As a webmaster, both in my day job and in my business, I know the importance of being cross-platform. If you're a professional and you're not testing on both Macs and PCs, you're asking for trouble. I have owned Macs since 1988 and do almost all my Web development on Macs at home. At work I work on Windows NT, so I'm not a Windows neophyte, either.

In addition, my business, a cattery advertising service, is expanding rapidly and outgrowing its static-page layout. I need to convert to a database-driven system. All the good tools for this are PC-based, as I want to have an Access database driven through Cold Fusion. So, my beloved blue-box Macintosh G3 needed a buddy.

After doing careful research on reliability and customer satisfaction, I settled on a few different manufacturers. Dell impressed me with its easy-to-use website and the ability to customize my machine. I had specific needs and I didn't want to buy a preconfigured system that either had a lot of stuff I didn't want or not enough of the stuff I needed. I wanted lots of RAM, hard drive space, a truly gameworthy video card (okay, I also wanted this to play games) and some extra features. I didn't want DVD, a CD R/W, or a Pentium 4. For the most part, Dell allowed me to build a truly "me" system.

For the most part.

One complaint I have with them is that they don't give you the option NOT to choose installation of some ISP service, namely either Dellnet by MSN (free) or AOL (some amount of money that I don't remember). I have a cable modem and am happy with my local provider. I had no intention of changing my service. I selected Dellnet by MSN because it was free, figuring I just wouldn't opt in and everything would be just hunky dory.

Well, that wasn't quite the way it worked out.

The machine came in two shipments and all went together beautifully. I was impressed by the ease of setup and how quickly I went from box to working computer. (I even like Windows Me, which I didn't expect from other reviews). I hooked up the machine to my brand new cable router so my Mac and PC could share the cable modem. And that's when I made The Discovery.

The Dell standard configuration came only with Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. Fine. I like Internet Explorer, but I would download a copy of Eudora to replace Outlook, which I dislike. I clicked on the Internet Explorer icon and got a message that to get on the Internet, I had to click on the "Dellnet by MSN" icon. In the interests of checking whether my cable router was working properly, I did so and was instructed to get a signup name. Well, I can always do this and then cancel the Dellnet service, I reasoned. How hard can that be? I gave myself a signup name and logged on. That's when I realized that my Internet Explorer had been replaced by the MSN Explorer, and that I did not have access to plain-jane IE on this machine.

Now, I mentioned before I'm a webmaster and that one of my reasons for getting this machine was cross-platform testing. I also have to do cross-browser testing, which means that, damn it, I wanted plain ol' IE back. But there didn't seem any way to get around this. IE would only launch Dellnet and MSN Explorer.

To make a very long story short: I contacted Dell customer service, who told me that to cancel my MSN account that I needed to contact MSN tech support. I spent more than two hours on the telephone, most of it on hold. First, I talked to an extremely aggressive salesperson who argued with my decision to cancel my MSN service ("What will you do if your cable goes out?" she demanded shrilly. "I'll wait for the cable to come back," I answered.), who informed me that she had no idea how to untangle MSN from my IE and transferred me to MSN tech support. She finally did cancel my account, after some argument.

MSN tech support (after more long minutes on hold) walked me through the process of uninstalling Dellnet and MSN (shoot, I'd already done that myself) but seemed equally mystified that IE still wanted to launch Dellnet by MSN instead of launching itself. The bewildered tech support guy went away for ten minutes and came back, explaining that I needed to call Dell to get instructions on how to remove the product key from the registry. Great. Wonderful. I wanted on hold for more than two hours to be told to call Dell?

The good news was that I called Dell, got through the hold process in less than three minutes, and talked to a very nice tech support person who assured me we didn't have to go through the registry. She instructed me to open Internet Options and talked me through changing a few simple settings. Internet Explorer launched . . . Internet Explorer. Voila! Problem solved.

Of course, why would it surprise me that the MSN people would be totally familiar with the process of removing MSN from your system? After all, it's their job to keep you on MSN, not remove you from it. (Please re-read this paragraph with a bit of a sarcastic tone. It will get the message across much better).

The 4100 has developed alternative nicknames already: "Bruiser" because it's the biggest, baddest computer in the house, and "Ferrari" because it more than occasionally sounds like a Ferrari on high idle. No, it ain't the quietest machine on the block. Other than the Dellnet debacle, I'd rate my experience so far as ideal.



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 2000
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40