amongst them there is a distinct movement towards mobile devices. Probably the move is happening faster in India and other emerging countries, which are not having an economic growth problem currently.

But now, the general population, especially the well-to-do teenagers are making a huge impact on the mobile internet space in India. Huge number of people are going for these devices, and the Apple iPAD has taken off like a rocket as the price is not much different from an advanced smartphone.

With the proliferation of these devices, everyone seems to be giving a miss towards paying attention to online security. There has been a series of cyber attacks on government institutions around the world, and the hackers seem to be thriving. Cyber attacks seem able to bring down the operations of a government agency or a company or a bank quite easily, as the defences are not perfect and always fall behind the advances made by hackers. More software implementations by the organization to defend themselves seem to excite the hacking community as they probably laugh at the weak efforts !

Given such a situation, it is best not to use public Wi-Fi Hotspots for accessing one’s personal information. I strictly limit myself to accessing public information such as news media online using hotspots, but I have stopped even that as I find that unscrupulous elements might gain access to my device or laptop by means unknown to me (I will never know as that is not my specialty anyway). I dread to imagine what would happen if we all shift to online payments from a mobile device which is slowly but surely becoming a reality in India with the support of the banking regulator.

While I am not against the mobile device becoming an “alternative” to the wallet or for ensuring that one stays constantly on his/her social network, I believe that we should use common sense wherever there is a reasonable chance of account penetration. Most Wi-Fi hotspots are not secure, as the owners such as coffee shops can hardly bother to spend more money securing their “public” free-use networks. May be airport networks are secure. But not all networks. I have secured my home network from day 1, and now I have added more security so that the nearby teenage hackers (I seriously doubt if there is any one around my place) would have to do hard work to even figure out what I have done. While I cannot challenge the global hackers for sure, it is critical to invest in protecting one’s own online activities. A little money will go a long way, though it cannot fully eliminate the threat. While even the U.S. government appears to be struggling and battling the online threats, how can any other person do it on his/her own ?

So, my conclusion at this point in time is to avoid doing online what you wouldn’t do in public off-line anyway. Think ! Let the systems develop more and let the guinea pigs try out the safety for the next couple of years ! Then we will see !! In the meanwhile, the home laptop with the secured access to the internet is the best way to conduct online activities in the personal space.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
2nd July 2011
Mumbai

XP better than Windows 7

I managed to resurrect a 4-year old laptop (Acer Aspire 5580) to full-bodied life by doing couple of things recently:

1. It had a RAM of 1 GB. I purchased 2 GB additional, but had to throw out an existing 512 MB RAM module, because there were only two memory slots. So, I finally could have only 2.5 GB, but wow, that made a huge difference to the performance of this old laptop, running on Intel Core2 CPU T 5300 @ 1.73 GHZ, which is an ancient processor compared to intel i5 or i7 ;

2. Secondly, I had the Windows Vista on this laptop, which kept bothering me to update every time I booted up, and was giving other system troubles. So I managed to kick the Vista out and replace it with Windows XP Professional ;

and,

3. Thirdly, while using the combination of enhanced RAM on Windows XP, which was just doing fine, I got an intimation from the omnipresent Windows Update to download and install the Professional SP3 pack on Windows XP, which I promptly did.

Well, with the above 3 steps, I almost have a new laptop ! The speed is very good, Windows XP starts up fairly quickly, the applications work well, and it appears to me that this combination is even better than the Windows 7 on our latest laptop that we purchased late last year. I am publishing this blog post using this resurrected laptop, and it feels just fine.

So, you do not really need to buy a new laptop. Find more memory and use either Windows 7 or Windows XP Professional SP3 ! It is as simple as that. May be increase the RAM to 4 GB on the old laptop if you can, that would be the best option.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
25th June 2011
Mumbai

Electronic Junk

When I look around the house at the kind and volume of electronic junk accumulated over the years, I am just amazed.

We keep buying cell phones, roughly once every 18 months or so, and these come with the usual set of chargers and cables and the boxes which one is reluctant to throw out because there is no place to keep the user guide and the cables. If there are several buyers in the household, then you can imagine the variety and the volume of cables and chargers, and yes, cell phone boxes and holders.

Then we have printers. I have always thought it is a simple matter of printing. But apparently not. The ink runs out and we have to call for new ink cartridges. The old cartridges are still there, we are still trying to eke out the remaining ink, given that printer ink is the most expensive liquid out there – please see an earlier blog post on this that I wrote !

Oh, then comes the digital cameras. Everyone wants to have one, and that generates significant junk around. Many chargers and cables of all types. I don’t understand why there could not be a global standard for charging small electronic devices such as cameras and cell phones. Combined with the bigger junk which you get along with digicams, one can imagine the space it requires to keep the whole stuff organized.

