Archives par mot-clé : Trucs & astuces

New Vostro Systems for Emerging Economies: Ubuntu in More Countries

The Direct2Dell blog is a great way to find out about new Ubuntu development and products at Dell from a reliable source one can actually quote publically 🙂

From my seat on the support side of things, I used to worry about such exposure – how can you give tech support to so many new Ubuntu users ? Granted, this is only but a small fraction of Dell’s business, but it is growing fast in many ways (and countries, as seen below). Many vendors understand the need to build their own support infrastructure and knowledge, not much new in that area. But being able to do so in your local language, in different markets, taking advantage of all the freedom LInux and in general Ubuntu offers is a huge new bonus. You get to decide if/when you need professional services (from Canonical or else) and you set the speed for that.

This ranges from pre-installing and supporting Ubuntu on certified servers to selling and supporting a boxed edition that includes 60 days support for $19.99 at Best Buy.

In Dell’s case, having part of their Linux wiki dedicated to Ubuntu and even forums and mailing lists means such initiatives have all the chances to success as Ubuntu’s strong community can complement all efforts from Dell and give traction to them. I also see how Ubuntu’s philosophy slowly infiltrates such offerings 🙂

From the blog post (emphasis mine):

Today we’re rolling out two new laptops and desktops that are designed to meet the specific needs of small businesses, government and educational facilities operating on a limited budget in the worlds top emerging markets. Take a look at either Steve Felice’s post or Kara Krautter’s post on the Small Business blog for a bit more context on that front.

Vostro A840 NotebookNote: Click on any of the images in these post to see larger versions of them. You can also see these photos and more by viewing this photo set at the main Dell Flickr page.

One thing of interest to a lot of our readers is that we will offer Ubuntu Linux as an option on all four of these machines worldwide. Regular readers of Direct2Dell know that we already support Ubuntu on select systems several countries.

These new Vostro systems will be introduced in more than 20 countries over the coming months—including Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. They will be available primarily through authorized channel partners worldwide and also directly from Dell. Pricing for the products will vary by configuration, region and country. Additional Vostro products designed for emerging markets and high-growth economies will be introduced in the coming months.Vostro A860 Notebook

 

Ubucon San Salvador on Saturday Sept. 6th! Save the date!

I am thrilled to announce El Salvador Ubuntu LoCo Team will be hosting an Ubucon El Salvador next Saturday September 6th!

El Salvador LoCo team logo

I’ll be spending next week in San Salvador and I thought it would be nice to meet some Ubunteros there. I wrote to their mailing list, one thing led to another and *boom* ! Having presented at Ubucons in Seville, New York City and San Francisco before I am really happy to add one to my list ! I am trying to think of any sentence in this post I wouldn’t end with an exclamation mark but I can’t !!!

A few emails and IRC chats were enough to settle on having a round table to discuss Ubuntu’s place in free software, Celvin Rivas will also be presenting about the state of Ubuntu in El Salvador. If there’s enough people interested there’s discussion about having some workshops – gotta love last minute things 🙂

From « Running an Ubucon« :

An Ubucon is a community driven, community organised event that is all about Ubuntu. These events often include a number of speakers, BOF sessions, demos, social events and more, and they are excellent ways to grow the Ubuntu community in your area, and to build an interesting and fun event. Ubucons are different to large Linux expos and conferences in that they are uniquely community focused and driven, and uniquely Ubuntu.

 

What’s your « wow » Ubuntu feature ? or video ?

I’ll be at Linux World Expo 2008 next week in San Francisco with Canonical, and as such I am putting the final touches to several demos including one about what is different / new / « better » in Ubuntu 8.04 (specifically) on the desktop. I am talking about technical features, so I thought I’d ask around in case we missed the usual suspects. Here are some that made it into my short list for now, but I’d love to hear other ideas:

  1. Easy and fast to try, install, use and upgrade: Wubi, LiveCD
  2. Free and commercial options for desktop virtualization
  3. Recovery options (at boot time in Grub, using bulletproof X…)
  4. Launchpad integration in apps (translation, bug reporting…)
  5. Desktop effects

I am also looking for any videos or screencasts of interesting uses of desktop effects. Who knows, your video may end up showing off Ubuntu at our booth 🙂 I started putting together a list of video resources on the wiki, feel free to add individual links to any you find interesting right there – or simply post a comment here.

