Guilded Lilies

Take A Falcon To Lunch Day

Below is an ad that has been running for several months in PC Gamer magazine.  It is an ad from Falcon Northwest, makers of high-end PC gaming systems:

All I would like to say to Falcon Northwest is, please, somebody; take this model out to lunch so she can stop eating her shirt.

I am getting a bit fatigued by seeing this ad in each issue of PC Gamer I receive lately, and increasingly tired by the fanboy focus of the magazine.  I am going to let my subscription run out on PC Gamer, and stick with Computer Games magazine as my source for print based gaming news from now on.  Computer Games has shown its willingness to grow with the gaming demographic, and provides gaming news and reviews that don't automatically assume that every reader is an immature adolescent male geek.  It isn't this ad that has caused me to throw in the chewed-on tank top of a towel with PC Gamer - this ad is benign in its relative idiocy.  It is more their editorial focus that just doesn't work for me as a reader.  Every magazine has the right and financial need to choose their demographic, and PC Gamer does focus on a niche, but I am no longer willing to put up with the overall pandering to the generally immature nature of their perceived readership that permeates the magazine's content. Maybe someday PC Magazine will grow up a bit and make it out of Junior High, but for now I have had enough.

By the look of things I think Falcon Northwest should make an appointment for their model with an ophthalmologist after lunch as well.

You can see a high resolution version of the ad HERE.

UPDATE 10/4/06:

Dear Falcon Northwest,

I see from your ad in the November issue of PC Gamer Magazine that you followed my suggestion and took your model out for lunch before your most recent photo shoot.  It's nice not having to look at her chewing on her tank top anymore, but I think by the way she is twisting it with her thumb that she may still be feeling a bit peckish.  Maybe next time you should insist she order from the desert menu as well?

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely;

Guilded Lily

PS:  I still think she could use an eye exam.

Dell-Fire and Brimstone: Dell Recalls Fiery Laptop Batteries

I know it seems like I have it in for Dell, but this bit of news provided such a great thematic tie-in with my previous post that I couldn't resist.  Dell announced a recall on Monday of 4.1 Million notebook computer batteries for fear that they might burst into flames.  The addition of the image of flaming notebooks to my metaphor of Dell Customer Service Hell is just too convenient for me to pass up. This from the New York Times article on the recall:

"Dell has been bedeviled by reports of burning laptops in recent months. In June, a Dell notebook burst into flames during a conference in a hotel in Osaka, Japan. In July, firefighters in Vernon Hills, Ill., were called to the office of Tetra Pak, the food processing and packaging company, to extinguish a notebook fire hot enough to burn the desk beneath it.

That same month, a Dell notebook in the cab of a pickup parked alongside Lake Mead in Nevada caught fire, igniting ammunition in the glove box and then the gas tanks. The truck exploded. “A few minutes later and we’d have been coming up out of the canyon when the notebook blew up,” said Thomas Forqueran, owner of the laptop and truck. “Somebody is going to wind up getting killed.”

Did you notice that the author of this piece used the word "bedeviled"?  Stranger still, the author's first name is Damon. Are you getting the same picture I am?

They also mention in the article that Dell's bottom line has been suffering recently due in part to their poor customer service, reinforcing that my neighbor's experience with Dell CS was not an isolated incident:

"Faced with stiffer competition that has forced price cuts, it has reported lower-than-expected sales and earnings over the last year, sending its stock down more than 40 percent. It is also spending $100 million to improve its customer service, which it found had alienated consumers.

To be fair, the lithium-ion batteries in question are manufactured by Sony, and it isn't clear from the article if the recall could possibly expand to other laptop manufacturers as well. Still, if you are the owner of a Dell laptop it would be a good idea to find out if your battery is one of the potential fire bombs in the recall through this link HERE.  This burning issue should be a good test to see how much Dell's customer service has improved after the $100 million dollar investment.

In parting I would like to share this little reminder courtesy of the Threadless T-Shirt website:

It would now appear that Stop, Drop, and Roll doesn't work for Dell either.

Story via Boing Boing and the New York Times.

Dude, you're gettin' a Dell???

A sometimes neighbor of mine, Christopher Jensen, has an article in The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio)  describing a recent experience with a new Dell XPS 400 system he bought for his godmother - a good friend of mine who is also my neighbor. I helped her set up her new Dell system when it arrived, and the next day when she booted it up she got the Blue Screen of Death.  She had dutifully written down the BSD Stop Code numbers, so I was able to find out that the problem was related to the RAM, and suggested that she probably had a faulty RAM module.  I assumed, since they had opted to buy the extra $130 in home repair service plan, that Dell would want to have a certified technician look it over, and that if I played around inside the case that I might void the service contract.  I suggested that they talk to Dell and assumed Dell would replace the RAM.  How hard is that?

