I found a webpage with some nice-looking animated GIF free public domain progress bars and activity indicators. (Wow, how many adjectives is that?) If you’re into AJAX development (or dabbling in it, like me), these little images will probably come in handy at some point.
Free
Legal Windows Vista Ultimate for Free?!
This sounds too good to be true. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is indeed legitimate.
Microsoft is running a promotion whereby upon purchase of an OEM version of Windows Vista Ultimate you get the following hardware items for free:
- Kingston 2GB Flash Drive
- Artec HDTV Tuner
- D-Link WiFi Pocket Router
- Epson PictureMate Pal
NewEgg.com also has a promotion page for this deal.
The value of the items wasn’t advertised, but I found the model numbers for 3 of the 4 products and did some searching. Here’s what I found:
- Kingston 2GB Flash Drive – $76.99
- Artec HDTV Tuner – $59.99
- D-Link WiFi Pocket Router – $46.99
- Epson PictureMate Pal – Couldn’t find the model number; an Epson PictureMate Pal printer on NewEgg (don’t know if it’s the same one) cost $133.99, so I think that’s a safe guess
The total price for these four items adds up to $317.96. And what how much is Vista Ultimate OEM from NewEgg? Yep, only $199.99.
Assuming you were able to resell these hardware items at the above prices, you would get Vista Ultimate for free and get $117.97 extra. Or you could keep one or two of the items and sell the rest to recoup the cost of Vista. Or you could just keep all of them. 
All the same, totally cool.
Gmail is Now Invite-Free
Google announced yesterday that its free email service is now open for registration. From a post on the Official Google Blog:
Gmail sign-ups are now open worldwide! No more waiting for someone to invite you—just create an account directly at www.gmail.com
Dell’s Back-to-School Laptop Giveaway
Dell is giving away 12 free laptops every day from July 27 to August 31 as part of their back-to-school 2006 instant win game. Worth a shot, methinks.
After playing a few times, I think I know why they can afford to do this: every time you play, they survey you with a computer-related question or two or three. If a lot of people play, I can imagine this data being quite valuable to them! But personally I don’t really care if Dell knows what types of computer equipment I purchased in the past year; but some people might.
I’ll let you know if I win anything. 
SkypeOut is Free in the U.S. and Canada
According to an announcement email from Skype:
Calls to friends and family on Skype have always been free. Now we’ve made calls within the US and Canada to all phones totally free till the end of the year.
Starting from today it doesn’t matter if it’s a Skype-to-Skype call or a call to landline or mobile phone – it’s free as long as you’re calling from within the US or Canada to US or Canadian phone number.
Neat-O!
I do wonder how SkypeOut purchasers are taking this news, though.