[H]ardNews 10th Edition - Blair's Tech Ed.

Wal-Mart Says, Make It Yourself:

I could swear that I have been saying for years now that it would be a good idea to have customized CDs like the ones being offered by Wal-Mart now. Well, at least they are coming around and offering what people want.

Wal-Mart (WMT) will put the selections on CD and mail it to the customer. Customers will choose the title and packaging of their CD from a variety of images and can expect their purchase to arrive in three or four days.

Free Music:

Speaking of music, you can get 25 free songs from RealNetworks. Not the greatest service, but free is still good.

RealNetworks Inc., facing intense competition from file-swapping networks and from Apple Computer Inc., will give away 25 music tracks for free each month as part of a new service that seeks to entice music-lovers to pay for more tunes.

New Uses For Old PCs:

People are finding productive uses for old PCs instead of just dumping them in the local landfill or shooting them with high powered firearms and sending us the pictures. O.K. I admit, the "shooting PCs" thing is still pretty cool, not environmentally friendly, but still cool. I think putting a bunch of old computers to use folding for the [H] is the best idea though.

More than half the old personal computers replaced by consumers last year were put to productive use instead of being dumped or stored away, according to a nationwide survey.