RBC Royal Bank is offering a free ASUS Eee PC when you switch to their checking account service. That's right, you get an actual computer after completing the move (and dealing with a lot of red tape). Sure, it's only the 7-inch, 2GB version, but it still runs Xandros way better than this solar calculator we got from our bank.

Microsoft reported a drop of 11% in its earnings for its fiscal third quarter of 2008, which ended for Microsoft on March 31, 2008. This is interesting for us at the DTP not because we hate Microsoft, because we don't, but because the growth of Free Open Source Software is so hard to measure directly. Like Dark Matter, or planets from distant solar systems, Free Open Source Software is best measured by the effect it has on things around it, since Free Open Source Software is typically sold as a service, not as a shrink-wrapped software package. Of course, not all of that 11% drop in Microsoft's earnings is attributable to the growth of Free Open Source Software. A weak US economy and sluggish Vista sales are also partially to blame. But since Microsoft itself has long listed Free Open Source Software as one of the biggest threats to its profitability in its annual mandatory 10k business report to the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), ya gotta think that a decline in Microsoft earnings probably means that the penguin is on the move!