The Christmas gift now has a delivery date of Jan. 4. "When I ordered this system, I was certain that I would receive it before the next president was chosen." Another person posting on Dell's support Web site recounted placing a Dimension 8100 order Nov. 20--the day of availability--with an initial ship date of Nov. 30, which changed to Dec. 7, then Dec. 8, and finally Dec. 13 before the customer canceled the order. Problems with the USB keyboard compelled the customer to start from scratch Dec. 13, when a sales representative promised a ship date of Dec. 15. Instead, "the ship date on the new order is 1/2/01, over 6 weeks from my original order date," the Dell customer wrote. Other Dell buyers voiced similar gripes, which the company's support site moderator Chris Chandler handled with some explanation. He cited the graphics card supply problem on the Inspiron 8000 and a shortage of CD-RW drives.