March 2007 - Posts

• Dell Celebrates Women Around the World

  Fri. Mar. 30, 2007
  by Deborah Bauer, Sr. Manager—Dell Global Diversity
  Earlier in March, Genevieve Bos, founding publisher of PINK magazine visited us in Dell’s Round Rock campus, in celebration of Women’s History Month.

  She talked to a crowd of both, Dell men and women, about informal networking as the number one resource today’s professional women cite for advancement. She also provided interesting statistics about women’s increasing participation in the global workforce and public institutions that I thought I would share in this forum:

  • Women aged 15 and older now represent 48.9 percent of the global employment population.
  • Women’s share of legislator and management positions globally is 39 percent.
  • Women represent 59 percent of the U.S. workforce.
  • Consumer spending by women is $3.7 trillion while business spending is $1.5 trillion
  • Women account for 66 percent of all home-computer purchases in the U.S.

  What these numbers tell us is that the female workforce is at a pivotal point in history.

  

  At Dell, we recognize that the women in our company have been and continue to be key contributors to our remarkable growth; One-third of our global workforce is female. That is why we take Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day as an opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of women throughout history and to provide our women with new opportunities for development.

  Dell’s celebrations of women are taking place around the world. This week in Dell India, for example, employees gathered for a panel discussion with outside experts about ways to increase diverse gender representation at the top. Our team in Europe is conducting employee brown bag sessions to speak openly about women’s issues throughout the month. What’s more, Dell was recently selected as one of the top 50 companies for female employees by Aurora and The Times in the UK.

  Those are just a few examples of what we are doing to continuously adjust our thinking as it relates to what success looks like for our women. The fact is that as our company continues to grow around the world, we will need to adjust to the changing needs of our growing workforce.
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• Tuning Up Your PC Often a Necessity

  Thu. Mar. 29, 2007
  by Dick Hunter, VP—Customer Experience and Support

  If you own a car, you probably don’t give much thought to the need to regularly change the oil and perform a tune-up. Soot, rust particles, dirt, and other contaminants in the oil and filters can cause poor performance, cause unnecessary wear-and-tear, and damage the engine and associated systems.

  A PC, like a car, can also accumulate “contaminants” that jeopardize its performance and shortens its usability. These contaminants include spyware, viruses, duplicate and corrupt files, cookies, unused programs, and much more. As a result, your PC may become sluggish, have to be rebooted often because of error messages or applications locking up, and show that your hard drive if full with fragmented files and applications.

  That’s why it advisable to periodically tune-up your PC. While you can use off-the-shelf software to help you perform various maintenance tasks, they may be time-consuming to run and not do everything that’s necessary to ensure that your PC is in tip-top shape.

  Dell offers two types of tune-up services. The first one is assisted. Using DellConnect to remotely access your PC over a broadband connection, a technician will perform various maintenance tasks, including showing you how to defragment your hard drive. This service is offered through Dell On Call.

  The automated or monthly version of Dell PC Tune-Up allows you to choose the day and time of the month you want your PC tuned up. A typical tuneup includes hard drive defrag, removal of unwanted and temporary files, updated security settings, verification of “good” restore points, and other maintenance activities designed to improve PC performance and security. The monthly version is available as an annual subscription and is a feature of Dell Support 3, a complimentary application that provides real-time health scans and information on how to maintain your PC.

  Both versions of PC Tune-Up are available to customers in the U.S. and Canada. Click here to learn more about the monthly version and how easy it is to keep your PC running at peak performance.

  PC Tune-Up joins another successful support tool in Dell’s efforts to improve service delivery. DellConnect, the remote-diagnostics tool used by technicians to fix hardware problems under warranty, is approaching nearly 5 million sessions with a 93 percent satisfaction rate.

