A dedicated team of police officers is currently camped at 14,000 feet on Denali, also known as Mt. McKinley in Alaska. They are climbing the mountain in difficult weather on a memorial expedition, undertaken to remember the lives and sacrifice of two police officers who were shot and killed in the line of duty last year while trying to apprehend a shooting suspect in Phoenix.

You can use the power of the Internet to track the progress of the team as they attempt to carry a memorial plaque to the summit of Denali at 20,320 feet.

The PODCAST feed with enclosures is available here. They are audioblogging the climb with regular calls using a satellite phone whenever terrain and weather conditions allow. Their audioblogged updates are automatically posted to the climber's weblog on the Cops on Top web site. The team hopes to summit the highest mountain in North America on or around June 8th.

The team is made up of members of Cops on Top, a non-profit organization of peace officers who climb the worlds highest peaks to remember fallen officers, to ensure they are never forgotten. The expeditions are made to support the families and friends of the fallen officers, as well. I have the privilege of serving on the board and maintaining the web site for the organization.

For more information and the latest expedition updates, visit http://www.copsontop.com/

Yes, sometimes the "switch" model runs the other way. Not quite (yet) in this case, buy hey, let's see what happens. Eric Rice, podcaster extraordinaire and self-described Mac guy, says he's using OneNote with a little Wacom tablet digitizer and a Windows notebook for now, but you can tell he's thinking:

"And as a result of all this OneNote mayhem, I'm now paying attention to people like Chris_Pratley, as well as the Tablet PC sites.

"This is all very weird for me. Updates as time passes."

Well Eric, you're paying attention to the right person, and as a Tablet PC guy and OneNote addict for a couple of years now, I can tell you the tools are great - one just has to try them to find out.

My friend Chris rode a Segway for the first time this weekend. I still have not ridden one myself, so it's interesting to see what someone like Uber-Geek Chris can do one one first time out.

Rumor is that there is a handle-less one in the works, and the off-road models might be interesting to me, since I live in the sticks. Heck, if you're an engineer type, you can even build a generic one, if you like.

Go Chris, go.

(follow link to video)

Tons of high-definition Windows Media video files with some pretty amazing footage from a whole slew of upcoming XBOX 360 games are available for download over at Microsoft.

This is going to be a great console - the possibilities are fun to think of... Hook it up with Longhorn's version of Media Center and you have a super-cool HD Media Center extender. Great games, too of course.

Check out the videos. Amazing. Just make sure you have a big fat pipe for downloading or be prepared to hurry up and wait. These files are 720p hi-def format, so they're pretty darned big, but super cool looking.

I'm a little slow in finding this, and it's certainly an example of my being easily-amused... But I just downloaded the Royale Windows theme, which was originally available standard on XP Media Center Edition. The download lets you use it on the other versions of XP, and I've installed it on my XP Tablet Edition machine.

Microsoft New Zealand has made it available to download, along with the New Zealand version of the Bliss desktop image (can you say "sheep?") and a cool road-sign desktop picture, too.

The pic at right is my desktop with the Royale theme and a few Konfabulator widgets - it makes for a nice background image. Click the pic for larger size.

Donnie's ironic comment made me smile:

"God, I am sick of all these productivity and GTD hacks - enough is enough. How many more tools do I need to write an email or mow the lawn! I spend more time trying/testing out all these new apps than I do on actually getting my stuff done. Talk about a paradox! Where’s Gladwell when we need him?"

I can relate. I have to test these productivity things out quite a bit. Most of them end up getting uninstalled, although a few have stuck. Many of them take up quite a bit of time, in part because they tend to hose my computer. Nothing like a poorly-written productivity application to slow a computer to a crawl. Heh. Irony.

Okay, enough about computers. Back to mowing my three acres of lawn...