dwelty

Vostro 1000-1700 Ubuntu Systems

Linux, Small Business, Vostro products submitted by tekhawk 07/18/07 **NOT NOW**

the Vostro 1000-1700 line looks like a perfect fit to the ubuntu/linux os show your support in getting ubuntu office computers and hopfully these will be good options as low cost school computers to for students with ok graphics power and performance 20 Comments »

Ubuntu Line [ Give us the choice of including hardware that is only OFFICIALLY supported on windows units ]

Desktops, Linux, Operating Systems submitted by tekhawk Jan 31

Give us the choice of including hardware that only OFFICIALLY supported on windows units

the idea is basicly stuff that dell says isnt support right now finger print readers, blue-ray, ect that they dont know a good way to make work should still be a hardware option in a section titled Unsupported Hardware or something of the like so that for those of us that can make it work can still get it on our units without ordering the windows model and if its something that has planned future support such as the finger print reader we can get it with the units we want NOW and get the support when the next update is released

please post any hardware you would like to see added to this list

Finger Print Reader
Blue-Ray
HD-DVD "its dead but im listing it here for those that think its not"
Intel 4965 wireless card 23 Comments »

Update drivers more often.

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Service and Support submitted by laxmanb 12/31/07

Dell hasn't updated drivers for the ATi Mobility Radeon in my notebook for 7 months. Since ATi, Nvidia, and most other manufacturers release new drivers on a regular basis to OEMs (once every month), And the early Vista drivers are buggy (my display driver stops working at times after hibernating), Couldn't you just post them onto your Drivers and Downloads page on a regular basis? 5 Comments »

Provide Drivers for ALL OSs

submitted by ryan100 Jan 27

As the title says.

If you offer a notebook or desktop with XP or Vista, Sometimes only the 32bit drivers are available, I find this very very frustrating as I regularly change my OS to something other than the one that is installed (generally because dell only give me one OS to choose from at buy time).

As it is I have a dell vostro 1500 with vista 32.. The machines hardware is all 64bit compatible but can i find *ANY* 64bit drivers from dell for the laptop. I am now not so happy about upgrading the laptop to vista 64 as it will mean a prolonged search in order to find working drivers, and being honest hunting for drivers is not the highlight of my day. Comment »

Neutral Vote - instead of only promote/demote

Dell, IdeaStorm submitted by zanlok Jan 27

How about a new voting button here on IdeaStorm: something to indicate neutrality, conveniently positioned in the ui between the current promote/demote buttons. I don't always want to promote an item. But, I also may not want to actively hurt the image of a decent idea. I only actively promote ideas the implementations of which could influence my personal purchasing decisions. If the neutral votes were counted, it would give more credence to the total number of people who have considered the idea. This could be additional actionable data rather than just the single "points" field. There should also be a way to *change* your vote from that status. 23 Comments »

Heated Keyboard

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.) submitted by itybitybear Jan 27

Have you noticed when your hard at work using your keyboard, your fingers are the only thing that is cold? How about a heated keyboard? Either have little holes on each key with a small amount of heat projecting through them or a lengh wise heater that you will find at the top of your keyboard that you can tilt either way you want it.
That would fix the frozen finger syndrom : ) What do you think?

Chris 8 Comments »

Laptop & Desktop Boot in seconds from Flash Drives

Broadband and Mobility, Desktops and Laptops submitted by reg 02/19/07

Have laptops and PCs that boot quickly & quietly from fast internal flash drives,
and run the whole OS and application programs in RAM.
The New Dell PC will boot from internal Fast USB 2.0 flash drives in just a few seconds.
The Hard drive can stay powered down, completely off, unless the user needs to store some extra large files (video, photos).

Laptop Battery life is measured in days, not hours.


Have 2 Recessed USB 2.0 Slots.
Two USB Flash Drives would fit neatly into the laptop.
In this way the whole OS and Apps run in RAM, and stores data files on an 8 GB flash drive.

