Dell wants to meet you half way on shipping, literally. They will still ship your PC free, if you drive to the post office and pick it up. Though you can still pay to have it shipped directly to your door. The policy will begin on October 10, 2005 for entry-level PCs, but will eventually be expanded to cover all Dimension, Inspiron, and the high-end XPS products.

This is using a new Post Office “Hold for pickup” program, which gives the recipient 10 days to claim their package.

This has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever. The post office hours are so bad they are closed before most people get off of work. If I was going to drive anywhere for a new PC, I would just drive myself over to the Apple store and pickup a real computer.

Apple has confirmed that some Mac Mini’s have unlabled upgrades, with faster processors and improved peripherals. In order to clear the recently revamped Mac Mini’s from the shelf, Apple is selling them guaranteeing a minimum specification, but they could be higher.

“Some Mac Mini systems may contain components that slightly exceed the published specifications,” Apple hardware spokesperson Teresa Weaver said. “There are no changes to the published specifications or part numbers.”

You can read more at ThinkSecret.

The Army recently created its own energy bars, designed to give you longer lasting energy. Instead of the high sugar content of typical energy bars, which causes you to crash, Hooah! contains twice as much fat. For a slower release of energy.

And according to popular science, they actually work:

To test that claim, I recently climbed to the summit of California‘s 14,162-foot Mount Shasta with skis and boots lashed to my backpack, eating nothing but 280-calorie Hooah bars. My body felt great, my ascent time was less than when I did it five years ago, and my fatigue came on gradually, not suddenly.

Hooah! is a military phrase to mean everything but no. It’s been said that it originated from the acronym HUA, short for “Heard, Understood, Acknowledged.” When I was in the Army, we said HUA meant “Head Up Ass”.

More money that is. The Mountain View City Council is claiming that Google partnership with NASA is an attempt at tax dodging. And that by building on Federal land, that are getting out of local property taxes worth $3 million a year.

Greg Perry, a member of the Mountain View City Council, echoed that sentiment. “If public land is being used for private purposes, the tenants should be paying local property taxes,” he said. “We have $30 million in unfunded retirement liabilities. We need the money.”

Why Google would be on the hook for the cities under-funded pork projects I don’t know.

Since the NASA Ames research center is a self contained federal entity, supplying it’s own services, Google would not have to pay local property tax. But according to the NASA Ame’s director of external relations and development, “Google will not save any money by building on our property. They have to pay full ground rent based on fair market value and all the municipal-like services we provide like police, fire and garbage.”

The company will also have to build infrastructure such as sewers and roads, and pay for improvements to existing utilities, Marlaire said.

According to city officials, people won’t care that Google would provide 4,000 jobs, a $300 million facility, or that it would make the valley into a new research hub, “if there’s gridlock on local highways and rents jump.”

Yeah right.

When asked how they would make Google pay, Larry Stone - county tax accessor and all around ass, responded, “I don’t have a clue yet. But I will.”

Toshiba today announced that it has developed two prototype direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) units and begun tests to validate their operation with mobile audio players. Each unit integrates the DMFC that Toshiba announced in June 2004, the world’s smallest, bringing its practical use a major step closer.

The new fuel cell units have an output power of 100mW and 300mW and have been applied to a flash-memory-based digital audio player and an HDD-based digital audio player, respectively…

Toshiba’s DMFC features a passive fuel supply system that is suited to smaller fuel cells and use with a highly concentrated methanol solution. Fuel cells usually mix methane with water in a concentration of less than 30%, a dilution that supports generating efficiency but requires a fuel tank that is much too big for portable equipment. Toshiba plans to support integration of DMFC into commercial products after 2007.

A video speaks a million words.

I just have 1 word to say.. AMAZING..

Check it out

Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of the MIT Media Labs, has debuted a sub-$100 laptop. The laptop features a Linux operating system, wi-fi access, rugged design, and a hand crank for when you are without power. Designed to be used in developing countries, Nicholas Negroponte has a dream of “a laptop for every child.” The project is currently being sponsored by Google, AMD and Redhat.

Significant Features:

• In times with no electricity, 10 minutes of power can be supplied per 1 minute of cranking.
• Dual display modes: the laptop features a color TFT panel, but can switch to a black and white mode to conserve electricity.
• Flash based memory instead of a hard drive.
• 500 MHz AMD processor

The best part of this device is it could essentially replace textbooks. By serving as an eBook reader, this device could revolution schools around the world. Including here in the States, there are plans for at least 2 states to begin purchasing these for students starting next year.

All I can say is, when can I buy one? Sadly probably never.

Please note: these laptops are not in production. They are not—and will not—be available for purchase by individuals.

You can see more images and get more information at the project’s homepage.

Harvey Danger released a DRM-free, high quality version of “Little by Little” By bittorrent. As part of a promotional campaign they hope to draw sales of their new album by giving it away free online. You can download the complete album in either MP3 or OGG format for free, but if you do buy the album you get a companion disc “containing outtakes, alternate versions, and other snippets”.

In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as “illegal� file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little…, available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We’re not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we’re putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends.

If you don’t plan on buying the album, you can also donate any amount you like through their website.

Little By Little (MP3 format, 65.7 MB) Torrent
Little By Little (OGG format, 58.4 MB) Torrent

Next week ATI’s new R520’s are set out to sail. Only 3 months late of their expected launch date. Some speculate they were running a little behind because of the whole XBOX360 chip manufacturing process. Who knows. In any case, their new flagship X1800 XT with 512MB of memory will be priced at $549, with a 256MB variant weighing in at $499, while the X1800 XL 256MiB will cost $449. A quick check of a popular online hardware pricing site showed Nvidia’s GeForce 7800 GTX selling around the $460 mark, with the 7800 GT costing $360.

Below is the complete run down on the new pricing strucutre. All MSRP of course so expect cheaper prices at your favorite online retailer:

Microsoft has launched System Center Data Proctection Manager, a product that has been in beta for a year. The DPM is a disk-to-disk continuous data backup product. Similiar to IBM’s Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files that was launched last month. Continuous data backup is being touted as a replacement for tape drives, and boasts faster file recovery, while being less expensive.

From the overview:

Disk-based Backup Solution with Data Protection Manager

As the latest member of the Windows Server System family, Data Protection Manager (DPM) is a server software application that optimizes disk-based backup and recovery. Backing up data to disk provides the fastest way to recover data lost because of user error or software and hardware corruption. With DPM, recovering information is as simple as browsing a share and copying directly from to the production server.

DPM lets IT administrators easily and affordably use existing Windows Server investments such as Active Directory, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, and Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2003. DPM provides these unique capabilities:
• Rapid and reliable data recovery. DPM provides rapid and reliable recovery of data lost because of user error or server hardware failure.
• Efficient and near-continuous data protection. DPM uses efficient byte-level replication to deliver faster backup and less potential data loss.
• Operational Simplicity. DPM lowers the total cost of your data protection environment by improving the efficiency of your operations.

DPM requires a Windows 2003 server with a designated drive to be the storage pool. And the servers it “protects” must be members of Active Directory. The domain server must be Windows 2003 server or Windows 2000 server w/ Service Pack 3.