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Two mice controlling two separate pointers on one screen

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Monitors and Displays, Software submitted by petebrosey 08/30/07

Its time to get both hands involved in controlling pointers that have separate button commands allowing additional control and multidimentional functions. CAD will especially benefit from such a developement. I can imagine many creative uses for standard software and operating systems as well. Two different mice controlling two pointers that interact with each other, icons, links, menus, work areas, etc. 30 Comments »

Offset keyboard for 17" laptops

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Vostro products, Laptops submitted by donut May 16

The new Vostro 1710 looks pretty good, but the keyboard positioning could be improved for the next design refresh. This also applies to other 17" laptops with numeric keypads.

With current models, the keyboard as a whole is centered on the laptop; the borders at the left and right edges are the same width. That means the main part of the keyboard (not the numeric keypad) is offset significantly to the left. The trackpad is also offset to the left. That results in a skewed typing position if the laptop is directly in front of you.

My idea is to have the keyboard mounted as far to the right as possible. The main part would of course still be offset to the left, but a little less so. Obviously the difference won't be huge, but even half an inch would be an improvement. The border to the left would then be wider, perhaps giving enough space for the indicator LEDs? If so, the function keys could then be made full size.

One other thing: The right side of the Caps Lock key could be made recessed/lower, to reduce the likelihood of accidentally pressing it instead of A. 6 Comments »

accessories (keyboards)dell

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.) submitted by geraldbrwstown@yahoo.com 08/22/07

first time. help me this. input dell uses red/black on certain models.i, would like to add those two colors,to a new idea,for a gaming)bcak-gammon)style keyboard. add to these:
keyboard keys seem to slant (this model tosh) diagonally,left and right side. top three rows of keys(ex:esc-qkey) to (bk sp-"'key)use red lacquer.the lower three rows black.keys could possibly be,more style for fingertips,roundish.,keyboard key lettering,numerical symbols could have the opposite coloring,red-lower and black upper. arrows and keys with arrows suggest a roulette shape or some other(input) in one or two lower keyboard area. possible two extra space keys on left and right,plus cap-locks-two.include,left-handed touch-mouse etc. three left,center,right-hand touch mouse.
) 2 Comments »

Fancy New Mouse Option

New Product Ideas submitted by skylarkguy 05/30/07

I hate having a huge mouse that doesn't conform to my hand. My hand gets sweaty after a while. Make a mouse similiar to this one to offer as an

http://usb.brando.com.hk/prod_detail.php?prod_id=00255&dept_id=015&cat_id=037< want something that works well, and LOOKS cool. 4 Comments »

Align touchpad on 17" notebooks under numeric keypad

Laptops submitted by lorax1284 08/24/07

That puts the touchpad out of the way (not under the users wrists when they're typing) and positions it more like a real mouse on a desktop pc configuration.

I hope I didn't make the machine uglier with my touchpad-reposition hack-job!

9 Comments »

Laptop design rules & guidelines

Laptops submitted by anordal Feb 26

This is my attempt at defining some basic principles of good laptop design. This applies to hardware, with no specific manufacturer in mind. I appreciate comments.

Guidelines:

1. Connections for things that people plug in and out all the time, such as sound, USB, etc, should mainly be on the left hand side. This leaves the right hand free of the cable mess to operate the mouse, without compromising connection accessibility. I'm not saying it is wrong to have some extra USBs on the right or back, there should just be plenty on the left anyway. It is important to have redundancy of these frequently used connections.
2. Cables that are big or usually stay connected long, such as the power cable and the various monitor cables should be connected to the back.
3. The front side is not an ideal placement for connections or buttons.
4. The center of gravity is preferrable to have in the front.

1. A laptop has at least 2 headphone jacks and 2 USBs on the left hand side.
2. The sound volume is controlled by an analog wheel.
3. The left Ctrl-key is placed in the lower left corner of the keyboard. I see no reason to mix it up with the Fn-key.

1. It is sometimes a huge advantage in gaming if the keyboard can sense many keypresses at once, a handicap if it can't.
2. A hardware problem can not be solved by software, so don't even try.
3. There is a need for standardization in everything.

