  The surface quadrupole mode of an harmonically trapped dipolar Fermi gas is
studied in both the hydrodynamic and collisionless regimes. The anisotropy and
long range effects of the dipolar force as well as the role of the trapping
geometry are explicitly investigated. In the hydrodynamic regime the frequency
is always slightly smaller than the $\sqrt{2}\omega_\perp$ value holding for
gases interacting with contact interactions. In the collisionless regime the
frequency can be either pretty smaller or larger than the non-interacting value
$2\omega_\perp$, depending on the cloud aspect ratio. Our results suggest that
the frequency of the surface quadrupole oscillation can provide a useful test
for studying, at very low temperatures, the transition between the normal and
the superfluid phase and, in the normal phase at higher temperatures, the
crossover between the collisional and collisionless regimes. The consequences
of the anisotropy of the dipolar force on the virial theorem are also
discussed.