  Independent data shows Dell’s efforts to improve service are paying off. Nationwide, the number of customer complaints to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) is down 12 percent this past full year, and some third-party customer-service surveys show some improvement: the 2006 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) published by the University of Michigan improved 4 points to the highest level for Dell since 2004.
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• XPS 700 Motherboard Exchange Program: Update #2

  Wed. Mar. 28, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  Some Direct2Dell readers like SuriV and Kevin have reported problems booting their systems after updating their XPS 700 with the version 1.4.0 BIOS. We are currently researching the issue. XPS 710 users are not affected.

  For the time being, if you are an XPS 700 customer who has seen this issue, you need to flash to an earlier version of the BIOS from a DOS prompt. Here’s how to do it:
  

  • We have provided BIOS version 1.1.6 for download
  • If the system is still bootable to Windows, click on the downloaded file and allow the system to compete the flash

  If the system is not bootable to Windows, follow these steps:

  • Create a bootable floppy disk from another Windows XP system: Open My Computer, right-click on the A:\ drive and choose Format.
  • Choose Quick Format then Ok. Choose Create a MS-DOS Startup Disk and choose Ok.

  

  • Copy the downloaded file to the floppy disk (DXG061-010106.exe). Right-click on the file and choose “Send To” and choose “3 1/2 Floppy (A:\)”. Leave the floppy in the drive.
  • Power down the system
  • Pull the power cord (keeping it removed for 10 seconds)
  • Power on your system again
  • Press F12 and when you see the options on the screen
  • Use the keyboard arrows to select Onboard or USB Floppy Drive and press enter
  • At the A:\ prompt, type DXG061-010106 -classic, then press <enter>. Follow the instruction to flash the BIOS

  Dell engineering is working the issue. We hope to have an updated XPS 700 BIOS version soon.

  Update (5/23): I know several of you are asking about when the updated version of the BIOS will be ready. Just heard from the development team that our goal is to have it ready by the end of the month. Thanks for your continued patience. 

   
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• Unveiling the Data Center Solutions Team

  Tue. Mar. 27, 2007
  by Forrest Norrod, VP & GM—Data Center Solutions

  I'm glad to be back on Direct2Dell. Have been spending lots of time formalizing plans for my new team that we announced today, the Data Center Solutions (DCS) team. While we remain committed to designing, building and supporting great general-purpose server and storage products, it's become clear that a set of customers have needs that differ in important ways. These customers are building out fleets of servers with power, thermal, and density issues of such a massive scale that they invite new approaches for optimization. That's particularly true for Web 2.0 companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft Live, and Amazon—IT isn't just a part of their business, it is their business.

  The initial customer list for DCS isn't just Internet companies… there's a growing list of customers who meet this criteria.

  To meet this need, we've created the DCS team and are announcing our first initiative, the Cloud Computing Solution. It is is a computing solution for “Hyperscale” data center environments including “design-to-order” hardware, planning and deployment expertise and customized services targeted to address key needs generally not met by traditional hardware vendors.

  For more background, take a look at www.dell.com/cloudcomputing. In this vlog, I share more insight about our new organization. I look forward to providing regular updates from the team via Direct2Dell.

  Format: flv Duration: 4:23

  Downloads WMV  MP4  OGG

   
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• H2C Liquid Cooling System

  Sun. Mar. 25, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  I have been getting requests from some Direct2Dell readers to show how the H2C liquid cooling system works. I figured the best way to do that was to catch up with Chuck Hood, one of the lead engineers involved in designing it.

  I was pumped to see the folks at Valve Software mentioned the 710 H2C recently. Thanks to you guys for some of the best single player gaming experiences ever in both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 in my opinion. Ravenloft Ravenholm in HL2 completely rocked, but I digress.

  Update: Direct2Dell reader Kunikos informed me that Ravenholm is the correct name for the Half-Life 2 level. Made the change above.
  

  In this video, Chuck talks about the liquid cooling system from an engineering perspective. The video's over 17 minutes long, but it should give our enthusiast readers out there some insight as to what sets the 710 H2C's liquid cooling system apart from off-the-shelf aftermarket water cooling solutions.

