Dazzle finally got around to calling me back.  They're shipping me a replacement CD for the broken one that came with their product.  It's about time, I was getting ready to ship the whole product back, and make it their problem...

I received the WordPerfect 2000 Service Pack 4 CD from Corel today.  Apparently the reason you have to call them up with your serial number is because they actually send you a new Disc 1 for your WordPerfect 2000 set.  It's not a patch, it's a whole new installation.  I'm making an .iso image of it now, so I can share this with everyone else on campus.  What a pain...

Macintouch has a great little discussion regarding the pricing of Apple computers versus that of Dell's offerings. 

I've worked as a support person in both Macintosh and PC environments, for several years. I consider myself to be a PC person, but I follow the Mac world quite closely, and am looking at a future iBook purchase for myself right now. A lot of the pricing comparisons that have been thrown around the Dell vs. Apple discussion have overlooked two areas that I consider quite important, the monitor and the warranty. Many of the comparisons overlooked the cost of the monitor, and the difference between the warranties offered by Dell & Apple. Here's my two cents, and my idea of a fair comparison:

Dell Dimension 4100

• Pentium III 866mhz
• 64MB SDRAM
• 17-inch Trinitron FD Monitor
• Rage 128 video card
• 20GB Hard Drive
• 12X DVD-ROM Drive
• 3 Years Next Business Day On Site Service & Warranty
• SoundBlaster 64V Sound Card
• Harmon Kardon Speakers
• 56K Modem
• 3Com 10/100 Ethernet card
• Microsoft Intellimouse
• Microsoft Works w/Money 2001

Dell is also including a free CD-RW right now, but I'll leave that out.

Total Price before shipping and taxes: $1308

Apple PowerMac G4 400

• Motorola G4 400mhz
• 64MB SDRAM
• Rage 128 video card
• 20GB Hard Drive
• DVD-ROM Drive
• Built-in Gigabit Ethernet
• 17 Inch Digital Monitor
• 56K Modem
• Harmon Kardon Speakers
• 3 Year AppleCare Warranty
• Apple Pro Keyboard
• Apple Optical Mouse
• Appleworks

Total price before shipping and taxes: $2126

I felt that by giving them both 3 year warranties, as well as the flat Trinitron monitors was fair. I added Appleworks to the Mac config, because you can't get a Dell without at least Microsoft Works, and the bundles do fairly similar things. The Mac has the edge with the faster Ethernet, and the digital monitor, but the PC has a pretty good price in comparison, especially if you got it now with the free CD-RW option thrown in. Many people would say that the Apple mouse is better than the Intellimouse. That's debatable, but I'd use neither for my own computer, I view them both as inadequate compared to the Intellimice with the Optical technology.