Mar 2, 2005
11:50 P.M.: CN, BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
10:14 P.M.: SHANGHAI, CN, DEPARTURE SCAN
2:54 P.M.: SHANGHAI, CN, EXPORT SCAN
12:37 P.M.: ANCHORAGE, AK, US, ARRIVAL SCAN
9:48 A.M.: SHANGHAI, CN, ORIGIN SCAN

I just ordered a new IBM laptop. I did this because my old IBM laptop is slow and heavy. It was a year old when I bought it used, two years ago. Actually, it's not even the same laptop. The screen on my Thinkpad A20m was glitchy, and it finally went almost full-time on the fritz last year in Copenhagen. I swapped its hard drive with Lars' unused Thinkpad A21m, so it's only the same laptop in spirit, not in fact. It works generally pretty well, but has a few problems: hibernate has never really worked; startup takes about 5 minutes, including KDE, and starting new applications can take quite a while. Once an application is running, however, it's perfectly responsive, so the irritation is intermittent, not constant. Battery life is poor, so it's more of a portable computer than a mobile computer. Continued dismay with this state of affairs, plus the realization that my travelling bicycle load (clothes, computer, a book, a lock) is 35 pounds, and an upcoming international trip, led me to finally promote the new laptop from the wishlist to the reality list.

I got a Thinkpad before because of the reputedly excellent linux support. In practice, it's not awful, but it's not excellent either. The quality of the machine was generally good, except for the video screen that went on the fritz, but I did buy used over eBay. IBM's eraserhead pointers are excellent, and I cannot stand the touchpads. So I settled on a new X40 fairly quickly, and it is at this point that our mini-saga begins.

Ordering over the internet on a Sunday went fine, but I didn't get an email receipt. I called Monday, was on hold for maybe five minutes, and then talked to a very nice person who explained that the machine was back-ordered 10 business days, and the wireless card I had specified 20. When I explained that I had only picked that wireless card out of the four choices (three, because two choices had identical text) because it was the only one with a model number, allowing me to verify linux compatibility. "Intel Wireless Card" is not helpful to a linux user. He got a nice technician on the line, who said that he had exactly what I wanted already in stock ("except - you sound like a savvy guy. Can you - " "yes, throw the extra memory in the box and I can install it myself."). I mentioned that I never got an email, and that the order number I had retrieved out of my browser cache didn't work. He set me up with a correct order number, and made sure I got an email.

And the next day, Tuesday, I got another email. With a shipping date of April 5, over a month in the future. So I called again, waited 5 minutes again, and talked to a very nice lady who said that I should ignore that date, and that my computer would ship in five to seven business days. I said, "I noticed an offer on the web site to ship a computer the same day, if I order by 3 pm. It includes exactly the computer I want. Can I cancel this order and do that instead?" "No, sir. The shipping label was printed yesterday, so you cannot cancel your order. And that would not ship for one to three days anyway." "So where it says 'ships same day,' that's simply not true?" "Correct."

Great. I did read the fine print, and it says that IBM will ship the same day the order is completed, and completing an order includes, in their definition, processing the credit card, which takes one to three business days.

Then I got a few more emails, and a UPS tracking number, with which I have been eagerly following the progress of my new hardware. (It's mine, I figure, because my credit card was charged Tuesday.) Today my RAM arrived, and some shipping information for the rest materialized on UPS's website. As you can see above, UPS isn't especially careful with time zones or date lines.

So this seems to be pretty much the inverse of Dell. The product is, I assume, excellent, but the ordering process is third-rate. Specifically:

• The order status page uses more warehouse language than user language. My order is for a "** EXP X40 INTEL PENTIUM M LV 1.4 12" XGA 256 40 802 BG" and "RECYCLE FEE FOR PRODUCT WITH 4 TO 14 INCH DISPLAY". There is no link to show any more information about the product I ordered; I would have to go back to the ordering screens and try to match the part number. I didn't even realize that the laptop doesn't have a DVD drive (it's only 2.9 pounds, so I guess they cut these things at that price range. Hopefully I'll be able to install linux from a USB device. And you know, I was just thinking yesterday that after putting a whole audiobook (The Little Yellow Dog, Walter Mosley), three CDs, and a bunch of Salon member-only downloads onto my new iPod Shuffle, I still had 100 mb or more to spare. Fortune smiles, I guess.
• Every date estimate I've gotten has been wrong one way or the other. Better that the reality is early instead of late, but accuracy would be nice.
• It was never clear when I would actually be charged.

Aside from that, it's going smoothly and I'm excited.

I've taken my new bicycle out for two rides now, both out to the beach. The first was to Ocean Beach, 17 miles round trip. The second, last Sunday morning when there was hardly any traffic, was also past Lindburgh field but then I turned into Mission Bay and chased some of the crew teams around. (Since Mission Bay is a bunch of peninsulas, islands, bridges, and public and private parks and resorts, a few hundred yards on the water can be four miles on a road.) I went a total of 27 miles, in about 2.5 hours of rolling time (with a fair amount of slow cruising). Planetbike sent a new bicycle computer to replace the one that fell into an elevator shaft, and it works very well. My butt and back started to get a bit stiff by the end of the trip, but I was afraid to slide the seat around until I get a grease pencil to mark its position so I can return to positions that I liked. I still have a tendency to wobble, especially at higher speeds where I have to pedal harder, but it's certainly a fast bicycle.