One ends up with a whole set of memory cards and USB sticks (either you buy these or you get these at promotional events, and you can’t say no !), and then we start losing track of all this material stacked up somewhere at home.

One new thing at home is the back up hard drives, which come in their own packaging, I have been having an iomega 1 TB hard disk for the past 8 months and it does take up significant area on the computer desk. Well, one can never retire the old laptops for sure – there is data on their hard drives which cannot be erased ! I have two old laptops which are virtually “dead”, in the sense that they take a very long time to do anything at all, and I have to keep these two laptops and the associated paraphernalia. When I want to get something out of their hard disks, it takes a long time – their boot up time runs into minutes ! And, I have to keep them on direct power source, as their batteries are almost dead and won’t survive even for 15 minutes, and I am reluctant to invest more on dead laptops.

The story goes on and on. I have not even touched upon the digital home theatre system and the cables that go with it. Simply huge……..what about the iPods and iPads, and the music system one buys to dock the iPods. Never ending, right ?

So, I am now drawing up a plan to get rid of the electronic junk in a systematic manner, starting with the external DVD drives and old DVD players ! Well, let us see how this works out.

Have a good weekend, folks.

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
12th June 2011
Mumbai

Escape from Windows

I mean, escape from Microsoft Windows here.

Again, my new home laptop has started giving the “hanging” problem. It has and Intel i5 CPU, 4 GB RAM and 500GB HD, and runs Windows 7 Home Premium version. There is no reason why it should hang.

Today my daughter complained so much that I had no option but to sit down and diagnose the problem. At home, probably they think I am a “Windows Doctor”. Of course, the other side that they don’t fully know is that I keep experimenting with performance improvement of the system, to make it run faster and start up smoothly in less time !

Well, those experiments could be a problem. However, I do not think the system should give trouble when all that I have done is to download and install a standard Windows application, not an unauthorized program. Any software application that I had ever downloaded was after extensive research and from reputed companies.

So why then my friend Windows 7 is hanging repeatedly ?

May be to commit unintended suicide !

When I spent some time on the system this morning, I took some tough decisions – uninstall of several applications not required for the system, allow the Windows Operating System to take more control of the laptop and what applications start at the start-up, run the Anti-Virus Scanner for a deep scan of the computer, apply all the Windows Updates that were pending for download installation, at least four restarts, and other stuff.

After some 45 minutes work, the system looks like improving, but alas, it hung again – the Windows Updates could not get installed automatically. So, though the system warned that I should not shut off the computer while the updates were getting installed, I forcibly shut off the system, as the spin wheel was not spinning !

After all this, the laptop seemed to return to some stability, and started working all right.

However, I am now awaiting the stress test results from my daughter – not that she was going to stress the system out physically. But youngsters have a way of running a computer very differently from the organized manner in which we run the system. It may be better they do the testing rather than the diagnosis !

Will report later, but I am slowly moving away from Windows………may be the iPAD2 is good enough for normal computing !!

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
08 May 2011
Mumbai

Installing Husband 1.0 !

Courtesy : My schoolmate, Ashraf Tayub

INSTALLING HUSBAND!!!
A woman writes to the IT Technical support Guy

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as:Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NEWS 5.0, MONEY 3.0 and CRICKET 4.1.Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Reply

DEAR Madam,
First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command:ithoughtyoulovedme.Html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed,Husband1.0should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Silence 2.5 or Beer 6.1.Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Good Looks 7.7.

Good Luck Madam!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Courtesy : My schoolmate, Ashraf Tayub

Cheers

Vijay Srinivasan
01 May 2011
Mumbai

The iPAD Experience

I have been using the iPAD for the past few weeks, and decided to write a blog piece on the same as I have been seeing an increasing media noise on tablets and how these are taking over the role of PCs.

There is no doubt that the Apple iPAD has revolutionized personal computing with millions of devices shipped in less than a year. It only again proved that Apple’s Founder CEO Steve Jobs has the pulse of millions of consumers, who keep loving the products that he is able to launch with so much regularity over the past decade.

Apple is the most valuable tech company on the planet today and it is in no small measure, due to the contributions of one man, Steve Jobs.

The iPAD is a marvellous device, no doubt. It is very easy to set up and work, even for non-Apple users. It seamlessly integrates emails, mail attachments, internet browser, calendar, photos and videos. I did have some trouble pulling out my photos from my PC into the iPAD, though that was more due to some wireless transfer issues. Once I physically connected the iPAD to the PC, everything went well.

My experience using Skype on the iPAD has not been great, not as good as the laptop experience. For one, there is no video. Secondly, the audio was not loud enough even at full volume. May be I should check the version of the operating system software on the iPAD. But I went back to the laptop for Skype with video.

I know that iPAD2 has been launched with front-facing video, but that would take quite some time to reach India and I am not an early adopter anyway. My iPAD was bought in March, almost 11 months since it was launched in the U.S. !

