Mr Dell Does the *In*decent Thing

I was wrong:

UK users will have to pay a premium for Dell's Linux PCs, despite Dell's claim to the contrary.

Customers who live in the UK will have to pay over one-third more than customers in the US for exactly the same machine, according to detailed analysis by ZDNet.co.uk.

The Linux PCs — the Inspiron 530n desktop and the Inspiron 6400n notebook — were launched on Wednesday. The 530n is available in both the UK and the US, but the price differs considerably.

Comparing identical specifications, US customers pay $619 (£305.10) for the 530n, while UK customers are forced to pay £416.61 — a premium of £111, or 36 percent. The comparison is based on a machine with a dual-core processor, 19" monitor, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. The same options for peripherals were chosen.

Why?

The Right Way to Write Online

A great piece by Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen called "Write articles, not blog postings." It's extremely long and detailed - including Monte Carlo simulations - which in a sense is a proof of its own thesis: that experts are better off writing long, detailed features than joining in the mosh pit of the blogosphere.

I don't disagree with analysis, although personally I use blogging in quite a different way - part notebook, part marketing.

Also, am I the only person who finds it slightly ironic that Nielsen's own Web site looks, well, you know, ever-so slightly clunky?

Dell is Listening...

... apparently:

Dell to Expand Linux Options

Your feedback on Dell IdeaStorm has been astounding. Thank you! We hear your requests for desktops and notebooks with Linux. We’re crafting product offerings in response, but we’d like a little more direct feedback from you: your preferences, your desires. We recognize some people prefer notebooks over desktops, high-end models over value models, your favorite Linux distribution, telephone-based support over community-based support, and so on. We can’t offer everything (all systems, all distributions, all support options), so we’ve crafted a survey (www.dell.com/linuxsurvey) to let you help us prioritize what we should deliver for you.