Software / Operating Systems

As some may have seen in blog posts from sites like Electronista or SlashGear, Yesterday, we added a really cool option to the Studio 17—a multi-touch display. This is the first Dell laptop to offer a multi-touch display option. Some of you may not get excited at the thought of running your fingers all over your laptop’s screen (this is one of my husband’s pet peeves – Do.Not.Touch.My.Display), but I am here to tell you, once you start using multi-touch, it becomes second nature in how you interact with your PC.

For most people, the first introduction to touch was your neighborhood ATM machine. Today’s touch screens are much more sophisticated, able to handle multiple simultaneous touches (the Studio 17 is a true four-touch solution) and gestures, like pinch, drag, rotate and flick. I think you will be surprised at how quickly you will adapt to using touch when the opportunity presents its self. And as Ed Baig at USA Today discussed in a recent column, the arrival of Windows 7 with support for multi-touch in its DNA should accelerate the use of touch in PCs going forward

To help ensure using touch becomes second nature, we pre-install a suite of touch software applications on the Studio 17 with multi-touch display. For example the Dell Touch Zone lets your fingers do the walking to quickly locate touch applications and media content. You can edit photos or create slide shows or even flick favorite photos to Flickr.com, create music playlists, select, start and stop videos, and leave virtual sticky notes for family members. Note: Click on any of the images in my post to see a larger view, or to see more pictures click over to the Studio 17 Multi-touch set on Flickr.

Youngsters and the young at heart will enjoy doodling and finger painting with YouPaint by Cyberlink. This nifty program will get your creative juices going, with fun activities like coloring, stamping, or modifying favorite photos (It was amazing fun taking a favorite picture of my two dogs, outfitting them with stylish hats and introspective thought bubbles.)

For the truly imaginative, there is the TouchCam application also from Cyberlink, which allows you to add in all kinds of amazing video effects things while you are using your webcam. For example, add a hat to your image (reminds me of the day in the park in Mary Poppins), or celebrate with an animated confetti parade, frame your image in roses, or go incognito and use an avatar. And, you can capture and upload these Oscar-deserving efforts to YouTube for posterity.

As you’ll recall we unveiled the new and improved Studio 17 in conjunction with the launch of Intel’s mobile Core i7 quad core processors. It has an impressive 17.3-inch HD display and an excellent array of entertainment features, like JBL branded audio solution, which makes it an ideal choice for a desktop replacement. For those who don’t require the four-on-the-floor power of Core i7, we have expanded the processor selection to include Intel Pentium Dual Core and Core 2 Duo processors, and adjusted the starting price to $699.

For those of you who are interested in how the watch is made, yes, GottaBeMobile.com, we teamed with N-trig to add the multi-touch display option on the Studio 17. Their DuoSense dual-mode digitizer solution uses a highly accurate capacitive sensing system that delivers quick and responsive multi-touch capability – true hands on computing as they call it.

You may have gathered from this blog post that I might be a fan of multi-touch capability on the PC. I am. I anticipate that sooner rather than later one of my morning rituals will be scrolling through my local paper on a PC with a multi touch screen in my kitchen versus racing my husband for the sports section. For those of you who are interested in getting your hands on* a unique laptop, check out the Studio 17 with a multi-touch display, starting at $899. (Note: the multi-touch display will be available with Core i7 systems in a few weeks).

*Pun Intended

You may have seen some chatter recently about an audio issue on the Alienware M17x on Engadget, NotebookReview and Dell’s Community site. The discussions revolve around deferred procedure call (DPC) latency, and its affect on audio performance. We are aware of the issues customers are reporting, and are currently working to address them.

Some folks are using tools to measure DPC latency, and while measuring it is one thing, it may not actually cause performance issues. The few customers who have symptoms are reporting the following:

• Audio stutters, clicks, pops, and drops
• Frame drops while watching videos
• Audio/Video desync during video playback

DPC latency is not an issue that is specific to Alienware or Dell. This is a complex problem to address, and there are no simple solutions. DPC latency can be caused by numerous issues including the system BIOS, a sound card or audio chipset, drivers, the operating system itself or a combination of those things.

We will continue to dig deeper into this. As we make progress on this issue, I'll report it here.

I'd like to announce that Dell Linux Engineers will hit the road to Dallas, TX to participate in the upcoming Ubuntu Developers Summit for Lucid Lynx (UDS-L) from December 16 - 20 Correction: November 16 - 20.

Lucid Lynx is the code name for the upcoming release of Ubuntu, versioned 10.04. This is a significant release for Canonical and Dell as this it will be an LTS (Long Term Support) meaning it will be supported by Canonical for three years on the Desktop and five years on the Servers. UDS is the forum where the Ubuntu Linux Community Developers and System Integrators (like Dell) come together to discuss and hash out the feature roadmap for the next release of Ubuntu Linux. Issues that need fixing, features that need developing are all spec'd out, prioritized and based in this week-long marathon of discussions and brainstorms. At the end of the summit, the final Blueprints are published. These Blueprints are reflective of what to expect in the next release of Ubuntu Linux. This sort of "transparent" planning is what differentiates the open-source projects such as Ubuntu Linux from their "closed-source" counterparts.

Mario Limonciello will be hitting the road with me. We both work in the core Ubuntu Linux engineering team at Dell responsible for delivering Ubuntu Linux on various desktops, notebooks and netbooks globally. Making guest appearances on random days of the summit will be Doug Anson who works for the Office of the CTO responsible for architecture of Client Linux across Dell as well as John Hull who is the Engineering Manager for the Linux team at Dell.

I will be leading a plenary on "Preloading Ubuntu" on the second day of the summit right after lunch hour. In addition, we will all be participating in many different sessions that span across several different tracks such as Desktop, Kernel, QA, Community etc. So, come out and join us or remotely participate.

