Regrettably, Dell has canceled your recent order for a Dell Nuvi 275T GPS or Nuvi 265WT GPS

Dear Customer,

This is to notify you that, regrettably, Dell has canceled your recent order for a Dell Nuvi 275T GPS or Nuvi 265WT GPS. Due to our error, the system was shown online at an incorrect price and was far below the correct price for that product, Because of the large difference in price, we have not reinstated your order, but we invite you to visit www.dell.com to re-order this item at the correct price.

As specifically noted on our web pages, catalogs, ads, and customer order documentation, Dell reserves the right to cancel any orders resulting from such errors.

We truly value our relationship and reputation with our customers, and we realize the negative impact from these types of errors.

Please be assured that we are working hard to try and prevent these problems going forward.

We are sorry for any inconvenience that our error may have caused.

Regards,
Dell Employee and Education Personal Purchase Programs

Thank you for being a Dell Customer

I think they mean ex-Dell Customer.

When companies make this mistake, they need to stand behind the company and stand up for their customers. If companies realized how much future business they lost from stupid mistakes like this they would honor the deal in an instant.

In the last five years I purchased two laptops from Dell for a total of $4,000. That’s $800/year that Dell will not be getting from me. Think about how many other loyal customers Dell ticked off with this stupid customer disservice move. I would wager that Dell is revoking this deal for at least 1,000 of their customers. Let’s assume that 10% of those customers spend as much as I do on Dell products.

10% of 1,000 is 100 customers. $800/customer/year * 100 customers = $80,000/year that Dell has lost to its competitors.

The deal was for a Garmin Nuvi 265WT which retails on Amazon.com for $217.84 (at the time of this post) and was being sold on Dell’s site for $130 + tax. That difference is $87.84 and at 1,000 customers that’s $87,840. In just over one year, Dell would have broke even by honoring this deal and now has lost many valuable customers.

What a stupid move. Way to go, Dell!

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The drive shows up as “TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-L632D ATA Device” in device manager. Microsoft published an article that explains how to fix the problem. The short of it: delete the upper and lower filters stored in the registry

Delete Key 1: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\UpperFilters
Delete Key 2: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\LowerFilters

Worked like a champ.

Dell, you need to post this on your website and educate your customer service. They’re absolutely worthless.

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Today I was faced with a difficult wireless networking scenario: looooong house, many thick walls.

The topography is as follows:
Comp A <--- 200 ft., 4 walls ---> Router <--- 150 ft., 3 walls ---> Comp B

The house is older so the walls are very, very solid and RF-absorbing. The old setup involved a Linksys WRT54GX (802.11 b/g) as the router in the middle, a Belkin Wireless-N PCMCIA card on computer A, and a Belkin Wireless-N PCI card on computer B. After many attempts to reposition the wireless adapter’s antennas on computer B with no success I suggested hooking up a WRT54G in client bridging mode (using DD-WRT) to act as the wireless adapter on computer B. Worked like a champ. The signal is now strong and the connection hasn’t dropped one single time.

The kicker is that the WRT54G I used is version 8.2 which has very little RAM and doesn’t support the standard method of upgrading the firmware to DD-WRT.

The Solution

1. Download TFTP.
2. Download the VX Work Killer firmware for the WRT54G v8.2
3. Download the dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin firmware for the WRT54G v8.2
4. Upload the vxworkskillerGv8-v3.bin firmware to the router.
5. Wait for the router to reboot.
6. Try to ping the router (192.168.1.1 by default).
7. When you can ping the router continue to the next step.
8. Open a command prompt and enter
   “tftp -i 192.168.1.1 put dd-wrt.v24_micro_wrt54gv8.bin“
9. If all went well, when the router reboots it will have DD-WRT on it and be accessible via 192.168.1.1.
10. Username: “root”
11. Password: “admin”

Source

The connection on computer A is also weak so I’ll be adding a WRT54G to the mix to fix it.

Thank you DD-WRT!

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I decided to do some updates on my desktop computer at home tonight and the download speed was awful. The maximum download speed on my current plan is 90KB/s. That’s not gonna cut it for downloading gigabytes of data in a reasonable amount of time. Hmm…maybe I’ll upgrade my internet connection so the downloads go faster, I thought!

I called Time Warner, waited on hold for about five minutes and then spoke to Dustin, an upstanding young sales rep. I’m embarrassed for Dustin. What. A. Schmuck.