I would recommend iPAD for one main use – for teaching children. It is amazing to see the educational software available, such as galaxy or anatomy related stuff, in full high-resolution glory on the iPAD. Of course you can view the same on the laptop, but somehow it looks much better and more “usable” on the iPAD.

The other purpose is navigation with electronic maps. Very convenient. Of course, there is nothing easier than doing email and updating one’s calendar on the iPAD, once you have established the account and achieved the synchronization. Be careful when using the public Wi-Fi access though, as the hot spots are generally unprotected. You have to establish tunneling through to your VPN before you can operate securely. Another word of caution – do not carry out online banking or credit card activities on the iPAD at public hot spots.

I noticed that Apple cleverly locks you into its App Store by taking details of your credit card, even though you might not purchase anything, except to download free software apps. That is the way they have prospered with billions of downloads of apps and songs and videos !

Overall, an excellent consumer product which would spawn copy cats as we have seen in the market over the past six months or so. Notably the Samsung Galaxy Tab is a great tablet, but I think Apple is way ahead with its overall delivery of consumer experience (I own a HTC Desire HD mobile phone with 4.3″ screen running Android 2.2 and Galaxy Tab is very similar with the same operating system).

Enjoy the iPAD, may be wait for iPAD2.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
12th March 2011
Mumbai

The end of Browser War

The end is finally in sight.

The famous Microsoft Internet Explorer is entering a period of oblivion, the consumer world has finally discovered that Microsoft pushes buggy products on to its consumers which in the case of an internet browser turns out to be outright dangerous.

Most of the educated middle class is now transacting business on the web for personal purposes – meaning they do business with service providers, pay their bills, do their banking, order their pizzas, book their flights and hotels, etc., on the internet. They should be wary of the primary tool of accessing internet – the browser. It should be rock solid and cannot be having holes in its design which would permit hackers to gain access to your secrets.

I had junked the Internet Explorer long time ago, though it remains on our two laptops at home. After using Safari on our iMAC, I fell in love with it. On the Windows laptops, I have long used the Mozilla Firefox and for the past year or so, I have also used the Google Chrome. I recently tested the Opera browser, which provides new features and is also pretty good.

When consumers have choices, what do they do ? They junk unsafe products built in an unreliable fashion, like the Microsoft Internet Explorer. New laptops still come with it, no doubt. But consumers who have done their research, do not use the IE browser any longer. They have many choices of excellent browsers. Here is my ranking :

1. Apple Safari (works well on both MAC and Windows)
2. Mozilla Firefox
3. Google Chrome (still has some minor issues)
4. Opera

The IE browser does not even feature on my list. Recently, Microsoft announced that there are serious security holes in its IE 8 browser, why would anyone use it ? It is important to evaluate any product you use or are given, as one does not always understand the marketing “features” of the same. What finally survives are technical excellence and safety of usage. On both counts, Apple’s Safari and Mozilla Firefox score very high.

Time to switch, if you haven’t done so already. Be safe online, than be sorry. Of course, I am assuming you are doing everything possible to secure your WiFi network at home and are using solid Anti-Virus software on your Windows laptop. More on such security soon. In the meanwhile, enjoy safe and superb browsing, that’s what most of us do anyway on a computer these days !

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
20th February 2011
Mumbai

Windows 7 Home Premium

Well, you folks who have been following my Blog should have guessed that I am likely to write about Windows 7 sooner or later, having published two posts recently on “Buying a New Laptop” and “Scrapping Apple”.

I wanted to give the Windows 7 a few days of working before I could start commenting on what is arguably the best Windows system ever, though I am still a fan of Windows XP Professional as far as the office environment is concerned (I was an ardent fan of Apple MAC O.S. – the Leopard version, and I still continue to be enchanted by the same even after I have given up on my iMAC system). For the home environment, Apple still produces a better impact all around the family team, if you consider the ease of operation and the entertainment quotient, and do not consider any incompatibility issues.

Sorry I had to draw the conclusion even before saying anything specific on Windows 7. This new O.S. is a great improvement compared to the Windows Vista O.S. which proved to be a non-starter for Microsoft. Many people switched back to Windows XP after experiencing the poor quality and features of Vista. However, the Windows 7 O.S. does not disappoint as much as Vista – for starters, it does not crash, though it takes as much time to start up. I do not understand why Microsoft could not achieve a faster startup in Windows 7 – it’s a bit annoying, especially when you compare with Apple. Shutting down the system was faster though.

I am using a Dell Studio 15 Laptop with intel i5 CPU, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB SATA HD @ 7,200 rpm, and ATI Radeon Graphics card with 1 GB on-board memory. I expect a fast response, is it not to be expected ?

