Dellivery
December 7th, 2003
I finally received my new Dell PC on Friday, and, at 75 days since my original order, Dell’s estimated delivery time of 7-10 days was out by an entire order of magnitude.
In view of this you might be surprised to hear that I’m actually quite satisfied with the whole deal. As compensation for my troubles I’ve been given free delivery, free 3-year warranty, and an additional 10% off everything – which tots up to around £350. Sweet.
Instead of taking the same machine at a discount, I decided to up-spec. The PC (which I’ve named Deadlock in recognition of the dispute with Dell, and it’s residence in the 4th kvm slot) is quietly purring along at 3Ghz plus whatever extra kick Hyper-Threading brings (Hyper-Fun™, apparently).
The single stain on the whole situation is the Dell multimedia keyboard. Fine – it has a volume knob and a mute button. Whoopee! – it has various internet hot keys. Not fine – the group of 6 keys above the cursor arrows (Insert, Home, Page Up etc.) have been inexplicably rotated by 90°. They are in a 2×3 group instead of 3×2, and consequently instead of hitting Home and End (which I use a lot), I get Page Down and Insert.
I find this to be irrationally and disproportionately maddening. What kind of a product designer thinks they can arbitrarily change an accepted standard? And for what?! So my keyboard can be 0.8cm less wide?! Twat! Every time I hit the wrong key I feel like throttling whoever is responsible. There’s no alternative, it’s going on Ebay at the earliest opportunity.
Now, if only I can get Internet connection sharing working…