The 8GB is used transparently as the 'On Line' Storage, with a hard drive acting as secondary storage.
This gives desktops and laptops much greater speed and power savings.

<font> On-Line/Near-Line Storage Model for Laptops</font>
1. OS and App all run from RAM (so the machine should have 2GB+ of RAM)
2. Modified files are worked on in RAM, and stored on the Flash Drive
3. Older (non-system) files, that are 'inactive', get pushed down to the hard drive,

Hard Drive files are stored with on-the-fly hardware compression / decompression (back to RAM), with the flash drive file replaced with a pointer to the hard drive file.
Data is always safely copied down to the hard drive on shut down.



The flash drive is removeable and upgradeable, so later if someone wants to upgrade to a 32GB flash drive, just unplug and plug in the new one.

On-line / Near-Line storage works great on very large data servers, where data is mostly write once, read infrequently.
(Also known as Write Once, Read Mostly - WORM drives.)

It's time such ideas are put into practice for desktops and laptops.


You can run your Dell Laptop TODAY from 100% Flash Drive - Pen Drive using Puppy Linux.



www.puppylinux.org delivers a complete, small, fast Linux Distribution including all major tools in under 90MB. You can add Open Office, GIMP, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc and they all fit right in a USB Flash Drive.
Pupply Linux Applications.
Download Puppy Linux so you Can Try Flash Drive Dell Notebooks Today. 21 Comments »

Standardize Computer Lineup

Dell Web Site, Desktops submitted by krisc 12/11/07

Instead of having several different computer products each with their own sublevel of products, just standardize each sublevel into their own level.

IE, instead of having the XPS Desktop lineup of 700, 710, 720, 720HC, 720HC Extreme, have it just be the XPS Desktop with all available options from the previous lineups.

Perhaps I want the extremely fast processors but want an extremely slow graphics card. This should be left to the user to choose, not Dell. It makes it very hard to spec out a computer because you have to cover at least 6 different models to see which one has the best configuration options and which will meet closest to what you want.

This is often shown through the fact that the lower end PC's can't be configured with a high end graphics card and likewise the high end computers can't come with a low end card. Furthermore, low end PC's dont have access to certain monitors (ie, get the cheap 24" instead of the nice 24") that the high end PCs can be configured with.

In the end, give the power to the customer to choose what he or she wants. Comment »

Goal: Dell FREEDOM Box - A Fully Open System for Home Users by 2010

Dell, Linux, Desktops and Laptops submitted by dpic 11/29/07

Set a goal of having at least one fully open system for home users by the end of 2010! This would be Dell's greatest endeavor yet!

The Dell FREEDOM Box | From the software, all the way down to the hardware, a completely open system

Software:
* A fully open source operating system with no restricted software like Gobuntu.

Hardware:
* All hardware must follow these rules--
1. The interface to the hardware must be explicitly made public, so the hardware can be used freely.
2. The design of the hardware must be made public, so that others can implement it and learn from it.
3. The tools used to create the design should be free, so that others can develop and improve the design.

This movement is already making headway and progress will continue to increase. Dell is already getting involved--

It has been stated that Dell has a goal to have open Linux drivers for all Dell products. Dell, keep the pressure on your vendors to open up!

Support OpenBIOS and Open Firmware!
"Among its features, Open Firmware provides an instruction set independent device interface. This can be used to boot the operating system from expansion cards without native initialization code.

It is Open Firmware's goal to work on all common platforms, like x86, AMD64, PowerPC, ARM and Mips. With its flexible and modular design, Open Firmware targets servers, workstations and embedded systems, where a sane and unified firmware is a crucial design goal and reduces porting efforts noticeably."
- http://www.openbios.org/

Already, there is huge support for replacing proprietary BIOS
- http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/62549/LinuxBIOS_instead_of_proprietary_...
- http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/74358/Dell_Support_Open_BIOSes_for_Linux
And there is the Open Graphics Project
- http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/72320/Help_The_Open_Graphics_Project<

This project would put Dell at the heart of the movement bringing Freedom, Reliability, and Innovation to the world of technology! Does one really need to ask why this would be better than proprietary technology?