 

BionX Montreal blues – la suite

La semaine passée après 3 semaines d’attente pour un remplacement en garantie du moteur-roue arrière BionX, j’ai envoyé ce courriel (aussi publié sur Facebook) à Bionx , ABC Sport et Quilicot:

Last year I bought my BionX (including bike) at Quilicot (http://bicyclesquilicot.com) in Montreal QC, thinking this was a reputable place with people that knew their stuff. They even have ads on the radio. I now think it was a big mistake. I wouldn’t do this again.

Even living in Montreal and properly locking my system (removing battery and computer, accessories, etc.), I was robbed last year. I guess you expect to be robbed once in a while even in this somewhat safe city. That is unrelated to my bad experience.

But when replacing my stolen bike my BionX dealer (Quilicot) messed up several times on its delivery, just as with the first bike (thank God I had insurance): missing lights, wrong accessories, missing information, wrong tires and spokes causing many flats and broken spokes, out-of-stock parts and so on. You would think when you describe your intended usage of a bike and you inform your dealer you know next-to-nothing about bikes, they would honestly and properly inform you about options and needed accessories. Well, I have learned more about biking because of their mistakes that I could ever hope from any training I guess. Taking a ride home with a flat tire and BionX bike costs CDN$40 BTW.

I recently moved and my new BionX dealer, ABC Cycles (http://www.abccycles.com/) suggested I use only stainless steel spokes to prevent them from breaking, also confiding BionX’ s originals were cheap to save some money (!). After another $80, my rear wheel motor computer started failing (coincidence ?).

ABC Cycles delivered it without testing it because « I forgot to leave the key for the battery and the computer ». How the hell am I supposed to know what their testing procedures are ? Why would they have testing equipment, being a dealer ?

They wouldn’t believe the problem I had until they physically took a ride. After « checking all connections and reconnecting » I got the bike back and had the very same trouble one day later. They finally diagnosed it to be a problem that required in-warranty replacement of the rear axle/computer.

Guess what, BionX may decide to replace it completely including spokes, so it will come with the same cheap spokes originally shipped, so bye-bye $80. Every time I went through such checks I had to leave the bike for 2-3 days at a time or more (« until our BionX guy comes back from vacation »), while spending money on buses and cabs to get to work – not to mention the added time of commuting.

Well, it’s been almost 3 weeks now that I got back to my original dealer for the replacement and they can do nothing about BionX being out of stock, apparently this is entirely normal and Quilicot suggested I get my original wheel back to them and ride on my (quite expensive at this point) human-powered bike – which I did.

Guess what, this morning when taking my bike to work once again Quilicot fucked up the rear wheel replacement. My rear wheel was so low on air I barely made it to work!

I hate having the money to try this expensive crap, particularly when I know the technology is ready but customer service to properly deliver it is not.

Depuis cet envoi (mercredi passé), j’ai pu parler à Yannick chez Quilicot. Il m’a promis un prêt, et jeudi après-midi on m’appelait pour m’informer que le vélo était prêt! Excitation. Seulement un accusé réception bien pauvre de la part de BionX et une tentative d’appel d’ABC Sports (merci l’afficheur).

Vendredi vraiment tout s’est accumulé et je n’ai pas pu aller le chercher. Donc samedi matin je me présente à la boutique, plus détendu, un peu gêné de ma lettre de bêtises déclarant l’échec du service à la clientèle pour ce produit (et ses détaillants).