  Format: flv Duration: 17:07

  Downloads WMV  MP4  OGG

   
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• XPS 700 Motherboard Exchange Program: Update #1

  Fri. Mar. 23, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  Update, 8/13:  The link for the XPS 700 Exchange Program is now live:
  

  www.XPSUpgradeProgramDell.com 

  It’s been two weeks since we announced the exchange program. Wanted to clarify a few things:

  • In terms of hardware that Dell will be providing under the program, this motherboard exchange program will include Dell’s next-generation XPS gaming motherboard and necessary cables and connectors.
  • It will not include the H2C cooling system
  • XPS 710 and 710 H2C customers can purchase Dell’s next-generation XPS gaming board and on-site service. Pricing will be available later this year.
  • The updated XPS 700 BIOS (version 1.4.0) is now available for download. The updated version of the XPS 710 BIOS (that enables the same list of features) is also available today.

  I’ve also received comments and emails from customers asking about specs for Dell’s next-generation XPS gaming motherboard. I can’t provide any kind of information about the product at this point. Will share more details later this year.

  More update items:

  • XPS Mouse pads: We will ship an XPS mouse pad to XPS 700 customers at no cost when you schedule your motherboard exchange.
  • DTS functionality: DTS is a surround sound format that allows you to hear movies and music encoded in that format. It requires that you have at least 5 speakers and a subwoofer. If you own the Dell version of the Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card, Dell plans to make the DTS codec available to XPS 700 customers who want it. We’re still working through some details—I’ll provide more information soon.
  • $200 gift cards: Unfortunately, we will not be issuing any additional gift cards to XPS 700 customers.
  • Magazine subscriptions: Unfortunately, we will not be issuing any additional magazine subscriptions to XPS 700 customers.

  Know that some of you will be upset about the gift cards and the magazine subscriptions, and I apologize for any frustration this causes. The lack of an upgrade path was far and away the most important issue for many of our XPS 700 customers. That’s why we focused our efforts on providing all XPS 700 customers worldwide the motherboard exchange program at no cost.
  

  Next week, we’ll publish a survey on the Dell Community Forum to get additional feedback from you. More to come next week. Please submit questions and comments to this blog entry or this thread in the Dell Community Forum.
  

  Finally, Bob D. and jsrder have asked if we have plans to notify customers via e-mails or letters. Though many of our customers who asked for an upgrade path spend lots of time in either Direct2Dell or DCF (or both places), we don’t want to require people to always track the updates on their own. Instead, we will give all XPS 700 customers a chance to tell us that they are interested in the exchange program. We still have to work out some logistics, but we remain focused on making this process as simple as we can for XPS 700 customers.

  I've also created an XPS 700 Motherboard Exchange Program category so Direct2Dell readers can easily see all of these posts in one place. 
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• Spam: Fake Order Confirmation E-Mail

  Fri. Mar. 23, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  Yesterday afternoon, I started getting e-mails and Direct2Dell comments regarding a fake order confirmation e-mail. This fake e-mail has a subject line similar to this: Dell Order Has Been Confirmed for Order Number 576794979. Dell recommends that you delete this e-mail if you have received it.
  

  Though it looks similar to Dell order confirmation e-mails, the fake e-mail does not contain "Bill to" or "Ship To" information. Legitimate order confirmation e-mails contain this information.
  

  Spoof e-mails (also known as hoax or phishing e-mails) are fraudulent e-mails that claim to be sent by well-known companies, usually in an effort to obtain financial or personal information in order to commit identity theft. For more background, please see www.dell.com/spoof.
  

  Regarding this fraudulent e-mail, here's what I can confirm:

  1. This is a spam email, it is not being sent by Dell.
      a. Dell has not charged any customer for any of the items listed in the fake e-mail.
      b. Info@dell.com and CustomerCare@dell.com are not valid Dell email addresses.
  
  2. In some cases, these "spam" emails contain viruses.
  3. Dell notified all authorities of the hoax (local and national) and we are working  to find the source of the e-mail.
  
