From today’s Wall Street Journal (subscribers only):

Apple Computer is issuing its own big recall of laptop computer batteries, on the heels of a recall by rival Dell that cast a harsh light on the perils of a widely used battery technology. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Apple plans to recall 1.1 million batteries in the U.S., plus 700,000 batteries sold in other countries. The batteries, like those in the Dell recall, were made by a a unit [of] Sony.

Who’s next?

Update: I see by my server logs that someone at Dell.com is regularly checking the Technorati feed for the keywords “Apple batteries.” Schadenfreude, anyone?

And Dwight Silverman picks up on the “who’s next?” question with word that “Apple, Sony, Dell, HP and Lenovo are planning a battery-manufacturing summit. All of them use Sony-manufactured batteries in their notebooks.”

The New York Times reports that Dell “is recalling 4.1 million notebook computer batteries because they could erupt in flames.” The story points out what you were probably already thinking as well in a discussion of batteries that have caused fires on airplanes.

Dell’s official notice isn’t up yet, but when it does you’ll be able to read it here, presumably.

If each replacement battery costs about $100, when you figure in the cost of shipping both ways, that’s $400 million. Damn, that’s gotta hurt.

Update: Dell’s Battery Recall site is now live. I got a certificate error when I visited the site using either Firefox 1.5.0.6 or IE7 Beta 3 under Windows, because the secure certificate was issued by Starfield Secure Certification Authority, which is not listed as a trusted certificate provider.

I just about fell out of my chair when I read this post from Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler:

I’m sitting here with my Leopard preview install DVD and I can’t work up the courage to just blow away Tiger on my only Mac (my primary machine — a MBP.) Heck, I don’t even know if Firefox runs on Leopard.

My first thought was to install Leopard under Parallels on my MBP — just the way I do Vista under VMWare on my Thinkpad. Apparently that’s not possible since Leopard will only install on genuine Mac hardware and Parallels is virtual hardware, even if it’s running on a Mac.

Emphasis added.

If you stick your fingers in your corporate ears and go “la la la” when your customers complain, eventually it catches up with you.

(And when your products catch fire, melt, and explode, that doesn’t help either.)

Glenn Fleishman says Don’t Buy Draft N:

I am going to make myself extremely unpopular this morning by suggesting that no one buy so-called Draft N Wi-Fi gear that is pouring into the market.

I have to agree. Computer networks are complex enough without adding the complication of a whole generation of equipment that sort of adheres to a standard. If you’re in the market for wireless networking gear, read Glenn’s piece first.

I’m not sure I want something called the TOXIC X1900 XTX to even enter my front door, much less take up permanent residence in my PC. I suppose if I were a hardcore gamer, I’d feel differently about a display adapter that runs at 675 MHz, with 512MB of GDDR3 RAM and presumably needs its liquid-cooling system and pure copper water block to keep it from achieving critical mass.

It looks like something out of Alien.

Something tells me Dwight would like this.

(via Daily Tech)

If you’ve read this site for the past year or two, you know I’m not a big fan of Dell. I’ve had too many bad experiences (documented here, here, here, and here, with follow-ups here, here, here, and here).

So I wasn’t surprised last month when I had major problems getting a broken Dell laptop repaired. The motherboard graphics had failed, and the warranty specified that it was eligible for next-day on-site service. I’ll spare you the gory details – let’s just say that it took 19 phone calls and 27 days for a repair person to arrive at my office.

Ho-hum. More of the same, right?

So imagine my surprise when I received a call last week from Dell headquarters. This executive had reviewed my file and was calling to (a) apologize profusely and (b) find out exactly what happened so they could fix the broken process.

We exchanged a few e-mails, and I sent along notes from some of my previous horrifying support experiences. A day or two later I received a note from this executive’s assistant, offering me a fairly substantial no-strings-attached coupon as a “gesture to make amends.”

Now, Dell didn’t track me down because I’ve posted my complaints on this site. In this case, the issue that led to the call was one I hadn’t written about at all, and this executive didn’t seem to know anything about me except that I was an unhappy Dell customer.

This is a first for me, and it’s enough to make me take a fresh look at Dell. I’m still cautious, and it will take years for the company to earn back the trust they’ve lost. But at least they’ve taken a first step.

I’d be very interested to hear from anyone else who has had an unexpectedly good experience with Dell lately.