Silence total. Je me sens observé, on ne me parle pas trop. Yannick est là, je m’attends à ce qu’il fasse au moins semblant d’être désolé de tous ces problèmes qu’on aurait pu èviter. Il travaille sur un vélo, c’est à peine s’il m’adresse la parole, il parle à ses employés. Un d’eux me prends enfin en charge (Sébastien), il reprends le vélo, des ajustements commencent. Je croyais qu’il était prêt ?!

Je ne dis rien, j’attends avec ma fille de 2 ans qui a plus d’attention que moi. On ne trouve pas le « work-order ». Quand je le reçois, je ne remarque aucune mention du prêt de BionX neuf, ni des discussions qu’on a eu depuis mercredi, rien. Pas de mention non plus du remontage de la roue ordinaire (j’ai le vélo sans Bionx depuis 1 semaine) ni des pièces qu’on ma remises, rien. Bref, le bordel. Je fais la remarque à Yannick, il se limite à me dire « inquiète-toi pas, moi je vais m’en rappeler ». Ça sonne comme des menaces au secondaire! Ok, I get it, tout le monde a lu mon message, j’imagine, pas besoin d’être gentils.

Je demande à Sébastien de venir avec moi à l’auto car traîner un BionX et sa fille de 2 ans en même temps, pas évident. Rendus dehors il me demande pour la clé de la batterie – oups! Ils ont oublié de me la donner! Ah ben, quelle surprise.

Puis en chemin il me passe le commentaire qui sort comme quand on a envie d’aller aux toilettes et qu’on s’est retenu assez longtemps: « Coudonc, le blog c’était-tu nécessaire ??? ». Wow! On a eu une bonne discussion et malgré qu’au départ il était un peu sur la défensive, je crois qu’il était vraiment désolé de tout ce bordel. Il n’en revenait pas quand j’ai mentionné toutes les erreurs et omissions vraiment de débutant (à mon humble avis) que leur boutique et leur staff renommé avaient faites, même le jour de la livraison de mon BionX en prêt! Par exemple: où est le réflecteur rouge arrière ? Euhhhhh…. chais pas! le néoprène pour retenir le filage BionX ? Hein ? Oups.

On se comprends, je suis un grand fan de BionX. ça me fait pas juste chier quand mon vélo est en panne mais surtout quand le staff fait même pas semblant d’être désolé. Au moins Sébastien chez Quilicot a pris la peine de se renseigner vraiment sur ce qui se passait et à la fin il semble que tout se résume à l’énorme succès de BionX depuis 2 ans, surtout.

Prix du gaz qui monte -> Plein de nouveaux cyclistes -> Magasins de bicyclette débordés -> BionX qui se vendent en quantité alarmante (semble-t-il) -> Rupture de stocks -> Staff qui travaille > 60h/semaine -> augmentation d’histoires d’horreur comme la mienne.

Personnellement je trouve cette équation un peu simpliste.

Malgré tous ces problèmes, je continue de penser qu’un suivi téléphonique serré et une communication honnête et claire gardent un client satisfait « no matter what » – ou presque.

Bottom line, aujourd’hui je roule sur un BionX prêté par Quilicot (merci Yannick et son équipe), j’ai hâte de voir pour la suite (le remplacement de ma roue, les rayons en stainless, etc.).

Et j’attends toujours des nouvelles de Bionx et d’ABC.

 

Dear Lazy Web: are Sony Memory Stick (MS) and Memory Stick Pro (MSP) Ubuntu-friendly ?

I’ve just filed Bug #237369,JMicron card reader (152d:2339) in HP Pavilion 2035la doesn’t support Memory Stick Pro (MSP) for a friend in the -co channel that has an HP Pavilion DV 2035la (or DV 2000 series as they call it). I was a bit surprised that Sony Memory Stick (MS) and Memory Stick Pro (MSP) cards would not be supported yet and I am seeing contradictory reports on this.

Apparently MS* support is card-reader specific, and this one’s USB id (152d:2339) doesn’t seem very common.

If anyone knows what the status of MS* support is in Linux (and Ubuntu specifically), I’ll gladly stop writing keyword intensive posts like this one 🙂