Wireless age my butt

So I’m moving in two days, and I always pack up my comptuer stuff first so as nothing gets lost.  My last few moves I had a whole bunch of random boxes of computer stuff but as I moved I found that the boxes migrated around thus causing much chaos and chord loss.

This time I just got one long tub thing that’s meant for rolling under a bed frame or such.  Pretty much everything fit in around my monitor.  Yay!  Don’t worry, the 2405fpw is in there upside down on top of a very squishy towel. 

Riding the middle ground: paying the rent and getting the job done

Three years ago if you announced “I bought a laptop for $600!” you would have been shunned from humanity for being not only a cheap-ass, but a stupid cheap-ass.  Now?  You would be the average consumer.

 Let us discuss this concept of ‘good enough’ for a moment.  ‘Good’ implies a certain level of functionality, and ‘enough’ implies that for every person there is a level of required goodies.  Some need hard drive space, processing power, or video cards that are half the cost of the computer.

Think about a product, such as a computer.  Then think about the cons you would say about that product.  Not enough RAM?  Motherboard based video card?  Celeron?  Well, believe it or not, but there are people that wouldn’t notice a different if they had otherwise.   Not everyone games, not everyone needs full networking tweakability, not everyone needs hundreds of gigs, and believe me when I say there are some people that don’t even need a computer.

However, this discussion shall not be solely about computers.

Recently my Sony MDREX71 headphones died the death or their brethren.  The sound quality was just about on the spot for my requirements.  I’m not a ‘phile for anything (except for proper aspect ratio in video, but that’s more militant than ‘phileish), thank you.  I am quite happy in my middle road of balancing suck against my pocket book.  That balance, however, does not imply value devices.  Thank you I like my brand names, but you can kiss my ass if you’re think I’m going to pay for stuff I’ve no need for. 

While reading through the reviews out there for other brands, it seems that very few people realized that not everyone can hear the difference between their middle end headphones and high end expensive ones.  I was very temped by the Shure series, but eventually settled on the Sennheiser CX300B ear buds.  Good brand, but still within my price area of $50.  Yes, I know there are people that would like to flog me for even considering those Sony’s in the first place; I’ve had them as customers.  Hell, I own a Saturn, so I know all about people making faces when I tell them what brand it is.  But you know what?  They both work just fine for me.

Everyone has their own standards and needs for products, something good for you might just be overkill for that person next to you.  Keep this in mind and you might just have some happy customers.

Dell sucks slightly less

In the era of premade PC wars, finding one company that you don't want to throw off the Sears Tower is like finding a special friend that you call when all the good ones are busy.  As much as building your own computer is the best method to prove you have the balls to back up your hot air, it's not for everyone.  There are some people in this world that just need 'a' computer.  Something that turns on, and does the basics that the people in the 70s dreamed of.  Word processing, internet, email.  The simple triad features that are so basic that if you cite one of them as something you require in your computer you get laughed at by anyone who doesn't crap themselves upon looking at the guts of their computer. 

So for the simple person:  the student, the parent, the grandparent, the business person, etc.  Out of all the box PCs, what company would you reccomend for your mother?

Every company has to do what they need to do to stay in business.   Every TV show needs commercials, every magazine needs ads.   Computers come bundled with software for this same reason.   For those of you that are territorial over your desktops and spit fire when you see those shortcuts, three words:  get over it.  Count the number of full page ads in your favorite mag, look through your newspaper, complain about those instead of something you can fire up "Add/Remove Programs " and be done with.  

As a company, Dell did the tragic mistake as they all do of moving tech support to cheaper lands.  Its sucks, ya, but accent or no accent tech support is going to suck and half the time not work.  Computers don't know the differences between people.

Dell has expanded to some interesting areas.  Just as every retail box chain will try to sell you as much as possible, Dell started making more branded products they could sell along with the computers.  Ok, so they've had a few bumps along the road, but they've had a few success stories.

Monitors are a big business these days.  Using a 15" CRT on a $2000 computer is like haing a $400 mp3 player with $5 headphones.  If you spend a lot of money on a good computer, you have to have something that will correctly radiate back each and every dollar spent.  Large LCD monitors are the next new pissing contest out there fore fanboys.  This is also another arena for the PC vs. Apple battles.

Now, going into buying a giant LCD brings up problems our old friends CRTs didn't really have, but this isn't the place for that.  Chances are, you know about them/are living them right now. 

So Dell just upgraded, as all manufacturers do in the spring, their lineup of monitors.  However, as with all expensive products:  those that can afford it are usually some of the most outspoken people out there. 

Rumblings, a good word for it, spoke of banding issues and various other OMGs. This does a pretty decent job of explaining all the issues and specs involved with LCDs, and explains what banding is and why it happens, something that Wikipedia fails at. Today, the word is out that Dell is going to do something about it. Fix it yourself or get a new one, depending on how uptight you are.  A month after the rumblings, true, but they aren't trying to hide it like some companies do regularly.