I got an interesting comment on my Dell Hell post, from GH who writes:
Well, it appears consumers are making their choices known:
http://www.techspot.com/news/23261-hp-surpasses-dell-in-3q-shipments.html
I’ve also heard that the high & mighty Michael Dell has come out of retirement, returned to his former company and plans to turn things around. Time will tell, and in my opinion, this will be a rather hefty undertaking. Dell’s reputation has really gone down the drain these past couple of years.
I continue to sell Sony, HP and Apple computers in my business….staying completely away from Dell.
Michael Dell came out of retirement in January and has supposedly made big steps to improve their customer service (including a recent layoff of 8,000 employees) and other things that led to hp overtaking them in sales towards the end of last year. Sadly for them (not that they care about lil ol me), I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago after my hubby’s was stolen (I love it - his gets stolen and *I* get a new laptop - coolness!), and just so happened to pick an hp. Aaron had recommended hp a long time ago (before he became a Mac fanboy), so that was my first look and final choice. It didn’t hurt that it was super cool and all white (special edition) and had a built in webcam and microphone (all the Mac features I have been envious of without none of the PITA of changing to an unknown OS).
So, good luck to Dell in making improvements, I hope they do. But the convenience of being able to run out and purchase and take home immediately an hp far outshines the 2-3 weeks of waiting for a Dell, and certainly the bad taste that still sits in my mouth from our experience with Dell’s customer service. What used to be a household of 5 Dells and 4 Dell cheerleaders now sits at two remaining Dells living out the end of their useful lives, one Lenovo, one Gateway and one hp. Lenovo and hp have the Jones fanclub at this point. Partially because Lenovo sent out a HAWT tech guy to the house one day. Ha - I am so easily swayed.
Now, I hope hp’s customer service doesn’t go the way of Dell’s. And I really hope I never have problems with my laptop so I don’t ever have to find out how it compares. And at the very least, I hope they send out hot tech guys. 
With the build 600 version of BlogDesk, it is now fully functioning on my Vista laptop! w00t!!! The prior problem was that when clicking the add picture button, nothing happened - no “browse for the picture” window.
Thanks Johannes - you still have the most kick ass editor out there! If you love BD like I do, think about slipping Johannes a little skin - I sure don’t want him to quit updating!
I will say that Windows Live Writer has worked in the off season though, so it is good to know it works and I can fall back on it. 
I hope I am not the only one who celebrates this occasion! That said, if you are waiting for a response from me, please let me know. I hope I didn’t overzealously archive and delete - but its always possible. Its a great day!
I can’t believe how busy I am now - what happened to my bon bons and my soap operas and living the lush and lazy life of a stay at home mom with too many cats and 2 kids in school? Thank God I love what I am doing. I have to gripe for one minute - I love writing, and it is stuck at the dead ass end of the day, when I am worn out. And that is just the writing that I HAVE to do. I hate that I am not able to keep up NailTechSecrets, and my wellness blogs. I love them just as much as eBeautyDaily and MRSANotes, but you would never know it by looking at em. Thank God for Peg at MRSAResources (love, love, love you girlfriend!). Know how long it has been since I have read a book? I LOVE to read. I don’t even know how long it has been. My husband has read, I bet, 15 books since I have read one, and he claims not to be a reader.
In case anyone thinks I am lazy (which if you took a gander at my house, you might think that), I get up at 5am every morning, work til 6:30, get the kids off to school at 7:15, work til 4 - feed the kids, do homework, work a little more, exercise, clean house, do laundry, get the kids to bed - and work again from about 8:30 til (I would love to say) 9:30 (but it’s usually more like 11). Aaack. I am worn plumb out. I wish I had a clone. Or just a few more sleeping hours in the daynight.
/rant
I do love all of my jobs though, and all the wonderful people that go along with wifehood (is that a word?), motherhood, blogging, and b5media. I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. Women are wonderful creatures, aren’t they?
If you go look at my dear friend Hsien, and the leader she is most related to, you will appreciate our differences all the more. LOL
This is me:
Long before we sunk down into Dell Hell, we wrote off Sony Vaio. We have a Vaio laptop here that is in perfect shape, but has a short in the power thingy that connects to the motherboard. We know this can be fixed, but our local shop wants to replace the motherboard entirely. I found a guy online that would fix it, but we just never went through the trouble to get it to him. I really think that all we need is some soldier. But I could be wrong.
Anyway, now that we are back in the market for laptops, or will be once one of our Dell’s die (knockonwood) I see that Sony has blessed their newest series of business laptops with a TX series designation. All they need is a big star on the hood, and every Texan will have one. Is that Texas centric of me to think that? Probably. You did know its all about Texas, didn’t you? They are offering it with Sprint mobile broadband built right in, which we currently have and pay over $60/month for (on top of our home broadband). I can’t see whether or not you have to pay that monthly charge, I am sure you do though. If not, sign me up right now - I’ll take two. It would be nice not to have to carry around that little Sprint box all over creation - and this computer is super lightweight - perfect for Marshall’s constant travel job. Anyway, this is something I want to hang on to for when we need it. Cause I know our Dell’s will start dying again soon.
I always have my heart set on something ridiculously expensive. But this is it now that I got rational and gave up my Dolce & Gabbana glasses. At $150 this gadget is half the price of my D&G glasses and 10 times as useful (seeing as I wear contacts most of my waking hours).
This is the SmartShopper, and it hangs on your refrigerator and takes your wonderful recorded shopping list and transfers it to paper like a breeze. Must. Have. This. Found at girly heaven PopGadget.
Well, I spent a total of about 10 leisurely hours upgrading to WP 2.1 and messing with a new template. Other than 2 or 3 hours of trying to figure out how to get my blogroll to display properly (I can’t for the life of me get the 1. Bookmarks out of it - I have played with every parameter of the new tag except for the right one, obviously), 2.1 went off without a hitch. I am not keen on the new blogroll tags and the fact that you don’t have much control over the blogroll within admin like you used to (unless I am not seeing it!)l but it’s probably just having to teach an old dog a new trick that is making me resistant.
This theme is kinda business-y for a fun lovin’ gal like me, but I like it, the coding is very nicely done (thanks Brian!), it doesn’t look too cluttered (love keeping some of that cluttery stuff in the footer) and everything works as expected, which never happens for me. I even managed to tweak the b5media blogroll so it looks normal sized instead of giant. And it works. And, most importantly I didn’t have to ask for help. w00t!
I keep thinking I want to get a custom theme, but if I can’t even figure out the basics of what I want, how on earth will I ever be happy with one someone else does? I searched through about 15 Googlepages of designers last night and just didn’t see any one of them that did much for me. I don’t want it to be too boring, or too techy or too girly or too - I don’t know what the word it - swirly maybe. If I see another theme that looks like it has cutouts, I will scream. I love Chris Pearson’s Cutline, but I just keep seeing it over and over and over again - its a great template though - maybe next time I get in a switcheroo mood I will try some customizations and see what happens. I even tried to clear my mind of the bazillion templates I had been looking at and try to imagine what I wanted my blog to look like, and I couldn’t even do that. I think I would drive a designer insane at this point. I am driving myself crazy. I have looked at every 2 column, 3 column, widgetized template with pink, black and gray that exists. And all the non widgetized ones too.
Now to replace that CJ up there with something that is more me. I will surely think of something more suitable soon enough…
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