Left hand mouse

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.) submitted by wjwill56 07/06/07

A line of left hand mice would be wonderful. 3 Comments »

left-handed keyboard

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), New Product Ideas submitted by fingers 05/20/07

I'm left-handed, just like 10 % of the population. I do a lot of keyboard work ont he computer for my business, so i bought a left-handed keyboard from an online left-handed store. I paid about $100 for a simple keyboard, but it doesn't work very well.

Then i got an email from them that the only brand of computer it is not compatible with is Dell. But that's neither here nor there.

Dell should design, manufacture and market a left-handed keyboard for its customers. It would be far from the most difficult technical challenge Dell has met to switch some keys from the right to the left side of a keyboard.

I promise you, there is a market for this device. At the very least it would make me one very happy Dell comsumer. 3 Comments »

Vostros and left handed users

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Sales Strategies, Laptops submitted by taipeimarc May 10

I recently purchase a Dell Vostro 1500. Its a great computer, but as a left handed mouse user, the heat vent on the left side of the laptop is excruciatingly painful. In addition, 3 months after I purchased this laptop, my LCD panel developed a yellow vertical line down the screen. I believe this was caused by my hand blocking the air circulation of the vent. (~just a guess, but I read on the Dell forums that heat is one of the reasons this occurs).

I was offered the option to return this computer, but other than this problem I am very satisfied with it and would prefer to keep it (with a repaired LCD panel) if Dell can offer a solution.

I suggest that Dell build a simple and cheap heat deflector for lefties and send it to any user that complains about this problem. If not, they should at the very least place a warning on the Vostro online store site and warn left handed users about this problem.

Here is my concept idea:



PS. I live in Taipei and can easily find someone to make this for next to nothing. Feel free to contact me as I would be glad to be your beta tester. Left handed people really need this. Its a big problem for us. Thank you. 7 Comments »

Eliminate M1330 heat related failures

XPS products submitted by hkt Jun 18

I'd like to bring to your attention to a design problem with the Dell XPS M1330 with the nVidia 8400 GS option.

1) PROBLEM: The heatpipe exhaust vent blocks up with dust that caused the overheating to repeatedly burnout the GPU thus having the motherboard replaced.

SUGGESTION: Dell support engineers should be made aware to blow clean the heatpipe vents when doing a motherboard replacement to avoid repeated burnouts.

2) PROBLEM: Using a thermal pad to transfer heat from the nVidia GPU to the heatpipe is not efficient enough.

SUGGESTION: I have replaced thermal pad with a copper shim to better transfer the heat. This brought down the GPU core temp. from an idle 65C down to 56C and peak temp of 91C to 71C. Observing this, it is a fairly simple revision to the heatpipe assembly to better mate the GPU to it without the thermal pad. Possibly extending the GPU heatsink further down by 1.5mm and mating it with thermal paste. The spring loaded mechanism can still acommodate for thermal expansion.

I've observed that the M1530 eliminated the issue by not using the thermal pads and directly mating the copper pipe to the GPU.

Thread with contributions from others and myself indicating how to rectify the problem.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=250129&page=9

Reported problems
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=204772 3 Comments »

PCIe Flash Drive for OS

New Product Ideas, Laptops submitted by coachcg 11/14/07

This would be great to get in new Dell laptops:

SanDisk revealed Vaulter, a 8GB or 16GB flash drive that can hold your entire OS, designed to sit on the PCIe port inside a laptop. In Windows, this creates a separate letter drive, which speeds the heck out of your computer, without taking the place of your 2.5" SATA-connected HDD. It's not a Santa Rosa "Robson" thing either—it's a real drive, not some caching assistant. (In case you're wondering, Mac support is coming.) Performance acceleration comes from "pre-controlling the distribution of storage data between itself and the hard drive." The fact that it's on the PCIe port means that both storage devices can work in parallel. Now, the bad news: SanDisk is only offering it to OEM partners at first. We won't be able to buy them a la carte for a little while.