Well, if you read his full article you can hear about the ordeal that had both Christopher and his godmother (84 years old by the way, and yanking her own RAM, thank you very much) on the phone with Dell for several hours a piece.  It was tedious beyond description, but the end result was that Dell finally decided they would send replacement modules.

The modules arrived, and when I went over to assist with the installation I discovered that Dell had sent REFURBISHED RAM to put into this brand new (less than a week old mind you) computer.  When I suggested that she demand they send her brand-spanking-new RAM, my neighbor, expressing the kind of world-weariness that only a prolonged session on the phone with a Dell technician can ingrain, said she would just install the refurbished RAM and be done with it.  They had succeeded in beating her down to the point of going along with their cheapo plan:  Used RAM for price of new in her new computer system.

Just how cheap are we talking here?  A quick look on Newegg.com has the same configuration of RAM selling for $70 to $90 (2 Dimms of 512 Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz).  That is the retail price for the RAM in her system, but the cost that Dell pays, considering they buy this stuff by the boatload, is more likely around $5 or $10 per stick, maybe even less.  But even cheaper than that, they sent used RAM, refurbished from a returned system, which would have even less value than the new modules.  Dell paid more for shipping the replacement RAM than the actual RAM itself cost them.  And how did they get my otherwise stalwart neighbor to give into this solution?  By billing her credit card for $80 ransom for the return of her original RAM - which would only be reversed if she returned the defective RAM in the allotted number of days.

I also had a look on the Dell website to see how much they charge for new RAM.  The retail price for the 2 Dimms of RAM in my neighbors system is $199.90, over twice as expensive as the best comparable RAM currently available on Newegg (and I don't expect that Dell uses the best RAM).  So besides being cheap when it comes to honoring their warranty, they are overcharging for the stuff in the first place.

Dell put Christopher and my neighbor through an agonizing process over replacement parts that would have at the most cost them $20 - if they had done the right thing and sent new RAM instead of the questionable refurbished units.  That's $20 compared to the $1500 that was spent on the new system, a system that shipped with defective RAM.  Neither Christopher nor my neighbor will ever buy a Dell system again, for fear that they will be faced with the prospect of having to talk to a customer service representative in the almost inevitable case that something goes wrong with the computer system.  Christopher expanded the impact of Dells deplorable practices in writing his article, and now I have done a small part in writing this post.  Dell lost a lot more money by not spending the $20 it would have cost them to send new RAM, in the potential return business and to the bad press generated from this one experience. To quote Christopher's article:

"From my perspective, a mildly motivated, single-cell organism could have improved that service."

So if you are planning on buying a new Dell system, you better hope that it works right out of the box, other wise you are in for the signature Dell customer service experience that is comperable to a visit to your own personal level in Techonology Hell.  Makes me wonder how Alienware will fare under Dell ownership, but I guess that is another story for another day.

Pay To PlayStation: PS3 vs. PC

One of the largest deciding factors between playing games on computers versus consoles has been the price.  For many households without a PC the gaming console has been the lower price alternative for gaming.  The cost of a top of the line gaming PC can easily exceed $4,000, and keeping up with the constant improvements can mean spending a sizeable chunk of cash on a fairly regular basis. Up until recently, having a top of the line console would only set you back $200 or $300.  What is interesting to see with the advent of the PlayStation 3, is the price of playing games on a console is increasing in a big leap, bringing it much closer to the costs associated with a low-end home computer.

It is difficult to compare the PS3 to a gaming PC, there are not very many side-by-side elements that can be easily analyzed for performance versus price.  I am more interested in the psychological idea of how much people are be willing to pay for a console, especially one that is anticipated to be in short supply on release.  I recently came across this article from BBC Online.  The online store at Play.com has begun taking advanced orders for European customers for the top of the line (60 GB) PS3 for the sum of £549, or around $1,014 US dollars.  I have seen all sorts of projected prices for the PS3 once it is released, but according to the BBC article Sony announced the price for the PS3 at $785 dollars (£425), so this is a bit of a price gouge to be sure.  The combination of the already high suggested price and the projected scarcity of these units on release will likely make this type of pricing fairly common for those sellers lucky enough to have them available before the end of 2006.

