July 2008 - Direct2Dell

Buzzwords seem to be everywhere these days. Every profession, industry and group seem to have their own special list of words and phrases that are meant to show authority on a subject - but instead come across as supercilious and silly. I often find myself and others snickering after (or during) a meeting when not enough bandwidth and incentivize dominate the discussion. Yet, we still find ourselves leveraging these words on a regular basis. If you're looking for a more productive use for all those buzzwords - or just a short distraction from work - check out our buzzword unscramble game. There are prizes to be had!

Today we’ve launched a powerful, feature-rich Vostro laptop which will appeal to the power user on-the-go. Ideal for small businesses with simple networks, the new Vostro 2510 laptop (more pictures here), with its cherry red exterior, can meet the needs of business travelers unwilling to compromise on power for better mobility. The 2510 is built for the consummate multi-tasker: the entrepreneur or employee who needs to be able to maintain databases, send and receive e-mails, update spreadsheets, create and deliver PowerPoint presentations and more without their computer slowing them down.

This 15.4-inch laptop provides you desktop-like performance -- designed to meet data and video-intensive needs -- at a starting weight of 5.72 lbs. It also provides high-end options for everything from processors to memory to hard drives.

The 2510 is also the first Vostro product to offer optional Blu-Ray technology. We know you don’t just use your computer for business, so now you can use travel time (or any time) to catch-up on your favorite movies and shows. Adding more style and features like Blu-Ray was something you asked for on IdeaStorm, and we listened. Other optional features you told us were important are continued on the 2510, like integrated fingerprint readers and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2. And we’ve made the integrated webcam standard. Also, Vostro comes with no annoying trial ware – a policy that is among the most popular with our customers.

For more on the features and benefits of the new Vostro 2510, here’s an update from David Ruth, Vostro laptop portfolio manager.

To customize your own Vostro 2510, click here.

Here at Dell, we are partnering with our friends at Microsoft as they hit cities across the country with their “Get a more powerful PC” campaign.  They are helping to raise awareness of our partnership with (RED)^TM and their mission to eliminate AIDS in Africa. The message is simple: Buy (RED). Save Lives.

You can help us get the message out there now by participating in “Raise (YOUR) Voice” events starting in Chicago.

Raise (YOUR) Voice will roll through a bunch of cities with Chicago as the starting point. It will feature huge hi-def building-side projections running off a Dell XPS M1530 (PRODUCT) RED with Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED, as well as a special phone number that will allow you to vote on which song you'd like to be featured in the sing-along. Once the votes are cast and counted, lyrics from the winning song will be displayed, and participants can call a number and use their cell phones as mics, broadcasting their voices back through the van’s loud speakers. If you are already in the Chicago area, you can use your voice to raise support to help eliminate AIDS in Africa in person by showing up at the Ole Tapas Lounge (2812 N. Lincoln Ave) from 8-10 p.m. tonight and Moonshine (1824 W. Division St.) from 9-11 p.m. Fri & Sat, or just look for the (RED) projection van in Bucktown & River North.

Our own Chris Byrd will be in Chicago covering Lollapalooza at this time, and will hopefully be able to make it over to this event as well so we can see some pics or video. You can follow him and his Tweets on Twitter @ChrisBatDell. Stay tuned!

Many of you have asked for updates to the Drivers & Downloads application on Support.Dell.com. In an effort to implement some of the changes you asked for, we recently completed a global launch of a number of new enhancements that addresses many of the issues you’ve highlighted.

The enhancements to the application include:

Drivers by tag

This new functionality provides you with the ability to get tag specific drivers and software updates based off the ‘As Shipped’ configuration of your system. This will result in a significant reduction in the number of drivers displayed. Initially we are launching this functionality on a subset of Inspiron laptops with other products soon to follow in the coming weeks. Figure 1.

(Note: Click on images to view a larger version)

Driver details page redesign

The driver details page has been overhauled to make it easier to navigate and find information. The key changes revolve around making the most important information easily accessible as well as reducing the initial content viewed when you first come to the page. The majority of the design of this page was directly influenced by users like you. Figure 2.

Addition of driver version to search results page

When you search for drivers for your system the driver version is now displayed on the main results page. This should enable you to easily compare the latest available version with that of your system.

These improvements should make searching for and downloading drivers a simpler and more efficient process and is a step forward in improving a frequently used tool. We plan to address other frequent customer requests like providing the ability to scan for driver updates. For now though, I’m confident that these recent changes will make a difference. We’ll continue our commitment to make Support.Dell.com as easy to use as possible for our customers.

Please take some time to visit your local Drivers & Downloads site and check out the changes. I look forward to your feedback. If you have ideas on how we can enhance future iterations of the Drivers & Downloads application, please let me know by responding to this post.

It had been rumored for quite some time that Google was looking to move into the virtual world space. Many of us with an interest in 3D platforms had tried in vain to get details on what they were cooking up. Speculation was that they were building something on top of Google Earth. And others wondered if it would be the Second Life killer app.

At the beginning of this month, they finally went public with the beta of Lively. Less a true, immersive virtual world, it appears to be more of a new 3D chat room in the vein of IMVU. Which is not surprising when you hear that Google once offered to buy IMVU and see that one of IMVU’s co-founders is now leading Google’s Lively programs.

Many virtual world bloggers and mainstream media expressed their disappointment in Lively soon after the launch. Jonas Karlsson, a researcher at Xerox known as Poinky Malaprop in Second Life and simply Poinky on Twitter, remarked: “To me, this type of platform is not that interesting. I want to be able to create things.” One of the guys at EightBar said, “I have to say it’s not quite what I was expecting from Google as the social room on a web page is quite a common concept already.” Over on Digado, Rick van der Wal.said “I don’t think it packs enough of a punch to really reach out into this market, even when that punch gets delivered by the 800 pound Googlerilla.” And, Thomas Claburn at InformationWeek noted: “Lively is certainly easier to use than Second Life, but it lacks the latter's programmability.”

But, is that programmability and ability to create things one of the barriers that has slowed adoption of the use of a true 3D environment like Second Life? While those who really want to sink their teeth into the possibilities that type of virtual world offers will take the time to learn a new scripting language, a vast majority of users probably do not have time or desire to make such an investment. And, for them, a browser-based virtual environment may be all they need.

Gartner has released a report that argues that Lively is more of a competitor to social networks such as Facebook than to established, large-scale virtual worlds like Second Life. Google themselves called Lively a “3D virtual experience” rather than an actual virtual world. Virtual world consultancy KZero believes that the target demographic for that experience is 10-20 year olds, and I must admit that myself, and many other Second Life residents are closer to 40 than 20 than we’d like to admit.

There is more to Lively than just chat. You can embed their virtual rooms into other web pages, a function IT Week Labs Blog called Lively’s “killer feature”. You can even embed them into Google maps. You can also do a bit of avatar customization, design your own room, embed YouTube videos and display Picasa photos.

But, rather than go into much more detail here, I’d rather stop and ask for your opinions. If you’ve tried Lively, what did you like or dislike? If you’ve not been there, here’s a video that can give you a first look: