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  • John Pope

    Lead Editor/Moderator

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    John Pope, a.k.a. JohnP@Dell, has been involved with social media since 2006 and computers since, well, let's just say...

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    Alienware Marketing Communications

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    Chief Blogger

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    Consumer Public Relations, EMEA

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    Team Dignitas, Managing Director

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    Global Consumer Internal Communications

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    Independent Communications Consultant

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    Shaun Clark

    World Class Gamer

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    Shaun Clark (game name Apollo) is a name that has been partnered with command and conquer since the release of EA's tit...

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    Stuart Wallock

    Dell Senior Manager, Global Community & Personalization

    1 Posts

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    Loving new tech things to play with since I started gaming on my Atari 2600 way back when, I have been working with Int...

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    Matt Parretta

    Dell Analyst Relations

    1 Posts

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    Matt has been at Dell since 2006 and is responsible for relationships with consumer industry analysts. He spent four ye...

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    Eric Erway

    Program Manager, Global Online

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    Eric serves as a program manager for Dell’s Global Online team, working with multiple groups to translate customer re...

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    Michelle Mosmeyer

    Dell Communications Analyst

    1 Posts

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    Michelle has been with Dell Global Communications for more than eight years. In that time, she’s worked in Executive ...

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    1 Posts

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    Rick is a PADI open water scuba instructor and photographer. He splits time between his home in Austin and his ranch ne...

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    Todd Smart

    Dell Community Outreach Administrator

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    My job is to support our Community Liaisons as they help to resolve customer issues. I’m originally from Western New ...

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    Geoff Knox

    Supervisor, Global Operations for Community Team

    1 Posts

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    Geoff has been with Dell since 2005 and has been working with Dell’s social media efforts since 2006. He has been a f...

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    aikiwolfie

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Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

The ROI on GPS

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

With the average price of gas well above $4/gallon (and closing in on $5), the cost of getting lost or wasting time looking for an address is at a historical high — and the return on investment of a good GPS system gets more attractive. Great deals make these cunning devices even more attractive.

With favorable notice from ZDNet and Crave on its unique features — and a limited-time promo dropping the price to $199.99 — the Navigon 5100 might be a great choice for digital nomads.

For me the most intriguing differentiators are:

  • Free (no monthly fee) traffic updates.
  • Lane change, speed and photo-realistic views of complex intersections (forewarned is forearmed), and
  • Zagat ratings and reviews (for driving directly to that new place you heard about instead of circling around an unfamiliar neighborhood – not that I’ve ever done that).

Posted in GPS, Reviews, Tips | No Comments »

So Easy Your Mom Can Do It

Monday, June 30th, 2008

So one of the “cool” applications we launched with the new Studio laptops is Dell Video Chat (DVC). This is a super easy, one-click-and-you’re-ready-to-go program that makes setting up a video chat mindless.  When we were talking to reporters about how easy DVC was to start up and use, my spokesperson, Brent Wampler, director of global product marketing, was initially greeted with a bit of skepticism. Many reporters were familiar with video chat, including one who had used it regularly in grad school while working on group projects. All agreed that “easy to use” and video chat don’t normally belong in the same sentence. So how do we qualify just how easy this is to use? To Brent’s credit, he found a way to articulate the easy set up in a way that a lot “technical” folks can relate to: “My mom can use this.” 

This is nothing against moms (I’m a  mom), but it is one of the BEST litmus tests available when trying to figure out if something is TRULY easy to use.  But Brent isn’t the only one who thought of this litmus test…check out this GREAT post on Gear Diary by Wayne Schultz, who did indeed, enlist his mom to test how easy DVC is to download and use.

I also want to recognize the folks who teamed with Dell to make Dell Video Chat a reality: SightSpeed. I met the SightSpeed team a couple of months ago, and going into the meeting, I had NO idea what DVC entailed, but after 10 minutes with Eric Quanstrom, VP of marketing, I was really excited and ready to give it a try. Eric ended the meeting by sending me a video email, which was so laid back and “real” that I went home and downloaded SightSpeed’s “free” version on our family XPS M1530 and played with it. A couple of weeks later, I was in New York on a business trip when my daughter had her braces removed and I was beside myself I couldn’t see her THAT DAY. As it happens we were actually demoing DVC to some publications and voila – my daughter logs on to SightSpeed at home, connects to the DVC account we are using for demonstrations  and  I (and everyone else in the room) get to see the most beautiful smile EVER (it was the ultimate “proud  mom” moment).

So a couple of additional points about Dell Video Chat – there are TWO versions – a full featured version that ships on all Studio Laptops and a free version that SightSpeed has made available at www.sightspeed.com/dellvideochat. The free version works on just about ANY PC – including Mac (see Wayne’s post – his mom has a Mac) and Linux, as well as Windows XP and Vista. So if you get a Studio laptop don’t think you can’t reach out to friends and family because they don’t have one. Dell Video Chat users can send their personalized “My SightSpeed” URL to ANYONE over the Internet, and that person can simply click to call the Dell Video Chat user through their Web browser with NO software download of any kind and DVC users can create and send video messages to anyone with an email account and that recipient can view those video messages without any software download of any kind. 

I promise you – it’s so easy your mom/dad/daughter/son can use it first time out!

Posted in Laptops, Reviews, Video | 5 Comments »

Dell’s “Excellent” Desktop PCs

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

“Party on Garth!” is one of my favorite lines that I pull out when I am celebrating. And today I am celebrating some “heavy hitter” third-party validation of product excellence. In the last few days both the XPS 730 and the XPS 420 received some awesome awards.  Dell’s monster gaming desktop, the XPS 730, received an Editor’s Choice award from HotHardware.com, and the XPS 420, a premium desktop purpose-built to power through multi-media tasks, was recognized as one of the 100 Best Products of 2008 by PC World. “Way!”

Third-party recognition of and awards for Dell’s products are important. We know that the No. 1 resource for customers researching a new PC is advice from friends and family – that’s why we started including “ratings and reviews” on Dell.com. Product reviews from objective third-party experts like the technology analysts at Hot Hardware, PC World and PC Magazine, also help in the decision process.  We work closely with these outlets to ensure they receive a product that is representative of a true customer experience (read: no tweaking) and stay in close contact to make sure any and all questions are answered. I respect them all because they look at hundreds, if not thousands, of gewgaws, doodads, gadgets and gizmos every year – and take on the unenviable task of “keeping it real.”

Some choice call outs:

“The XPS 730 may be the last of its kind. Perhaps the design team of the XPS 730 also realized this, inspiring them to try and make it the best 700 series machine to date. Whatever their inspiration, the XPS 730 turned out to be a great gaming and multimedia computer. The XPS 730 represents the fourth generation in Dell’s XPS 700 series and it exhibits a maturity of design that only iteration and refinement can bring. We heartily recommend the XPS 730 and the XPS 730 H2C to anyone in the market for a high-end gaming/multimedia computer and we are happy to award the XPS 730 H2C our coveted Editor’s Choice award.” Hothardware.com, May 27, 2008

“…our test machine came with several options we rarely see: front-mounted S-Video and RCA ports with the hardware Xcelerator option for transcoding video to your hard drive; a small, top-mounted LCD that utilizes Microsoft’s Sideshow secondary display technology to give you external access to Vista sidebar gadgets; and Bluetooth to handle the included wireless GM952 keyboard and RM-RBB-DEL 4 mouse.” PCWorld.com

So I’m off to high five the product development teams for these two “Excellent” PCs … “Party on Wayne!” 

Posted in Desktops, Displays, Gaming, Reviews | No Comments »


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