Author: Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

Minority report

I found this amusing. In a post about the new Slashdot Discussion2 forums, a Slashdot administrator notes that the code is still in beta:

IE doesn’t work (patches welcome, but since only a quarter of you use it, it’s not a huge priority)

I’m just trying to imagine what would happen if any other site in the world said, for instance, “We’re not going to support [fill in the browser name] because only 25% of our visitors use it.”

I understand that Microsoft-bashing is de rigeuer at /., but still…

Update: Well, Discussion2 seems to work OK in IE7 with some minor display glitches (apparently these are also observed in the fully standards-compliant Konqueror browser as well, so it’s not just an IE thing). And the usual flame war is going on in the comments, with I would guess about 25% of the commenters pointing out the hypocrisy of actively not supporting a large group of users.

My favorite comment so far: 

Judging the mainstream based on Slashdot is like trying to learn about normal human interaction by people watching at a Star Trek convention.

OK, back to work.

Dell rolls out Cluefulness 2.0

Update 24-Jan-2010: The Customer Advocate e-mail address mentioned later in this post has been discontinued. However, Dell still accepts comments from customers and will act on them in timely fashion. If you’ve been through the regular support channels and things aren’t working, go to the Outstanding Issues page and fill in the form. This is not a first-line support alias. You’ll need a case or reference number.

It looks like Dell has officially launched its Cluefulness 2.0 program. I got wind of the pilot program last April when I received an unsolicited phone call from a Dell support executive over a horrible support experience I had had. My issue had eventually been resolved, but it had left a bad taste in my mouth.

In the past few days, I’ve seen more signs that Dell is figuring out how to find unhappy customers and try to make things right. This November 2004 post, Memo to Dell CEO Kevin Rollins, turns up at #1 on the Google search results if you look for Kevin Rollins email address. As a result, the comments section has grown into an impressive collection of complaints about Dell service and support. Last week, a Dell employee named Richard added this comment to the thread:

Ed, we are reading comments like this. In fact, we have a specialized team that reaches out to fix individual customer issues, and then goes back to look at where we made mistakes internally. We arent where we want to be yet, but we will get there. Just in last few quarters we have committed over $150 million to improving customer service, recognizing publicly that we had let issues like these get away from us. We have hired more staff, opened new support sites, retrained staff and are very focused on regaining our leadership by solving the custtomer issues the first time they call.

They’ve even gotten some grudging praise from Jeff Jarvis (here and here), whose foray into Dell Hell has been well documented.

And today I got a personal e-mail message from the same executive who contacted me last April:

I want you to let us know if there are any customers in need on your blog.  Our outreach team will be glad to help them as quickly as possible.  They are some of our very best people and are ready to help.  Their email address is Customer_Advocate@dell.com. 

I would be glad if you shared this email on your blog for any in need.

Consider it done. I’m nearly ready to purchase a new PC, and Dell has made it back onto the short list.

One less reason to use Firefox

It took a while, but someone finally released an add-on that fixes the most annoying part of searching pages in Internet Explorer. The Inline Search for Internet Explorer add-on replaces the modal Find dialog box with a bar that sits at the bottom of the page, exactly like the one in Firefox. As you type in your search term, it locates the first instance on the page immediately. You can find the next or previous instance using the buttons on the toolbar or by pressing the up or down arrow keys. You don’t have to click a Find button or close the dialog box when you’re done either.

I’ve been using IE7 more and more and generally prefer it to Firefox these days. I still keep Firefox around for the small number of pages that just won’t work properly in IE7.

(Thanks to Omar Shahine for the pointer, via Mike Torres.)

Want Vista RC1? Go get it

The 32- bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 are now available for download by anyone from this Microsoft-sponsored page, using Akamai’s Download Manager. If you have a product key from the Vista Beta 2 Customer Preview Program, it will work on this release. If you didn’t sign up for the CPP, you’ll have to wait a while longer to get your own product key.

But even if you don’t have a product ID, you can still install and use Vista. I’ll have more information in a major article that will be available on ZDNet tomorrow morning. I’ll post the link when it’s ready.

