Customers give Dell the finger over keyboard screw-up
Does this machine look shifty to you?
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Dell has left customers shaking their fists this week after shipping an unspecified number of its Vostro 1310 and 1510 laptops in Europe with the wrong keyboard layout.
The embarrassing cock-up forces the Z key, which should sit beneath the A and S keys, along the row in Vostro laptops affected by the problem. Subsequent keys in the same row are also bumped along because the shift key is too big – making touch typing a tricky task.
That shifty feeling
Jake Gordon alerted us to the massive blunder yesterday. He told us he had been on the phone to Dell for 20 minutes before the world’s number two computer manufacturer admitted it was aware of the problem.
He said on his Flickr blog: "They keys are all there. Shift, \|, Z, X... its [sic] just that the left shift is too big, forcing everything over too far. The Z has to be between the A and S... look on ANY other keyboard and that's where it sits. This is not a US/UK layout issue, just a general monumental flaw."
We asked Dell if it could give customers a timeframe for when they can expect the issue to be resolved, and if it will be forced to withdraw any stock as a result.
However, Dell refused to offer any further comment on the blunder outside of this official statement:
"A limited number of Dell Vostro 1310 and 1510 laptops in Europe have been sent out with the wrong keyboard layout. We are working diligently to offer a solution to impacted customers and correct the error before any additional units are shipped.
"We will be contacting impacted customers directly to both apologise and instruct them on next steps. This issue is under investigation, and we will come back with more detailed information as soon as possible. We will be acting as quickly as possible to find a satisfactory solution for our customers." ®
COMMENTS
'Right Click' key
@Kanhef
"Who needs the 'right click' key either, since Apple is the only company to ship single-button mice in recent memory?"
Er. Right click on a Mac is CTRL+Click. Mac's have never had a 'right click' key - it is something which appeared on 'Windows' keyboards at the same time as the Start key.
dvorak
I assume those suggesting dvorak have never looked at the list of keyboard layouts included with the OS (every OS i've looked on) or they would see that dvorak is not really too practical for anyone except yanks, as there is no option for a dvorak keyboard with standard symbols, only USA symbols! (you need to make a custom keyboard layout file for it - including on vista and the few linux distros i've checked so it's not even a case of the OS being pre-dvorak)
the correct layout for the second to bottom row of a standard UK keyboard is:
Small Shift \zxcvbnm,./ Big Shift - lower case
Small Shift |ZXCVBNM<>? Big Shift - holding shift
however many laptops to save on costs use the US base with UK keytops on giving a bigger shift key on the left, in this case they move the \| key to a different location to avoid shifting the keys along (i have 4 laptops, each has it in a different location!) - this appears to be where dell have screwed up, in not moving that key when using a US base (and the fix is of course a quick move of the keys and update the key mapping, probably a firmware update)
just don't get me started on the | key which has ¦ printed on it, whilst the ¦ key has | printed on it! (for those who don't know how to type that symbol, AltGr, as with all symbols) however linux so helpfuly decides to make both of them in to | keys
also worth noting that the euro key is on AltGR+4, some keyboards have it printed on the key but some don't - not sure if it's just me but as far as i can tell at one point pre-euro they seemed to all have it on, these days with use of the euro symbol being common it seems to be 50/50 if it has it printed or not
for typing other european languages, for french accents you can hold AltGr and type the letter, for others i have no idea... (except Alt+number of course) anyone?
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
