Dell Windows Tax

Why did this guy get a refund while I don’t?

I called up Dell, twice and wrote email to them when I was negotiating for a purchase of my Dell laptop to get a refund for Windows tax. On all occasions, they told me no, Dell comes prebundled with Windows and they needed Windows to make sure that my laptop’s working before being shipped to me and there is no any other way around that.

I gave in.

Little did I know, my laptop came with 2 extra partitions (of ~3GB total) in addition of the main partition. The 2 extra partitions are hidden from Windows and they are full of Dell factory settings so they could restore your machine to factory state easily when you call them up to service your PC (that costs SGD 50!). And on top of that, Windows came preinstalled with lots of Dell junkware, and that’s on the main partition. And I still have to pay the Windows tax.

Exams are Coming

What the hell…

I’ve just checked my final exam dates. They’re on 23, 25, 28, 30 of Nov.

Hey, aren’t 23rd and 25th Nov still in the same week as study week?

Now I don’t know how will I find time to study. I’m still doing my 6-person-per-group school project, EE4214 - Real Time Embeded Systems almost by myself.

Someone get me out of this hell asap!

IE7 Is Now Being Force Fed To Users!

Web designers and developers rejoice! Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 is now being force fed to Windows XP users with Automatic Updates turned on and is labelled as a high-priority update.

Good news indeed. I haven’t tested it out much but I’m sure the IE CSS hacks would be less abundant from now on.

Well, designers, it’s time to un-hack your CSS!

For others, enjoy your spanking new IE7. Being a web developer, I’ll have to wait awhile, until most people have upgraded, before I upgrade mine.

No Asian Poker Tour for Me This Time

I’ve just unregistered myself for the USD150+20 event earlier today after I found out the starting chip and the duration of each blinds rounds. The starting chip is 2000 and the blinds increase every 30 minutes.

According to the structure, I estimate that at least 60% of the field would’ve been eliminated by 1 hour mark.

It’s virtually an all-in fest for the tournament.

I think I’ll save myself the money for that 1 hour entertainment and for that luck test. I’ll rather play more poker online which allows me to use more skills than luck.

I’ll still be a spectator for the tournament whenever I could find time off my work and studies.

P/S The starting chips for each events differ. The main event would be starting with 10,000 chips and with 1-hour rounds. That’s what a playable tournament should be like. Wished i could join, but I can’t afford the USD5000 buy-in.