I have two Dell laptops one of which just had some issues this last week. My son and I started on troubleshooting it last weekend. We finally figured out when it would not reboot that maybe it was more than a bad hard disk. My husband thought it was the motherboard.

When I finally got enough information from the Dell forum, I started the repair process with Dell just to find out that the 2 year warranty had expired on June 7th and I was phoning Dell the morning of the 8th. With a gentle push, Dell agreed to sell me the extended warranty and cover all the problems on this just one day over two year old computer which originally cost about $1,700.

Since then I have received a new motherboard, hard disk, heat sink, and keyboard. Not only was the support desk helpful and incredibly knowledgeable, but courteous. Yes, it was an awful problem to have and I did have to pay $279 for the extended warranty and get a bit pushy to get it initially, but my problem has been handled quite well.

The support personnel from India were very knowledgeable and when I had them spell their names so I could pronounce them properly, they really warmed up to me. I need a new laptop as one is so old that for me I would think of no other place to start shopping but Dell. However I may actually buy the extended warranty for it up front. I have found that the difference between the paid extended warranty help and the free support is worth the extra fee.

I am not being paid by Dell for this post, just wanted to share my real world experience and let you know that yes, there are good people out there helping make things right for customers.

Thanks EmNiel, Bhupesh, Mohammed, and all the rest from Dell Support!

I have reviewed and tested Adobe InContext Editing and felt it was a good product for clients that wanted to update website content themselves. Adobe has recently announced that it is closing the free standing version of Adobe InContext Editing and will now package it as part of the Adobe Business Catalyst solution.

Business Catalyst is much more than a website editing application it is an advanced set up business tools under one umbrella much like HubSpot. Business Catalyst’s strength will be however its significantly lower price when compared to HubSpot.

I have been testing the interface intensively and find the WSIWYG interface annoying to use for a power user such as myself who typically works in code view. To please people such as myself, Business Catalyst does allow full FTP access and can work on sites set up with Dreamweaver templates.

What I find intriguing about Business Catalyst is its arsenal of web widgets and easy to implement advanced features such as recording all form contact submissions into an integrated customer database for use by the sales team and an included e-newsletter application. The system can even set up email drip campaigns. Additionally you can do e-commerce on Business Catalyst as well with a very nice feature of being able to load all your products from an Excel spreadsheet versus having to enter each one manually.

The application allows the business owner to review on on dashboard all activity on their online business and allows sorting of information with an integrated analytics program as well. From my initial review, it looks like a very powerful system with a very low cost. This is a hosted application like HubSpot but instead of charging a monthly fee of $500 for a small site the fees range from $39 to $79 per month and only $16 per month if you only want to use the InContext Editing portion. To me the application has great potential.

One note of warning, the system IS complicated. I have personally decided that the premade templates are not a good fit for my needs, but will be testing my own template next in the application. Although this tool is not a good fit for everyone, it certainly points the way to the future of packaged business solutions. As the team says at Adobe, this is no longer just a website, it is an online business!

Our new Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet Pro 8500 printer was purchased in April 2009 and use it on a hard-wired network of ten computers, including Windows Vista, XP, and 2000.  Installation of the CD drivers (v12.0.0, same as the online version at HP) on four platforms took an average of sixteen minutes each and was relatively straightforward.  Of note, the full application package loaded on the Vista and XP machines but only the printer driver was offered for the 2000 machine.

As a printer, the 8500 was quick but an IT8 target tended toward yellow and wasn’t quite as sharp as printouts on HP Premium Plus Photo paper as we’ve seen on our 7110, K550, and 960.  The quality is definitely there, though, and we hope to see improvements in later releases of the 8500’s software and/or firmware.  The front panel slots accept common memory modules and a USB slot enables direct printing from digital cameras.

I was looking for a straightforward scanner package and was very pleased with the way HP incorporated the functions.  It’s very easy to crop, touch-up, select file type (JPG, TIF, PDF, etc.), resolution, and where to send the output file.  Quick and efficient sums it up – probably the best implementation of scanner software I’ve seen from HP.  However, there’s no provision to scan negatives or slides.

Although the flatbed is standard sized at 8.5 x 11 inches, the automatic document feeder (ADF) scans, copies, and faxes up to 8.5 x 14 (legal).  Standard paper copies of an IT8 target (on photo paper) had good color and density.  The IRIS optical character recognition was nicely integrated, easy to start, and fairly quick to process.

Since our entire network is hard-wired, there was no need for HP’s next model up, the OfficeJet Pro 8500 Wireless.  There are nicer features on the wireless offering, but we got all we needed with the basic system.  We use automatic IP addressing but there is provision to assign a manual IP to the 8500.  The downside is that when using the 8500 on the network, software must be installed on each computer.

The fax function was not needed but makes it easy for your computer to print directly to fax, which comes in handy.  As a network fax machine, any computer on the network can be enabled to print to fax.  HP’s software also makes it easy for incoming faxes to be stored digitally on a computer or forwarded to another fax machine.

We are grateful for a number of product reviews that rated the 8500 from one to five stars.  Perhaps HP is listening because we didn’t encounter any problems that would rate the 8500 less than five stars.

From me, Nancy McCord, please note that our writer Michael McCord has not been paid for this review nor asked by HP to write it. We provide product reviews as a service to our readers. One additional note, when we saw this printer at Staples it was on sale for $249.95 (until May 5th) and by trading in our old HP 7100 All in One Printer we received an additional $50 off. I have to say that the price and now our set up and use of this printer, fax machine, and scanner puts this printer in a top performance category in our eyes. If you need a new printer, fax, and copy machine with a fairly small footprint at a great value, this is the one for you!