20 Comments »

Make a Keyboard for Desktops with TRACKPAD!

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.) submitted by rlakes Jan 25

I am really sick of the traditional mouse for desktops... I work a lot of hours per day on my computer and my right hand began to hurt of touching in the same position for hours and hours the traditional mouse of my desk top... Unfourtunatly I don't have the money to afford a laptop to have the option to use the trackpad or an external mose.. so please Dell.. please build a keyboard for desktops that have a trackpad! it will be great that it might include multitouch technology....
I need it.... my right hand will be pleased! 11 Comments »

Dell add a dust/lint filter to the front of your desktop and laptops to reduce the cause of reduced cooling.

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Environment, Desktops and Laptops submitted by jorge 06/15/07

Dell add a screen/filter to reduce the amount of dust/lint that gets into the system fan/cooling system. This is not a problem in clean rooms where systems are probably tested but in the real world dust is everywhere, after any amount of heavy use the cooling system efficiency is greatly reduced by dust/lint build up. This can be an option if you do not want the exposure or legal ramifications on old systems, much like the Dell mouse pad on configuring a computer for sale.

Start Jul 2nd: provided by florida web site design 25 Comments »

Build and Advertise Printers that don't lie, cheat, and steal.

Advertising and Marketing, Environment, Printers and Ink submitted by jmxz 12/24/07

Inkjet printers have earned a well deserved horrible reputation as "filthy, lying thieves". Quoting that article "Printers routinely report that they are low on ink even when they aren't, and in some cases there are still hundreds of pages worth of ink left." I have the best printer from that study - which still wastes "only" 9 percent of ink - and has the annoyance that it'll even refuse to print "black and white only" when one of the color cartridge's is dry.

Printers also have earned the well-deserved horrible reputation as devices that are"Spying On You". Advertise which of your printers spy on customers and make at least some models that don't.

One of Dell's competitors is currently getting lots of bad press over their $8000-per-gallon printer ink. This means the timing could be perfect for Dell to challenge them in the Printer market.

This is an *excellent* opportunity for Dell to fight back with "The Honest Printer". Make a printer that

• Doesn't lie about being out of ink when it's not.
  
• Has reasonably priced ink - even if the printer may cost more.
  
• Encourages rather than discourages environmentally friendly refills
  
• Doesn't spy on you.
  

It'll build up Dell as a Brand That Can Be Trusted - something that's been sorely lacking for quite some time 2 Comments »

Software readable power-meter in Dell computers.

Environment, New Product Ideas, Simplify IT submitted by jmxz 12/21/07

I'd really like a software readable power sensor inside Dell computers that could tell me things like "now drawing 350 Watts".

This would be useful for a number of things.

• Environmental benefits - It can let me see how much benefit there is by telling my disks to spin down when idle; or by disabling 3D effects in my GUI. Based on those results I can decide whether or not they're worth using. Heck - even just seeing how much power it draws might make me want to power it down more.
• More reliable upgrades - It can show me if I have the power capacity to upgrade to some of the new graphics cards that consume very high power; or to add another hard drive to the 5 i already have.
• Reduced customer support costs - If someone does try to suck a bit more power from their power supply than it supports, it results in hard to diagnose intermittent failures.

It seems laptops have such sensors (in their batteries?). But so far I can't find similar for desktops.

Extra points if the power sensors can isolate where the power's used (i.e. 100W for CPU, 300W for hard drives, 100W for graphics card, etc). 11 Comments »

Develop Linux Promotional Material For Your Linux Products!

Advertising and Marketing, Linux, Sales Strategies submitted by aikiwolfie Jan 25

This is the information page for the Ubuntu version of the M1330. The M1330n. Except it's not. Dell simply reused the M1330's information page.