Even better if we can get them for upgrades to current laptop models. 14 Comments »

Media Bays for expanability on all laptop lines

Laptop Power submitted by sykosoft Apr 22

Not so long ago, nearly all Dell laptops had media bays (nearly all of the inspiron, latitude, and precision models). Expandability is one of the reason I come back to Dell again and again. Instead of having to purchase a new laptop to add a blu-ray (or whatever comes next) drive, I simply purchase the media bay device. Similarly, no matter how good battery life becomes, a single battery will NEVER be able to last as long as 2 batteries. 2 will always be more than 1. (rumor has it the e-series won't have a media bay battery, this would be very unfortunate!) 5 Comments »

More Laptop Hard Drive Storage Space Please

Laptops submitted by dellsfuture 03/13/07

With large OS's, Music, Media, Files etc 60gb or even 100Gb storage on Notebooks is just not practical anymore. Dell is loosing this battle. Dell should break the mold and offer 300-500 gb storage on Laptops! 3 Comments »

Integrated GPS

Laptops submitted by pablohs Jun 2

I can buy a mobile phone with integrated GPS but not a laptop? I would like to be able to buy a laptop with the GPS already integrated within the unit. I am talking integrated, NO a third party card + cables + antenna option. 3 Comments »

Don't charge up to $50 more to downgrade from Vista to XP

Operating Systems - Multiboot, Desktops and Laptops submitted by jervis961 Jun 17

Dell is going to start charging customers up to $50 to downgrade thier systems operating system from Vista to XP after Wednesday. While some people see XP as an upgrade, I don't think there should be a charge for it. 43 Comments »

Include a touch sensitive screen on your new linux powered sub-notebooks!

Linux, Laptops submitted by shrewduser Jun 14

Touch sensitive screens cost next to nothing, especially when its done by the manufacturer at scale. YI think they have an important role to play on the new generation of utlra portable linux based devices.

Touch sensitivity means being able to quickly jot down notes all over your powerpoint slides at university, playing touch sensitive games which are particularly suited to mobile devices, as well as a myriad of other exsisting tasks currently handled by other things (usually a pen and paper). 1 Comment »

One Configurator 2 Rule Them All!

Dell Web Site submitted by q0987 Jun 14

Sorry about the title, I just couldn't help it.

Okay, this may just be me but why are there FOUR configurators to use when buying a system with the options split amongst them? What if I wanted something in between Cheap option and Really Cheap option. Do I have to buy the extra components even if I ain't ever gonna use them.

IDEA:

Have ONE configurator with ALL of the options listed and apply the price cuts whilst the customer is browsing between them by showing how total is worked out in a drop-down box next to the scroll bar e.g. RAM 3GB: - ₤15.
If you have to, then put [recommendations] down at the top of the page. Youknow, maybe something like 'Add the Monitor and get ₤50 off'. This way the price will adjust automatically so users won't have to go through each configurator to find out which one would give them the best price for whatever they have in mind.
It would be alot less confusing and frustrating and more quicker for the customer.



And whilst we are on the subject, how come Crimson Red isn't available for the m1330 anymore?
Also, Montevina is suppose to come out this month. Any chance the Dell technicians will be able fit the Blu-ray drive whenever they decide to do the refresh? They said they were gonna when the m1330 was released about a year ago. Ain't it about time they come clean if they simply can't do it. Then we can finally stop holding our breath.

http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10077207?comment_id=10184294#comment101...

7 Comments »

"Dell E" Find a new name for your new computer...

Advertising and Marketing submitted by badblood Jun 13

Dell's upcoming netbook ultaramobile thing is apparently going to be called the 'Dell E' which sounds like Deli, where you can buy milk, bread and other nice things.

Please think of another name. Have a naming competition on Ideastorm.

I vote for the Dell Lite as in delight!



'Delle" in german means "dent" 51 Comments »

Optical mice only please

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.) submitted by falbert May 22

How come we can still get in 2008 mechanical mice. Come on guys, in 2008 there should be only optical mice available. Also please make it clear on the web site what people are purchasing. 26 Comments »

Give Open Source Software a Higher profile On Dell.com

Dell Web Site submitted by aikiwolfie May 22 **REVIEWED**

From InformationWeek.com : Open Source Quality Improving, But Development Assumptions Need Revising

This report confirms what open source supporters have known all along. Open source developers deliver very high quality code. As such Dell should be giving the open source developers it uses a higher profile on Dell.com instead of hiding them away in some dark recess out of the way!

At the very least give your own in-house open source developers more exposure! They deserve it after all the top quality code they've produced, tested and tweaked.


Please see matt_d's comment
7 Comments »