I waited while nearly a month and a half passed to finally receive the Dell Vostro 2510 laptop to which I had them make some upgrades.  I could have had the same or better performing unit simply by buying a slightly more expensive version of the Inspiron line that would have shipped "off the shelf" and later purchased an extended life battery.  The real reason that I went about the purchase in the manner I did was that, when ordering through their business outlet, I was able to get it with XP-Pro installed on it and a Vista Home downgrade included, should I ever become witless enough to want to do that.  It was delivered on 9 Mar 2009.  I will admit to being somewhat surprised to discover a red computer inside the box, but what the hell?  I look at the screen and keyboard, not the candy apple red exterior.  Actually, with Crane Cams and J&E Pistons decals and some flames painted on, it could be moderately cool.  But I digress, as old people are wont to do.

I have had it less than a month and it broke already.  One of the same problems suffered by Leonard the Laptop occurred.  A key top fell off.  I couldn't find it, either.  Perhaps Stinky or Bittle ate it or claimed it as a toy. 

This concerns me.  Honestly now, how much damage can one person, typing with two fingers, and having no weapons within reach do to a keyboard?  I was extremely lucky that it was a totally useless top this time, the "Microsoft" key rather than the "T."  The only one I would rather have lost would have been the "Caps Lock" top which I firmly believe was added to the keyboard layout due to a temporary daemonic possession of the designer.  There is even a website devoted to the elimination of the Caps Lock key.

Using my vast store of computer knowledge, I pulled the same key top from one of the two HP donor keyboards in the room and snapped it into place on the Dell.  Fixed.  So why am I being cantankerous?  Dell computers are at least assembled in the USA and buying American is something I try very hard to do, and I bought what I believed to be a heavier duty, business model laptop.  It is under warrantee for another eleven months and I'm sure that it would have been repaired free, had I cared to return it and lose the use of it for another month or so.  I may even have voided my warrantee by making an unauthorized repair.  Out of all of this, the part that bothers me the most is that  every time I look at the keyboard, I will see one key with a slightly smaller and brighter logo on it than the rest.  *sigh*

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2009, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"I had to Google 'jfgi' to see what it meant.  The irony is overwhelming." - classyhorse23

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