TechBlog from Sewell

We recently launched a feature that allows customers to review products they have purchased.

A lot of customers have taken the time to provide reviews of the USB to DVI adapter - if you have any questions about whether your application will work you may be able to find somebody else who has done the same thing (and whether or not it worked).

This feature is now available on all of our other products as well, so go ahead and browse the site and find the information that you need before placing a purchase.

Most of new laptops come with the new Express Card slot instead of the older PCMCIA slot. We have had many customers with questions about this new technology and what it looks like. The new express card is made to be faster in a smaller package. The express card is smaller than the PCMCIA cards and they come in a 54mm and 34mm size. Below are some pictures from www.expresscard.org that show the difference between Express cards and PCMCIA cards and the difference between the 54mm and 34mm express cards. You can also take a look at the different Express Cards available at Sewelldirect.com

On a daily basis in Tech Support at Sewell Direct we receive telephone calls concerning the compatability of our products with Microsoft’s new OS Windows Vista. I am very happy to report that through extensive testing we have determined that the compatability level is very high across the boards for our products. My fellow techies and I have done a lot and will continue to do more with any hardware installation concerns that you may have with this exciting new OS.

A great example of what has been done so far is the Vista installation procedure for the USB to 32-Bit Card Bus.

Feel free to call our Tech Support Department if you questions about Windows Vista compatiblity: 1(800)709-1345 Option #1.

When our tech support guys get calls, it’s usually a specific question about some function of a product that they recently purchased from Sewell Direct. However, every now and again, we get a repeat question from someone who hasn’t used Sewell Direct in a while, but just has a general technology question. Our guys are usually glad to give a helping hand with that stuff, too.

Once in a while, though, we get referrals to our tech support from other individuals or even other sites. We were kind of surprised at a revealing conversation that our own Jonathan Adams had with someone who was referred to us from a mecca of online retail and a major competitor, Newegg. Newegg passing the buck along for tech support? Isn’t that kind of sad? That’s like Mike Krzyzewski (we forgive you for losing in the first round this year…) telling his star center to ask Roy Williams (UNC’s coach) for advice on blocking out for rebounds because he simply didn’t know what to tell him. Needless to say, it reflects pretty poorly on Newegg.

Apparently, this wasn’t even a unique experience. We had another technician receive a similar phone call. I guess it just goes to show that even though we may not have the deep pockets of Newegg, we gobbled up all the tech-savvy and customer-friendly support staff. Props, guys. And thanks to all our loyal customers whom we promise to never refer to a competitor for their technical questions.

Is it time to beef up the home theater already? We’ve got just the thing to spice things up. While we were at CES, cruising the floor looking for the latest tech we came across K2 Wall mounts and they showed us motorized flat-panel wall mounts.
Sweet mercy it moves!:
As if your 60 inch flat panel TV wasn’t already cool enough the uses a remote control to adjust the viewing angle on the fly. Plus it looks sleek. I’d love to have one of these in my living room, whenever I had parties and had to adjust my home theater to accomodate more people I could move the display without getting up.
Not just a remote control, but home automated:
In addition to IR control the mount can also connect via RS-232 to your home automation equipement. You could set the LCD to automatically move away from the wall whenever you enter the room any other custom triggers. Just use your imagination.
Other kinds of mounts:
While the motorized, automated wallmount was the most impressive thing we saw K2 also had some really solid looking flat panel mounts. They carry articulating arm mounts, flush arm mounts, tile arm mounts and even a projector mount. All of the mounts are very clean, solid looking pieces of equipement. All of them are built of stainless steel and K2 includes free devices insurance up to $10,000. Device insurace:
The free device insurance means that if any of your equipement ends up damaged because the wall mount fails K2 will refund the damage up to $10,000 dollars. Not bad insurance in my oppinion. That means they have a lot of confidence in what they’re building.
Color options:
No, they don’t come in yellow or anything crazy. K2 wall mounts all keep a classy steel or black look and have very nice heavy duty finishes. So check out K2, we’re all pretty excited about these.

For those of you who have been watching we recently added Timbuk2 and STM Bags to our line up. Now we’re happy to add Built NY the store.

Built NY is rad:
Not a very subtle title I know. Nonetheless, I’ve been very impressed with the Built NY bags. One of the nicest things is that they fit all sized notebooks. Lewis(co-worker) has one of those massive 17 inch Dell laptops and has had a really hard time finding a bag for it. He tried the STM and Timbuk2 bags but they just weren’t big enough for the massive girth that characterizes the 17 inch Dell. All the Built NY bags are made out of neoprene(yes that’s the same stuff that they use to make wetsuits). So it’s stretchy enough fit slightly oversized devices like Lewis’s fatty laptop or widescreen Macbooks. The fabric isn’t the only thing that contributes. Each bag has an hourglass shape. I think this has two functions, in my mind it fits more sizes because it has to stretch in the middle and not at the seams. The second is that the corners are left with extra cushion because there is more material there. So far we have quite a few laptop sleeves, notebook shoulder bags and camera/pda/mp3/cellphone bags. Each line comes in Black, navy blue, green and hotstripes(see exemples below).

I might actually pick up one of these sleeves to hold my Macbook Pro. I currently use a shoulder bag as a sleeve inside my backpack. It’s kind of silly but I like having the shoulder bag in my backpack on the occasion that I just want that instead of the pack. The sleeve would be a nice alternative because it offers more padding. The portfolio cases are really professional looking (see: maybe too professional for my casual “I found all my clothes at concerts” style). Eyner(co-worker) bought one of these as soon as we got them in and seems to have been enjoying it. He looks a lot more professional. It’s a good fit for someone going for casual professional look.

Camera/small electronics bags:
I can’t close this post without making a quick mention of the iPod pouches. They come in three sizes to fit iPods, cellphones, mp3 players, small cameras and other electronics.

Rather than using a clip or something you just loop the body of the pouch through the hole. It’s a lot like airplane baggage tags. It’s nice because there aren’t any moveable parts to break. So check out our new Built NY collection. We currently limit our line to the tech related products but may expand into thier other product lines if we see a future in it.