Underground rocker Lou Reed, soprano Renee Fleming and folk singer Joan Baez performed to a crowd of about 500 gathered at 13th-century church in downtown Prague.

Baez performed “We Shall Overcome” in both Czech and English to massive applause by an audience that included former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was born in Prague. Fleming sang “Rusalka” by Antonin Dvorak and “Ave Maria” by Franz Schubert, and was then joined by Reed on his song “Perfect Day.”

Video messages from President Barack Obama, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were broadcast along with greetings from rock stars Mick Jagger and Bono during the nationally televised concert.

“Your spirit, your courage inspired the world,” Obama said, while Gorbachev praised the peaceful nature of the Velvet Revolution.

Earlier Saturday, Havel had harsh words for Russia’s current regime while engaging students in a political debate at the Charles University’s Faculty of Arts.

“The era of dictatorships and totalitarian systems has not ended at all. It may have ended in a traditional form as we know it from the 20th century, but new, far more sophisticated ways of controlling society are being born,” Havel was quoted by the CTK news agency as saying.

He said Russia had developed a special, sophisticated way of general manipulation, and while displaying the attributes of democracy, its practice was limited to a level that would not harm the current regime.

At the concert, Havel also called for international solidarity with the oppressed people around the world from North Korea to Venezuela.

Havel, now 73, was co-author of the Charter 77 human rights manifesto and spent several years in Communist prisons before becoming Czechoslovakia’s first president after the peaceful 1989 revolution toppled the Communist regime. Czechoslovakia split in 1993 to form the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which today refers to the 1989 events as the Gentle Revolution.

Havel, also a playwright and essayist, is known for mixing politics with the arts.

“Thank you for coming to remember the fall of the Iron Curtain,” he said at the end of Saturday’s concert.

The celebrations are expected to peak on Tuesday with music and rallies throughout the country. In Prague, students are expected to re-enact the protest march that led to clashes with the police triggering nationwide protests that ended 40 year of Communist rule.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Starting on Thursday, though, Best Buy will offer for that price a “PC Home Makeover” that includes three PCs–a laptop, desktop and Netbook–as well as a monitor and router. Even in-home Geek Squad set-up is included.

It’s one of those screaming deals, that Windows Vice President Tami Reller was referring to when she spoke with CNET News last week. The deal is set to be officially announced on Thursday, although details of the offer were noted on Best Buy’s Web site.

The package includes an HP Slimline desktop (model s5212y), an 18;.5-inch monitor, HP mini Netbook as well as a “media-savvy” laptop (model G60-535DX) along with a Netgear 802.11-G router and in-home setup of each of the components.

Microsoft’s price advantage vis-a-vis Apple is among the things the company is looking to highlight as it launches Windows 7 on Thursday.

Ahead of Windows 7 launch, Apple on Tuesday announced a fall lineup that includes refreshed Mac Mini, MacBook, and iMacs, but keeps Apple in largely its traditional price range.

PC makers meanwhile, are showing off Windows 7 models ranging from inexpensive Netbooks to high-end gaming models that can fetch several thousand dollars. The notebook category, in particular, is broadening with products that are both cheaper and less pricey than traditional notebooks and yet feature bigger screens than a Netbook.

Nearly every PC maker also has at least one touch-screen all-in-one, with many offering touch-screen laptops as well.

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Looks like Microsoft Word 2007 is actually doing a pretty decent job here publishing to blogs. It is still very limited but generally usable for quick posts.
Cheers, Julius

• Deals for home
• Deals for your business

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Sept. 2, 2009 – Today at VMworld 2009, Dell and VMware jointly announced an expansion of their existing partnership where Dell will bundle VMware View™ as an option on select server and client platforms.  This partnership establishes a “one-stop shop” for companies looking to take advantage of the benefits of virtualization that encompasses an end-to-end solution from the desktop to the data center as a foundation for cloud computing. The agreement pairs a world’s leading virtualization technology vendor with the world’s leading supplier of commercial desktops1, delivering the foundation for client hypervisor-based virtualization and flexible computing solutions to a wider range of businesses.

To extend the benefits of this agreement, Dell will also offer services to help customers with the initial scoping, design, implementation, ongoing support, and management of these solutions, including monitoring and reporting performance and capacity issues in real-time.  These services are designed to drive down costs and data security risks, and help customers accelerate their virtualization projects for faster time to value.

http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/dell-oem-vmworld09.html