Details here: 10 essential tweaks for Windows Vista RC1.

Windows Vista’s hardware test explained

Over at ZDNet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has put together a really great, in-depth look at the Windows Experience Index, which is the score that the Windows Vista System Assessment Tool produces. Excellent work.

Adrian’s post is a good companion to the first post in my new ZDNet series, Vista Mythbusters #1: It’s not a hardware hog. Be sure to read the comments in the Talkback section, too. A lot of people look at a computer I spent $825 on two and a half years ago and consider it some sort of super-system. Amazing what folks will settle for in the name of trying to save a tiny amount of money.

System freezing up? Check your hardware

Thomas Hawk is trying a tech support experiment, in which he posts problems with his PC and then requests help. Instead of posting in his comments, I’m going to cover one of his problems here:

Problem number 1. My computer seems to be inexplicably freezing up (yes it’s a Windows machine, I know, I know, get a Mac) periodically. These are really bad freeze ups. Control-alt-delete does not return my PC. I can’t alt tab. Total freeze up. The only way to get my computer back is to restart. The last time it happened I had Pandora on in the background (but this is probably just coincidence) the music even stops and stutters as the freeze happens. The most recent thing I’ve installed is Windows new Live One Care. My next step is going to be to uninstall Live One Care and see if that helps me out at all.

By a curious coincidence, the same thing has happened to me within the past two weeks. Based on the symptoms, Thomas’s problem has nothing to do with software and everything to do with hardware. Here’s my story, and how I resolved it.

I have a Dell PowerEdge 600SC server running Windows Server 2003. It’s about 3-1/2 years old, and it has been running nonstop with virtually no problems for all that time. Over the years, I’ve added some big hard drives, and about a year and a half ago I replaced the original 2GB of RAM with 4GB so I could run multiple virtual machines on this box.

For the past month or so, this system has been responding slowly on some activities, especially file copies over the network. Then, about two weeks ago, the server froze up one day. Simply stopped responding. The power was still on, but the screen was black and the system didn’t respond to mouse input. I pressed the power button to restart, and when it came back on, I checked the System log in Event Viewer to see if there were any events captured there that might shed light on the error. Nope. Every recorded system event up until the crash was perfectly normal.

(Note to Thomas: Be sure to check Event Viewer. From Control Panel’s Classic view, double-click Administrative Tools, then double-click Event Viewer.)

The fact that there were no events listed is actually a crucial troubleshooting piece of information. It means that whatever happened was a complete surprise to the Windows code that’s running in kernel mode and supervising the whole system. Essentially, it means Windows was mugged.

A few days later, it happened again. This time, when I restarted, I booted into Dell’s Diagnostic Utilities partition and ran its comprehensive series of diagnostics. They showed no hardware problems. I also ran a quick memory test that showed no problems. Baffled, I restarted the system. Maybe it’s a failing motherboard, I thought, or a system that’s overheating.

When it happened again the next day, I decided to run a more comprehensive memory test. And sure enough, when I ran the full suite of memory tests included with Dell’s diagnostic suite, I found that the error correcting code (ECC) in one of the server’s memory modules was causing unrecoverable errors. Now, an unrecoverable memory error is bad news and would completely explain why (1) the system was locking up and (2) the lockups had no apparent relation to any software running.

Using another diagnostic tool, I ran a different suite of tests, which showed that the fault was in the memory module in DIMM slot A. This particular system has four slots, each with a 1GB stick of RAM in it. The RAM is installed in pairs. I wasn’t sure which slot was DIMM slot A, so I took out the modules on either end and then reseated the other two DIMMs in the remaining slots.

I restarted and ran another memory diagnostic. This time the system passed with flying colors. I now a highly confident that one of the two modules I removed is defective. They’re still under warranty, so I should be able to return them for replacement.

Lessons learned:

Most system and application failures are fairly easy to identify. Random failures often indicate hardware problems.

Bad RAM, overheating, and defective hard disks, in order, are the most common hardware failures in my experience.

Hardware can fail over time. Most people assume that the problem is software because they haven’t changed any hardware lately

Hope that helps, Thomas!