Some time back, I decided to sell my Retina MacBook Pro 15″ (late 2013) for reasons I explained on this post, so I started a crusade to find the best possible Windows laptop I could buy as a replacement, but it had to meet my requirements:
Under 2 Kg of weight.
Ideally with a dedicated graphics card in case I wanted to do graphic intensive stuff or some eventual gaming.
A lot of RAM and Processor power so I could run multiple tabs, apps and virtual machines.
I have ordered a Dell XPS 15 9550 notebook some weeks back, together with it I have also purchased a TB15 dock to plug my Ethernet cable, external screen, mouse and keyboard.
For some reason although Dell sold me and charged for the dock and was supposed to ship it together with my notebook, the Dock was never shipped. When I contacted my sales contact in Germany she told me I will get a refund because the dock has been recalled.
I have also pinged @DellCares over twitter and they have confirmed the same.
Update with further comments from @DellCares:
The Dell TB15 is a USB Type-C connector Thunderbolt Dock which apparently has been having several issues according to this Reddit.
It is not completely clear at this stage if the recall is related only to the “unsold” items in stock or also to the ones the customers already purchased. The recall page at Dell doesn’t mention the TB15 recall, but also seems to have been updated in 2006 the last time :(.
Know anything else about this topic? Please comment below.
As you may have heard, Netflix started to block the usage of VPN and Proxy servers to be able to watch the USA Netflix (which has more content) from another country.
Unfortunately there are still a lot of licensing issues for Netflix to allow them to have the same content at a global scale. They are aware of the problem and they are working on a solution, but this will take years.
I have been testing different VPN & DNS Services that would allow you to not only protect your privacy by using a VPN to connect to the Internet, but would also work for watching USA Netflix wherever you are.
Some time back I supported the Indiegogo project of ThinCase, a product which looked very promising, claiming to deliver a battery case for your iPhone in a very small form factor. I supported the project because I really wanted to see something like this.
Some weeks back, I received the case and started using it for a while to test how it would work. To be honest although the quality was not great, it was ok. Until one day I noticed that the screen seemed to be exposed to scratches if I would lay down my phone on a flat surface (something we all do at some point).
Just to be sure, I checked how the guys at ChargeTech were promoting the case. They are offering a “raised protective lip” as they called it, but this is not working as it should at all.
To demonstrate this, I have made a test between the ThinCharge case and the Apple Silicone Case, check the video bellow:
I contacted them to check if the product was defected, they answered that the product “is designed like that”. To be honest, their support level was not very good as I had to contact them again because they didn’t reply to my first email (to a Gmail account by the way).
What a pity that such a promising product failed on something so basic as protecting the screen.
I consider myself a relatively new Apple Mac OS X user. I am a technology freak, I love everything around it and I am the point of reference of most of my family and friends when it comes to computers and tech stuff. I write about technology, love to do research and work in IT Service Management in a big company.
At work, I use a Windows 7 computer and at home I use a Retina MacBook Pro Late 2013 15″ notebook. I had to have the experience that everybody was talking about: “Mac is great”, “I love my Mac”, “Everything is so stable”. So when I decided to buy it, I went for the best model available. The extra graphics card, the 16 GB of RAM, the 512 SSD, everything, spending a wooping almost USD 3.000. It was a lot of money and it still is.
Since then, I am trying to feel happy with my investment and with the new experience of “The Mac” and to be honest I still can’t find any joy besides looking at the thing.
I guess working at the office with a Windows computer and arriving home trying to use the Mac, doesn’t help either. I did install BootCamp and Parallels with a virtual machine running Windows, but I forced myself to use OS X since around November 2013 until today (March 2016) for most of the things I do. (more…)