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• Enhancements to the Drivers & Downloads Tool

  Thu. Mar. 22, 2007
  by Todd Penner, Director - Global eSupport

  Many of you have asked for updates to the Drivers & Downloads tool on Support.Dell.Com website. In an effort to implement some of the changes you asked for, we recently completed a global launch of a re-designed Drivers & Downloads tool that addresses many of the issues you’ve highlighted.

   
  

  The enhancements to the new tool include:
  

  • Drivers now displayed using an easy to navigate grid structure
  • Download Now option made readily available for quick access to files
  • My Downloads option provides user with ability to save files for future use
  • Ability to change or filter search results (by OS, driver category or driver importance) from top of page
  • Files can be easily sorted by Category, File Title, Importance, Release Date and Size
  • User is no longer required to select language (defaults to the language of the country website the user is on)
  • Release date and file size clearly displayed within the grid

  While these improvements should make downloading drivers a simpler and more efficient process, it is just the first step in our overhaul of this frequently used tool. We plan to address other frequent customer requests like only displaying drivers applicable to a specific service tag and batch downloading for multiple drivers. For now though, I’m confident that these recent changes will make a difference. We’ll continue our commitment to make support.dell.com easy to use as possible for our customers.

  I look forward to your feedback. If you have ideas on how we can enhance future iterations of the Drivers & Downloads section, please let me know by responding to this post.
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• Update on EPEAT

  Wed. Mar. 21, 2007
  by David Lear, Dir.—Environmental Affairs
  Today, members of the Dell team are joining industry colleagues for a Washington, D.C. press conference recognizing the progress of the Electronic Product Environment Assessment Tool (EPEAT) and efforts to increase the supply of EPEAT-registered green computers. Dell helped lead the development of EPEAT in 2006, which is something Tod talked about in his first post during the early days of Direct2Dell. We currently serve on its Board of Advisors and list 52 of our products with EPEAT to help purchasers from the public and private sectors make environmentally-responsible IT decisions. The press conference is being organized by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Jim Connaughton and the Green Electronics Council.
  
  EPEAT addresses several environmental categories, including reduction and elimination of environmentally sensitive materials, design for recycling, product longevity, energy efficiency, end-of-life management and packaging.  Our focus on designing and engineering our products to help prevent pollution and conserve natural resources throughout the system's life is continually driving new product developments that can be EPEAT-listed. We believe EPEAT is a strong standard for domestic and international purchasers.
  
  The success of EPEAT also demonstrates the value of consistent environmental standards. At Dell, the customer experience will always start with providing quality products at the best value and continue by partnering with customers to protect the environment throughout the product lifecycle.
  
  While we have made great progress, we are committed to building on our climate protection initiatives, free global recycling and recovery programs for consumers, energy-efficient products and safe, environmentally-preferable materials.
  
  As always, we encourage you to post comments here, or to visit IdeaStorm and post your thoughts and ideas on ways we can strengthen our commitment to a cleaner and healthy environment.
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• Dell Launches the EC280 for Chinese Consumers

  Wed. Mar. 21, 2007
  by Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger

  Dell unveiled the EC280, a small desktop PC developed for first-time buyers and users seeking basic productivity, online and multimedia functionality. The system was designed and developed by engineers at Dell's China Design Center located in Shanghai. Right now, it will only be sold in China, and the base configuration costs around $310 $335 US dollars. Note: My conversion was off a bit—my apologies.
  

  Last year, the Internet reached over 1 billion users worldwide. An impressive number, but still only a small part of the earth's global population. Many of those users who make up the next billion users will be in China.
  

   

  Because it's built around a Mini-iTX motherboard, the system is about one-eighth the size of a standard ATX case. It's low-power consumption helps ensure quiet operation.

  Dell China will offer the EC280 in two different configurations and three different monitor choices. Customers can opt for no monitor as well. Both configurations support an Intel processor 205 and a 65W power supply, 256MB or 512MB RAM, 40 - 80GB hard drive, CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive options. Both configurations come pre-loaded with Windows XP Home. 

  To read more about the EC280, see the Direct2Dell Chinese post.  
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