Those of you who read Direct2Dell pretty regularly know that I love to use PCs for their multimedia capabilities. Advancements in hardware performance and on the OS side have made it possible to enjoy HD-quality stuff throughout the house. Now, we're bringing that capability to customers worldwide into a small form factor with the Inspiron Zino HD. Next to the Studio Hybrid, it's the smallest PC form factor we've introduced in our history. It also brings a lot of the power efficiency of the Studio Hybrid and offers better performance.

Small form factors themselves are nothing new. But  with the Inspiron Zino HD, we've worked to make a desktop that balances performance, size and price. In my view, this is the closest we've come to balancing all three in my 15 years here at Dell.

Update: I saw folks like Crave's Rich Brown were curious about performance Blu-ray performance. I'll work to pull together some details about CPU/ GPU performance on this little thing early next week. In the meantime, Jay Taylor has a pretty thorough review over at the AMD at Home Blog.

We offer a slew of color and design options: Flamingo Pink, Formula Red, Tangerine Orange, Plum Purple, True Blue, and Spring Green and Piano Black. Beyond that, we'll also offer Dell Design Studio-inspired designs as well. Take a look at this set on Dell's Flickr page if you want to see more.

The Inspiron Zino HD kicks things into high gear by adding more powerful processor (see image below) and graphic card options. It comes standard with an integrated version of AMD's Radeon HD 3200 solution, but customers who want the best HD experience should opt for upgrading to the discrete version of the ATI Mobility Radeon 4330.

The Zino HD also offers more expandability options--including DDR3 800MHz DDR2 RAM up to 8GB, an internal hard drive options up to 1TB. It also adds more external expandability through two E-SATA ports. Inspiron Zino HD customers can opt for an internal Blu-ray drive and can output it directly to an HDTV in the living room or elsewhere through HDMI. The Zinio HD can be ordered with two internal Wi-Fi network card options: the Dell 1397 card for 802.11b/g or the Dell 1520 card for 802.11b/g, and dual-band 802.11n. A 4-in-1 media card reader and integrated Gigabit Ethernet are both standard. Click on the image below to see a better view on the ports on the Inspiron Zino HD.

When outfitted with an upgraded processor the discrete graphics card option. the Zino HD is built for HD streaming. Streaming Netflix? Check. Watching Blu-ray movies in 1080p? Check. Besides that, this little box makes an awesome Windows 7 Media Center hub. We offer the Inspiron Zino HD with Vista Home Basic as the base operating system. But for anyone looking to use it as a Media Center Hub, I highly recommend upgrading to Windows 7 Home Premium or Ultimate. If you watched video of Microsoft's Windows 7 launch event in New York might have caught the demo. Windows 7 is a media streaming beast.

Bottom line, if you're needing a small PC that can handle everything from the basics up through some pretty sophisticated HTPC kind of stuff, the I think the Inspiron Zino and the Zino HD are definitely worth a look.

Recently, there's been some chatter in places like Ubergizmo about reported delays with the Windows 7 upgrade kits. Here's the deal: we're currently working through a backlog of orders for the English version of the OS and we hope to be caught up by the end of this week. The main reason for the delays is that there's lots of customers who want it. Even though we had planned for that, demand has exceeded our initial expectations.

I've already blogged about how the upgrade process should work, but I think the steps of the process are worth repeating here:

1. Determine system and Vista OS eligibility
2. Register your eligible system for the upgrade at https://win7.dell.com
3. Place your order for the version that you  are eligible for (see table in the image below). 
4. Once you successfully place your order, you can check the order status from the Windows 7 upgrade site at https://win7.dell.com

Remember that not all versions of Vista or XP qualify. Vista Home Basic is one such example. Some customers I've talked to purchased a qualifying system without a version of Vista that's eligible. Your eligibility ultimately depends on both the hardware and the version of Vista or XP you ordered along with the date your system was purchased. See this image from the eligibility page for more details on the corresponding OS version and what OSes are not eligible in the text below the table.

Note: Clicking on it will also bring you directly to it.

Some customers aren't able to complete the registration process (step #2 above) because their system is not in the database. We can fix this issue. See how to contact me down below.

Another common reasons for confusion is that registering your eligible system is only the first part of the process. You also have to place your order for Windows 7. In other words, registration alone does not initiate shipment of the kit. After registration, you have to log into your account at www.dell.com/windows7upgrade and order your kit. Once you've placed your order, you can also log into your account to view order status, shipping, and tracking information.

If you are having problems with any part of this process, I want to help you. Either comment on this post or contact me directly through sending me a private message or you can e-mail me here. Please share your service tag or order number, and let me know details about your specific situation. Posting your issue on the main Windows 7 Forum board is also an option.

Thank you for your patience during these first few weeks of the program. Beyond reaching out to me, here's some other places that might be helpful based on specific issues:

If you have problems registering a service tag:

• Visit the Contact Dell site at http://www.dell.com/contactdell
• After selecting your region, click the Contact Customer Service link

If you have forgotten your password or have a problem logging in:

• Use the Forgot Password form and a new password will be sent to your e-mail account:
  https://win7.dell.com/PasswordRecovery.aspx

If you have issues with lost shipments or receipt of damaged product:

• Use the Contact Form at https://win7.dell.com/ContactLTG.aspx

For more information about installing or upgrading to Windows 7:

• Visit http://support.dell.com/windows7

If you would like to check the shipping status of your order: 

• Visit the Windows 7 Upgrade website at www.dell.com/windows7upgrade  and log into your account using the email address and password that you entered when you registered your system. Click on the "Order Status" link on the right. The order status, shipping, and tracking information will be displayed. 

For all other questions and problems:

• View our Frequently Asked Questions at https://win7.dell.com/FAQPage.aspx