This might not seem like a huge problem. But take a look at the promotional video. Near the end all you hear about is how how you can access media and Microsoft office "without powering up the PC". And also notice the lovely photos of an XPS M1330 with a Vista desktop at the bottom right of the page.

Is Dell selling embedded Microsoft products on a Linux platform?

Just as a side note. If you're using any application at all on a PC, direct media or not, then th PC is "powered up". So the video even lies to Microsoft users. 2 Comments »

Offer HighResolution screens for your consumer Laptops as you do for the business Latitudes

Monitors and Displays, Laptops submitted by rseibel 04/22/07

Please offer the highresolution screen for you consumer Inspiron and XPS laptops as an option as you do for the business line of Latitudes. It is not much more effort, but makes them much more attractive.

Now you offer 1280x800 i.e. 1 Megapixel aka. WXGA Resolution on 15,4" screens of your Inspirons, that might be fine for some people. But it is not appropriate for others like me.

I suggest to offer 1400x900 i.a. 1,26 Megapixel aka. WXGA+ or even 1680x1050 i.e. 1,76 Megapixel on your 15,4 " screens that is 26% respectively 76% more usefull screen space.

You offer higher resolutions for your Latitude laptops, why not for the regular user also? Apple is using HiResolution screens also..

Pros:
- One have more space on ones desktop and can be more productive by using the applications more effectively such as office, photoshop, movieediting, mindmaps etc.
- Your screen is fit for HiDefinition movies coming to the market now.
- Windows Vista has a vector based graphic user interface able to scale fonts appropriately and should be made able to adjust them as the user demands.

Cons:
- Sure it is more expensive to produce/assemble, but I am willing to pay some extra $ for that.
- The fonts might be too small for some people, but there is a solution for that with Vista.

Just an idea, fell free to comment! 6 Comments »

Make Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) enabled by default or allow user to enable

Linux, XPS products submitted by shinypup Jan 23

So I get my new M1530 and setup VMWare Workstation 6.0.2. When I try to install Windows (I use Linux) VMWare reports VT is disabled and I should enable it in the BIOS. Low and behold the BIOS lacks the option to enable VT (in the M1530 model specifically, some people report other models do allow you to enable it).

Please this is an important feature, please ship notebooks with VT enabled by default, or user enable-able. 15 Comments »

Sturdier power connector on laptops

Laptops submitted by xivulon 08/09/07

I had 4 Dell laptops in the past few years, 3 of them ended up with a desoldered power connector making the machines almost useless. Granted, I do mistreat my machines, but 3 out 4 is probably an indication that the power connector could be better designed. 3 Comments »

MagSafe - Magnetic powercord plug

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Laptop Power submitted by thorin_2 02/21/07

Awesome feature that all my Mac user friends have on their MacBook Pros.

From WIkipedia.com: The MagSafe connector is a new power connector introduced in conjunction with the MacBook Pro at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco on January 10, 2006. The MagSafe connector is held in place magnetically. As a result, if it is tugged on—for instance, by someone tripping over the cord—it comes out of the socket safely, without damaging it or the computer or pulling the computer off its table or desk.

I checked, and Apple doesn't have a patent on it...yet. They have a patent pending status however there are plenty of examples of prior art. See http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060112/1555226.shtml for example. 12 Comments »

Make secondary batteries an option on all laptops

Laptop Power submitted by eaglewonj Jan 24

Please design/allow for the optical drives on all future laptop models to be removed and replaced with an additional battery that slides into the same slot. I see this on some models of laptops and feel it would be nice to have as an option to expand runtime when you don't need an optical drive. It also allows you to swap batteries without shutting down the laptop. 6 Comments »

Allow notebook batteries to be charged outside the notebook as well

submitted by eaglewonj Jan 24

Design notebook batteries that can be charged outside the notebook on the same power adapter. This would allow two or more batteries to be charged at once. It also allows the laptop to remain away from a power adapter and have batteries brought to it that are charged remotely.

Perhaps this could be done with the notebook docks. Dock and charge the laptop and the extra battery. 2 Comments »