Me: I want to upgrade my Roadrunner internet connection.
Dustin: Ok, our next plan is blah blah blah…
Me: And then?
Dustin: Our standard package. Five megabytes for $39.95 a month.
Me: Five megabytes?!
Dustin: Yes, five megabytes.
Me: Five Mega B-Y-T-E-S?
Dustin: Yes, five megabytes.

Me: Let me speak to your supervisor, please.
Dustin: May I ask why?
Me: Yes, because you don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Dustin: Megabytes, megabits, they’re the same thing.
Me: No they aren’t.
Dustin: Yes, they are.
Me: Let me speak to your supervisor, please.
Dustin: Why, because I don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits?
Me: Yes.
Dustin: I don’t think she’ll let you speak with her.
Me: Make it happen.
Dustin: Hold on, sir.

5 minutes later…

Dustin: My supervisor doesn’t think you need to speak with her about this issue. I’m not in IT, or technical support. Do you want to work for Time Warner?
Me: What?
Dustin: Do you want a job with Time Warner?
Me: No, if I wanted a job with Time Warner I would be working for Time Warner.
Me: Now, can you get me that plan you told me about? The five megabyte plan.
Dustin: Sure, let me put that into the system.
Me: NO! You can’t put it into the system because it doesn’t exist. You don’t have a five megabyte plan! You have a five megabit plan! Now let me talk with your supervisor.
Dustin: May I ask why?
Me: Yes, because Time Warner obviously isn’t training you correctly. The fact that you don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits speaks to the poor quality of their training.
Dustin: That’s great. It’s not my job to know the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Me: Let me speak with your supervisor.
Dustin: She isn’t going to let you speak with her.
Me: Make it happen.
Dustin: Ok…make it happen.

10 minutes later…

Dustin: My supervisor is going to speak with you and he (somehow mutated sexes during the break) knows the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Me: Good.
Dustin: Hold on while I transfer you to Jocque.
Me: (Hmm…isn’t that a man’s name?)

5 minutes later…

Jocque: Hello sir, how may I help you?
Me: Are you Dustin’s supervisor?
Jocque: Yes.
Me: Well Jocque, I have a problem. Dustin quoted me a 5 megabyte per second connection for $39.95 per month. Can you sign me up for that plan?
Jocque: Haha. No, sir. I would have that plan at home if we carried it.
Me: Well then, can you please teach Dustin the difference between bytes and bits so he doesn’t misquote the plans anymore?
Jocque: Yes, sir. I can do that.
Me: Good. I also wanted to point out that Dustin’s attitude needs some work. Dustin said, and I quote, “It’s not my job to know the difference between megabytes and megabits.”
Jocque: *gasp* That is completely unacceptable.
Me: Yes it is.
Me: Now, what kind of discount can I get for having to deal with that?
Jocque: Let me transfer you to a different rep who will be able to help you.
Me: Ok.

Five minutes later, without hold music to let me know I’m still connected…

Vanessa: Sir? Hello?! Sir?
Me: Yes?
Vanessa: How can I help you, sir?
Me: I want to upgrade my internet connection.
Vanessa: Ok, we have a five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month.
Me: A five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month?
Vanessa: Yes, a five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month.
Vanessa: Ohh…sorry…it’s a five megabit connection.
Me: Did your supervisor just correct you?
Vanessa: Yes.
Me: Good. You need to learn the difference.
Me: Now, what kind of discount can I get for having to deal with this for 45 minutes?
Vanessa: Well, we can upgrade you to the standard plan (5 Mb/s) and it will only add $5 to your account.
Me: How is that?
Vanessa: Well my supervisor authorized me to give you a campaign deal for a year that we’re not running right now.
Me: Good!

So, for $5 more per month I go from 768Kb/s (96KB/s) to 5Mb/s (625KB/s). But I guess really there’s no difference since megabytes and megabits are the same thing!

To any of you who are still confused about the difference, let me make it quite clear:

1 byte contains 8 bits.
There are 8 bits in 1 byte.
A byte is 8 times bigger than 1 bit.
A bit is 1/8 the size of a byte.

MB = megabyte
Mb = megabit

MB = 8Mb
1Mb = 0.125MB

If you’re STILL confused please check out the Wikipedia article on “bit” here.

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