I hate to say I told you so....
Apr. 20th, 2006 09:36 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
captpackrat.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
techrecoveryWe needed to buy 12 laptops and 12 cellular modems for our service techs to access our new service dispatch software, so I specced out and got a quote on a dozen Dell Latitudes for about $711 each, including a 6 cell battery and a DC car adaptor.
The company president goes onto Dell's web site and finds Inspiron 1300's for $499 each, and tells me to order those. I try to explain that the Latitudes are only slightly more, have bigger batteries, come with a DC adaptor, don't have a ton of crap preinstalled, and are better designed, but no, he wants to cheap out.
So the laptops arrive, and they're loaded with crap. I go down and buy a copy of Windows XP Home (GAH!) because the Inspirons didn't come with any disks, wipe the drive on the first one, and start installing the stuff we need. While that's running, I start sticking asset tags all over everything.
But when I plug the laptop drive into my desktop to make a Ghost image, it starts giving me S.M.A.R.T. errors that the drive is about to fail. I notice that the drive is a Toshiba 60 Gig, the same type I'd encountered years before that had an entire batch that was defective. Great....
Anywho, I get the image burned to a DVD, and start imaging the remaining laptops.
Then the box of modems arrive. I take one, slap our asset tags on it, and shove it into the slot on the first laptop.
It doesn't fit. WTF? I try again. No joy. I try turning the card over, no dice. What the hell? I peer down into the slot, and almost burst out laughing.
This slot that looks like a PCMCIA slot on the outside ISN'T! It's one of those new ExpressCard slots! These laptops are UTTERLY useless to us! Nobody makes an ExpressCard cellular modem yet!
So we either have to postpone rollout of our system by at least a month and a half (which is when Verizon guesstimates the modems will be available), or return the laptops and buy the units I recommended in the first place!
I'm really having to fight bursting out into laughter. As it is, I'm going to feel so damn smug all day long.
The company president goes onto Dell's web site and finds Inspiron 1300's for $499 each, and tells me to order those. I try to explain that the Latitudes are only slightly more, have bigger batteries, come with a DC adaptor, don't have a ton of crap preinstalled, and are better designed, but no, he wants to cheap out.
So the laptops arrive, and they're loaded with crap. I go down and buy a copy of Windows XP Home (GAH!) because the Inspirons didn't come with any disks, wipe the drive on the first one, and start installing the stuff we need. While that's running, I start sticking asset tags all over everything.
But when I plug the laptop drive into my desktop to make a Ghost image, it starts giving me S.M.A.R.T. errors that the drive is about to fail. I notice that the drive is a Toshiba 60 Gig, the same type I'd encountered years before that had an entire batch that was defective. Great....
Anywho, I get the image burned to a DVD, and start imaging the remaining laptops.
Then the box of modems arrive. I take one, slap our asset tags on it, and shove it into the slot on the first laptop.
It doesn't fit. WTF? I try again. No joy. I try turning the card over, no dice. What the hell? I peer down into the slot, and almost burst out laughing.
This slot that looks like a PCMCIA slot on the outside ISN'T! It's one of those new ExpressCard slots! These laptops are UTTERLY useless to us! Nobody makes an ExpressCard cellular modem yet!
So we either have to postpone rollout of our system by at least a month and a half (which is when Verizon guesstimates the modems will be available), or return the laptops and buy the units I recommended in the first place!
I'm really having to fight bursting out into laughter. As it is, I'm going to feel so damn smug all day long.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 05:51 pm (UTC)my last comapny blew about 70 grand on a IVR system for reporting time what a) never went into production, and b) was sitting on a BSOD the last time it was powered up...
Then there was the new CEO search which wasted about 50K or so, and resulted in me not getting full time status until about 9 months after I started there, and only because my boss died and I was the only IT person there...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 06:20 pm (UTC)No you don't. None of us do. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 06:33 pm (UTC)Verizon?
Date: 2006-04-20 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-20 10:16 pm (UTC)Blah.
How to talk down an "IT-uhhh...savvy" CEO
Date: 2006-04-21 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 05:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 03:39 pm (UTC)I doubt if we'll be getting any printers, as we're trying to go all digital for the service department.