In a bid to tempt the ladies to get all techie and buy a laptop, Dell launched a web site earlier this week aimed at women and called 'Della'.

The site is divided into just four areas (that's it, Dell, keep it nice and simple for the ladies): Products, Featured Artist, Tech Tips and Giving. Sneak's favourite area is the Tech Tips page, which until Wednesday this week featured 'Seven Unexpected Ways a Netbook Can Change Your Life' and boasted the promise that once you get beyond their cuteness, you'll realise netbooks can do more than just check your email.

However, in response to feedback (no doubt of the negative kind in response to the previous patronising tone of the advice), Dell has now updated this section and reduced it to only five tips, along with a note explaining the changes: "Some of you have read this article over the last several days and will notice a few modifications. You spoke; we listened. Thank you for your ongoing feedback."

Luckily Sneak had already saved all the info from the original seven tips, and can safely say that while none of them were that 'unexpected', all fit the normal lazy stereotyping around women and technology. The original list featured ways to use your laptop as a calorie counter, recipe finder or meditation aid. The new tips still include an e-book reader (so you can catch up on the latest Mills & Boon or Jackie Collins blockbuster, no doubt) and a lifestyle organiser. But the reference to a 'Remember the Milk' time management application has now mysteriously disappeared.

The 'Stay in the clouds' section has also been wiped. This covered nothing too technical at first: "'Cloud computing' is a buzzword for what your mini does best: save money and time by using free online apps for everything you need - meaning you don't need to buy, install or update a bunch of space- and memory-hogging applications on your computer itself."

However, it then went on to reference streaming media, Google Docs, transferring data, porting it via removable SD cards or USB flash drives, and plugging in an external drive. Hopefully this section hasn't disappeared as readers complained it was too techie and complicated. Instead there is a much more basic 'Get more' tip, which encourages women to, "Add storage to your netbook with memory cards or memory keys".

Fortunately the Featured Artist area of the site still features Robyn Moreno, author of Practically Posh: The Smart Girls Guide to a Glam Life and producer for Plum TV in the Hamptons, no less. I'm not sure what she has to do with the Della web site or netbooks, but she seems to like eating and drinking wine, judging by the pictures on the site, so a perfect choice for selling netbooks to the ladies.

15 May 2009