Well, the CPU is yet to be stressed, and I will do so soon using some graphics software and numerical processing, and let me see. Coming back to Windows 7, the docking bar is a poor imitation from Apple, with features borrowed (should I say copied ?) in an unabashed manner. Don’t know why the technology media has not criticised Microsoft. The other features are more or less the same, starting from the “Start” button. I found that moving around the various screens was faster and a little less time-consuming. Programs open faster, may be because of the CPU power and memory size.

Microsoft has re-arranged the task bar but it is not a big innovation. Internet Explorer confused me by presenting two options – the regular version (I guess the 32-bit one) and the 64-bit version. I clicked on the 32-bit version and that did not work, reporting a problem and asking me to close the program, which I did. Then I started the 64-bit version which worked fine. Why install both versions ?

I killed the 32-bit version of the Internet Explorer – but could not uninstall it. Microsoft is still scared that users will start uninstalling the IE and start using other browsers – in any case that is happening ! Their claim that the IE is an integral part of the Windows O.S. and hence need to be present in the system is hogwash.

I installed the fast Google Chrome and the Mozilla Firefox browsers.

Apart from the sleek interface copied partially from Apple and the fast startup of the programs like MS-Word or IE, I could not find anything outstanding in Windows 7. It still has driver problems, as was evidenced in trying to get the right drivers for the various sound options in the system. One neat software upgrade package like what Apple does in its “Software Update” program is still lacking, as Microsoft tries to do its best update only for its own Windows O.S. via the “Windows Update” program.What about all the drivers – there is no integrated approach.

So, my partial conclusion as of now is that Windows 7 has still some way to go to try and match the gold standard in user interface that has been the hallmark of Apple MAC O.S. Why can’t they hire some of these MAC guys at Microsoft and improve the interface ? Imitating is fine as long as the imitation is almost perfect, not half-baked.

Cheers, and Have a good Dussera Weekend,

Vijay Srinivasan
17th October 2010
Mumbai

Buying a Laptop – Part II and Scrapping Apple

Recently I wrote about the issues which arise when one tries to purchase a new laptop (it should have been pretty easy and straightforward, but it was neither). Finally I bought a Dell Studio 15 laptop with Intel i5 Processor (which I determined was best for home use with not too much of a demand on the CPU), 4 GB RAM (I debated between 4 and 6 GB and finally decided on 4 GB as adequate for the next couple of years !), 500 GB SATA HDD at 7200 RPM speed (faster than the normal option), and ATI Radeon Graphics card with 1 GB memory. I chose the 15-inch screen, as the weight difference between the 14-inch and this one was not that much. Certain options were only available for the 15-inch model.

The system arrived yesterday, and my daughter started using it today, but not before I was forced to call Dell Technical Support for resolving certain issues (such as screen flickering due to improper driver for the ATI Radeon card). Well it now appears that the system is working OK, but let me watch over it for the next one week before passing any judgement. Dell was surely easy to order as compared to all other makes. Little advice is required from Dell otherwise as all data for decision making is provided online. One can always research on the web for any unknown parameter, it is easy.

What I would recommend to readers are the following – go in for extended warranty (not just the one-year limited warranty offered as standard with the system) in the form of complete accident cover. It might sound a bit expensive but it is an insurance scheme about which I learnt the hard way when using our Apple iMAC for the past four years. It could be the most important decision when buying a new laptop with a high-end configuration – some peace of mind is critical.

Well, the readers would by now have realised what happened to my Apple iMAC – it had failed while out of warranty, and since this time the motherboard was found to have some fault, the only way I could have resurrected it was by getting a new motherboard, which would have costed me USD 800 (some INR 37,000). That was ridiculous, and hence the decision to scrap our long-time favourite Apple system. I feel rather sad that we would no longer have the pleasure of working on the elegant Apple O.S. and applications, which are a far cry as compared to the mundane Microsoft Windows (even with Windows 7, what Microsoft has tried to do is at best, copy Apple – they have repeatedly done that – but I am yet to evaluate Windows 7 O.S. in some detail, being an user just for the past 24 hours !).

Well, adieu to Apple. However, we continue to use other Apple devices. This experience taught me that it is very important to buy the total warranty extension while the system is covered, not after the warranty cover is finished. Apple does not allow that anyway – one has to purchase the extended warranty while buying the system, or atleast before the expiry of the original warranty. They call it “Apple Care” protection.

Hope Dell would do justice to their comprehensive accident cover program as well. All the best to laptop buyers. Avoid netbooks if you are heavy users with average or poor eyesight ! They are too small, may be the kids will like them, not other family members. It is better to have a large, high-resolution screen with high-end graphics. Further, heavy duty usage would demand a tougher system design, to replace the desktop needs. Budget – not less than USD 1,200 ! The other lower cost systems would be OK for regular browsing and word processing, you can get one for USD 600 to 700.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
9th Oct 2010
Mumbai