It is safe to assume that there will be a good number of people willing to pay $800 - $1,000 for a PS3 at release, so we are now definitely in the same neighborhood as home computers when it comes to price.  This is far from the $4,000 + top of the line gaming computer, and additionally, the specs offered by those systems are often more than is necessary to play most computer games.  To make my point I have this scenario to offer (as an example, not a recommendation):  Computer Games magazine has given the eMachines T6532 their Editor's Choice red star in the July/August issue (see page 73).  This basic computer system comes with an Athalon 64 3500+ CPU, 1 GB of RAM, a 200 GB hard drive, the usual DVD drives, Windows XP, etc, and an Nvidia Geforce 6100 video card that is unfit for playing games.  They suggest swapping the video card for an NVidia GeForce 6800GS or 7600GT, at which point you have a very competent gaming system, including the upgraded video card, for less than $750.  Consumer Games magazine says this:

"For all the folks who say they don't have the budget for PC gaming, show them this small but powerful system."

The price for this PC doesn't include a monitor, but since the PS3 requires a television as well I didn’t include the monitor price into the comparison. And what about that television?  The high price for the PS3 is justified by Sony because of the Blue-ray high definition player included with the unit.  Sony is saying that for the price of the PS3 you will get a great deal on their combined gaming console and HD player.  The problem arises when you consider the price of a HD Television.  THIS article by Aaron Stanton suggests that the addition of a HD television to your gaming package, to take advantage of what you are paying so much for your PS3 in the first place, would add over $1000 to the price tag of your PS3 gaming system. Here is what Stanton has to say:

“The PS3 relies on a feature that can't be utilized without equipment that sells for double the PS3 itself. Sony is hoping the PS3 will be carried by a feature that will go almost unused by the time the PS3 is replaced by the PS4.”

In the end you are paying for features that for most people will remain unappreciated.  When you compare a similarly priced PC & monitor package, you get a lot more functionality for your price.  Ultimately, when you compare both the PC and the PS3 to the Wii, Nintendo ends up looking like they have a pretty clever marketing plan.

The decision on whether to buy a PC or a PS3 will most likely be made based on more than price, and there are any number of reasons why one approach will be better suited for any given individual.  Making this price comparison does provide a different perspective on the future of computer gaming as it relates to the competition offered by consoles.  I see higher priced gaming consoles as being a good thing for computer gaming - the tightening of that price gap will make the value of playing games on the computer (along with all the other functions it offers) more apparent.  The more you have to pay to PlayStation the brighter the future of computer games becomes.

Thanks to Wonderland for the Del.icio.us link!

Maximum PC & Starforce

I've just heard back from Maximum PC magazine concerning the email I sent them about the infection of Starforce I got from the King Kong game demo.  I loaded the demo from the Maximum CD that came with the January 2006 issue of the magazine.  Here's the email:

Hi there,

My name is Josh and I put the disc together each month for Maximum PC. I saw your blog post about the issues you had with our King Kong demo, and I just wanted to we're sorry you had issues with Starforce. We'll certainly keep it in mind for future discs and do our best to make sure something like this does not happen again.

josh

--
Josh Norem
Senior Editor
Maximum PC Magazine

Hopefully this means they will stop offering game demos that use the Starforce anti-piracy protection software (or any rootkit type of invading software for that matter!) on their demo CDs and DVDs. 

As I mentioned before, subscribers to the magazine should contact Maximum PC by email HERE to let them know you support the ban on games that use Starforce.

Vederman: Your Computer Is NOT Your Girlfriend

I subscribe to PC Gamer magazine for the combination of information about games and the computer technology to play them on.  I enjoy keeping up with the latest system builds for gaming computers, and I regularly read the Hard Stuff column written by Greg "The Vede" Vederman.  This has been a challenge for me though, as his writing style is, (how shall I say this nicely?), puerile.  I would prefer to not have to navigate through his consistently junior high level metaphors for computer hardware information, but somebody must enjoy this stuff because they recently made him Editor-in-Chief of the magazine.  Now that Vederman has been promoted the March issue has announced the retirement of The Vede as the hardware editor.  In Vederman's last column we are treated to some of his favorite types of metaphor:

". . . this rig is so damn beautiful, I just wanted to make it dinner and run it a hot bath.  But only a fool rushes into a relationship based on looks and specs alone; first, you've gotta make sure it puts out."

I'm really hoping that the new writer of the Hard Stuff column, Logan Decker, will be able to find a new class of metaphors when describing computer technology, because this is really tired.  PC Gamer has surely built its reputation along the lines of Vederman's bad-boy personality, but it is 2006, junior high is over, and it's time to find better ways of livening up descriptions of computer hardware.  I can't possibly be the only female subscriber to PC Gamer, can I?  I don't hold out a lot of hope for the overall middle-school mentality of the magazine now that Vederman is in charge.  I do hope they will begin to see that the computer gamer is growing up, and is just as likely to be a woman as a man.  They can continue to appeal to the same marketing ideal of the 16 - 24 year old male who-can't-get-a-date-so-treats-his-computer-like-a-girlfriend, but they may find they are missing the mark more often than not.