08/01/2010 by Esio Trot.

My current Laptop, bought circa 2004 has been playing up.

Last Summer thanks to a You Tube demonstration stripped it down to re-solder the power input socket back onto the mini circuit board - this is apparently the most vulnerable part of a laptop, having the most stress, and it is surprising (me having looked at other laptops since) how feeble the design of some connectors are.

Anyway, I’ve now lost the wireless aerial so rather then be totally caught out, replacement is the name of  the day.

Having looked around for a few weeks, I realised that although there are loads of laptops around, most are huge. I don’t want to lug around some massive suitcase, so something around a 13″ to 14″ widescreen is fine.  Trouble is, whereas there are loads of these at £500 or below, these tend to have grotty graphics cards. And if I am away at a Premier Inn someplace and not being much of a TV watcher, I do like to while away the evening hours playing Civilisation or something.  Surprisingly many laptops sized at 15″ have significantly better graphics cards.

My first port of call in considering computers is e-buyer. I’ve been using them for years now, and only once have I had a problem bit of kit and they sorted it out quickly and, most importantly, easily. Sadly though, they didn’t have anything suitable when I looked, whereas Dell did.

So on on 18 December 2009 I settled on a Dell Studio XPS 13, with 4mb RAM and a 512MB nVidia GeForce 210M graphics card, priced at £720 delivered. I did have warning bells in my head while ordering, but in my desire to replace my laptop, ignored these - and what a mistake this turns out to be. I really regret placing an order with Dell. Their ordering system stinks - they make so much noise about “Security” and needing to conform to their system, it seems that the customer has become a necessary evil. This is the saga so far:

• Ordered on Friday 18 December. The website gives heinous warnings about not delivering to anything but the address to which the card is registered to, but I thought this would not be a problem as our trading address is registered with our card provider, albeit that we are invoiced to our company registered address. Payment was taken from our account on Monday 21 December.
• Interestingly Dell make it plain that the item is “build to order”. This does not really affect business customers, but it does mean that domestic customers cannot make use of the cancellation rights of the Distance Selling Regulations as the item is “made” and not immediately available from stock.
• e-mail received on 23 December from an address that does not accept replies saying delivery on 30 December, with a big warning that deliveries cannot be altered and that someone should be available from 8am to 8pm to accept delivery. WHAT? a 12 hour slot? Plus, we are closed between Christmas and New Year? There is a big sign on the door saying we re-open on 4 January, so I assumed it would be delivered then.
• 4 January comes and I get a call from the delivery guy from his mobile asking where we are. It’s then that I realise that when making the order I made an error: Although I put the office address on the original order, I put the registered office postcode! The chap says that the address is not his area, but he’ll see what he can do.
• The delivery chap did not do anything. Using the contractors tracking facility, I see that it went from the local depot back to the national depot on Tuesday 5 January, where it has stayed since. There is no contact number on the contractors tracking service.

Despite Dell having my personal office e-mail address as well as our main office telephone number, plus my mobile, nobody from Dell has been in touch.

This whole order is in limbo. I am so annoyed at the lack of personal contact since placing the order. I can’t change the address, so the item won’t be delivered; as the item can’t be delivered, I can’t reject it and get my money back. I e-mailed customer services on 6 January saying that I am not having a good customer experience and asking that the order be cancelled. The e-mail has to be done on their website, and to show their poor customer focus, once sent a copy is not forwarded to the e-mail address that has to be input, nor even an acknowledgement sent. The page says that their aim is to answer queries “normally” within one business day. This is the second business day, and still nothing has been heard.

I will update as the saga continues ………..

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07/01/2010 by Esio Trot.

On Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday a spokesman from Ofsted let something slip that the presenters did not take up, and has not been aired anywhere else as far as I know.

• If a school closes for the day due to inclement weather, this day is excluded from the authorised/unauthorised absence statistics.
• If a school open and, say, only 25% of pupils manage to attend, this means that 75% of 2 x half day attendances will be marked as absences.

What has been bandied about are people like spokesmen from the Association of Head Teachers as well as government ministers and the like harping on about the “difficult judgement call” head teachers have to make.

I don’t think I am being cynical to say that this “difficult judgement call” has more to do with the effect on the league table absence figures than the logistics of opening. Of course, it is nowadays useful to be able to call on the God of Health and Safety as the main reason for closure - as so few people then question what bit of health and safety makes the school site so dangerous.

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