Windows XP downgrade extended to July 31 2009

caribguy — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:56:18 +0000

Microsoft has given Small Businesses a way to skip Vista altogether.

It has been confirmed in the report in The Register that PC makers will be allowed to offer “downgrade rights” from Vista to Windows XP for an additional six months, until July 31, 2009. Downgrade rights is a way to purchase a new computer that comes with Vista and request to have XP installed instead. Not all manufacturers provide this option so you must ask your current provider. Microsoft has additionally pushed up the release date for Windows 7 to 2010, effectively providing a seamless path that puts Vista out of the picture.

This is good news for Small Businesses, who predominantly use Windows XP for their computers (in fact, Foreverwarm Consulting recommends it). Now you can skip Vista altogether and migrate from XP directly to Windows 7.

How to add an RSS feed to your Windows Vista Sidebar

caribguy — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:34:25 +0000

Here’s how to quickly add RSS feeds to the Windows Vista Sidebar.

The Windows Vista Sidebar is the bar of little applets that appears on the right of your screen by default. You cannot add a feed directly to the applet, you must subscribe to it using Internet Explorer, or with Firefox using this.

Open Internet Explorer and go to the web site of the RSS feed you want to display in your Sidebar. When ready, click on the orange RSS button

Select Subscribe to this feed

Call this feed something and click Subscribe

Now from your Sidebar, click the Tool icon for the RSS feed applet.

The feed you just added should show in the list of feeds to display. Simply select it, and click OK.

The RSS applet will now display that feed.

Foreverwarm Consulting

Flipping the switch saves The Planet about $140K annually

Heather Clancy — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:45:58 +0000

The results of The Planet’s “lights out” pilot are in: By adopting a workday-hours lights-on policy and shutting off the lights after hours, the hosting company is saving roughly $140,000 per year across its six data centers in Houston and Dallas. The reduction in annual energy consumption achieved through this policy was about 1.4 million [...]

What’s up, what’s down on our warming planet?

Harry Fuller — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:25:23 +0000

Glaciers are down, the ocean is up. Here are some details: Europe is losing its Alpine snowmass. Glaciers in Europe have lost 25% of their snowmass since 1980. It’s more than agony for skiers. Huge sections of rock and rubble are leaving their alpine perches, crashing into thre valleys below. The oceans [...]

Canada adds another city to LED City list

Heather Clancy — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:13:45 +0000

Welland, Ontario, is the latest municipal government to commit to the LED City initiative, under which cities from around the globe are converting lighting to light-emitting diodes. A retrofit of all streetlights is under way — 50 have gone up so far and 50 more are in the works. Welland, a city of about 50,000 [...]

Something in the air: Several random wind energy updates

Heather Clancy — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:48:29 +0000

It’s been so still here in northern New Jersey for the past week that I can’t imagine using the technology that I’m going to mention in this post. And yet the wind has been known to bend the trees in my yard, like kelp responding to a tidal surge. So, you can imagine what’s in [...]

Hybrids v. Pickensplan? You do the pickin’

Harry Fuller — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:42:14 +0000

Some of the folks touting hybrid cars–standard fuel plus electric–think their favored technology runs against the plans of T. Boone Pickens. I recently blogged Pickens’ pick of CNG as a great new transit fuel for American drivers. Over at Hybridowners they’re saying electric hybrids and eventually plug-ins will short-cut Pickens’ plans. Keep [...]

HP ditches the box for Walmart notebook promotion

Heather Clancy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:53:06 +0000

Which notebook would you rather buy as a consumer, one that comes home with oodles of styrofoam and cardboard and plastic. Or one that ditches the cardboard altogether and even comes with its own messenger bag for you to carry it home in? Both Hewlett-Packard and Walmart are hoping that consumers will vote with their [...]

What’s hot, what’s not, in energy land

Harry Fuller — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:45:12 +0000

What’s hot? Wind says the MSM and all the ads being sponsored by former oilman T. Boone Pickens. Pickens is going to get lots of play because he can spend lots of money. You may have seen some of his ads. Pickens even got one beknighted MSM reporter to drive a [...]

Recycled ink cartridges in your garden?

Heather Clancy — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:02:22 +0000

Printer maker Lexmark is the first U.S. printer maker to ink (at least publicly and, yes, pun intended) a deal with Close the Loop, a recycling concern that has come up with a patented new use for discarded printing and imaging supplies and other materials it is collecting: the company is turning it into a [...]