On Saturday, July 26, we're excited to team up once again with Goodwill to raise awareness for responsible computer recycling and keeping harmful electronic waste out of the environment and communities-especially a community we call home.

For the second time since we opened our Winston-Salem, N.C. (WS1) site, we're partnering with Goodwill of Northwest North Carolina and the City of Winston-Salem for Community Green Day, a free computer recycling event through the Dell/Goodwill Reconnect program.  Residents of the Piedmont Triad are invited to bring their old computer and electronic equipment to the event to be donated or responsibly recycled.

If you're wondering how these computers are "responsibly recycled,"here's an interesting fact: Approximately 98% of a computer can be reused or recycled back into raw materials - glass into glass, metals into metals, plastics into plastics.  Combine that percentage with the more than 2,500 tons of unwanted computer equipment at recycling events that have been kept from landfills in the past two years; it's a win-win in the goal to be environmentally responsible member of the community.

More details for the event can be found here.  If you're in the Piedmont Triad area, we look forward to seeing you there. 

If you think your city needs a recycling event, let us know here. As many Direct2Dell readers know, Dell offers consumers around the globe free and convenient recycling for used computers every day and through the Reconnect alliance with Goodwill, consumers in many communities, including 49 of 100 counties in North Carolina, can take advantage of free recycling by dropping of used computers at Goodwill intake centers. Dell occasionally sponsors recycling events like this coming Saturday's to help raise consumer awareness of the importance of responsibly recycling used computers.

I'm pretty pumped to tune into the next Twebinar that happens today on July 22 at 1pm Central Time. It's the second installment of a three-part series that's happening over the summer. The topic of discussion in Part 2 is Who Really Owns Your Brand? I know our social media tour-de-force Richard Binhammer (@RichardatDell) will be participating via webcam and Twitter as it unfolds.

So, what the heck is a Twebinar? It's an idea hatched by Radian 6's David Alston (@davidalston) and Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan).  Think of a mashup between a webinar and Twitter. The theme of the first one was Game Changing Moves. Chris served as the host via webcam and pre-recorded video interviews with social media leaders who discussed examples of companies are using social media to connect with their customers. That's the webinar piece.. adding Twitter to the mix is where things get interesting.

Why do I say that? Because Twitter allows all the participants to talk to each other in real time as we're watching the video. It was like watching a TV show with 1,500 buddies in the same room. To track conversations, I used a browser with two tabs open: one with the Twebinar window and a second with (now Twitter-owned) Summize.com where I searched for @twebinars and #tweb. That made it easy to keep up with a rapid flow of conversation that happened during the Twebinar itself. Clicking on the image below will take you to that same search. It will also allow you to track the conversation from today's Twebinar. Update: Please use #tweb2 to track today's conversations.

I'm excited about the Twebinar concept because of the possibilities it brings to the table. I'll probably blog about some of those ideas later. If you're interested in tuning in for today's Twebinar, here's the link to register. Or for more details on how to get ready for this one visit www.twebinar.com.

The image below is a snippet from the Twebinar website that summarizes how it all works. You can click the image to register. Hope to see you there.

Recently, we released Dell's latest corporate responsibility report, covering our fiscal year 2008 activities.  A significant amount of work from Dell team members around the globe has produced one of our most comprehensive reports to date—I hope you will take time to read about some of our latest results.  For a quick review, a new executive summary section, as well as letters from Michael Dell and Gil Casellas, our vice president of corporate responsibility, provides an overview of material covered in the report.

We place a significant emphasis on being a responsible company; quite simply we believe we will be most successful in meeting our business objectives when we do so with our obligations to employees, communities and the environment in mind.  Critical to us meeting our responsibility goals is reporting on our progress in a transparent way.
 
Enhancements to this year's report include:

• We included a new, easy-to-read table at the beginning of the report summarizes our key environmental, supplier and community metrics;
• We had our greenhouse gas (GHG) emission numbers externally validated, providing further accountability as we strive to make Dell a low-carbon leader.  We also reported the GHG emission impacts of our corporate air travel, the next step in having a complete accounting of Dell's climate impacts.  Our comprehensive climate policy and progress are included in the Environmental Responsibility section of the report;
• An Emerging Issues sub-section has been added to discuss issues that are either new to Dell or that we are in the infancy of addressing.  This year, we covered HIV/AIDS, Global Citizenship work with suppliers, the technology surrounding nanomaterials, challenges with mining/extractives and the impacts of the retail channel on our climate footprint; and
• We also added a new Employee section which covers:  Listening to Employees, Ethics Tools for Employees, Diversity and Inclusion, Global Talent Management, Global Health and Wellness (including benefits information) and Employee Engagement in Sustainability.  We are proud of the importance our employees place on our company's environmental and sustainability efforts and this section shows just a few of those efforts.

Seventeen stakeholder organizations provided perspective on Dell's corporate responsibility efforts and those perspectives are included in the report. Their inclusion underscores our commitment both to transparency and to partnership with our stakeholders to help us continually improve our performance.

I invite your review of the report as well as your comments, ideas and challenges as we continue to move Dell forward in our journey of sustainability and responsibility.

Earlier this year, sites like The Consumerist and Gizmodo showed us that we still have a lot of work to do to reduce packaging. Regardless of steps we take to protect the environment, as an industry our work is far from over.

But when the printer company from Palo Alto packs 32 pages of A4 paper in 17 boxes, it deserves a conversation. How did it happen and why?

You may recall that when we had an issue with one of our suppliers, we sent a team to Dallas the next day to sort it out. We also put in place specific steps to address excessive packaging head on. As a result of great customer ideas and feedback, we're planning to reduce packaging by 10 million pounds over the next year. It underscores the value of listening. And green IT is also something lots of folks at Dell take seriously. That's an area where lots of companies can do more.

It's disappointing that HP has yet to respond. We can all learn a lot by listening to customers and uncovering ways we can improve the planet.

So, let's get to the bottom of it. Send us your pictures of HP's excessive packaging and we'll share them with their head of corporate sustainability.  You can post them here or e-mail them to regeneration@dell.com.   And if you have ways that we can improve, let us know. Let's have a dialogue about why this happened and how we can all work together to improve packaging.

(BTW, today's incident reminded us of a comparison we did earlier this year between our M-Series blade server and HP's C-3000 "Shorty"...see below for a brief video showing the differences).

After months of testing and development we are ready to release Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) on select Dell consumer systems. For consumers in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, United Kingdom and many Latin American countries (like Mexico and Colombia) Ubuntu 8.04 will be offered on the XPS M1330N and Inspiron 1525N notebooks and the Inspiron 530N  Click on any of the country links above or go to www.dell.com/ubuntu to place your order. :)

In early August, we will also add the XPS M1530n and Studio 15n to the line-up. This is just in time for LinuxWorld where we will participate in a number of the conference sessions. That will be your chance to hear directly about what’s been accomplished over the last year and where we see it going in 2009.

In her post, Anne Camden mentions some of the new features the Ubuntu 8.04 brings. Beyond that, we took steps to make our Linux images more accessible to a global audience by including the ability to select your language during the first boot process. While this does not mean we’re shipping in every country (yet) it’s a step in the right direction. Stay tuned for a technical details post from John Hull will provide a good overview of the work we did on the new release. Similar post from him on Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 releases have proved to be pretty popular with the Linux community.

The ReGeneration Team is joining forces with Grist.org to report on the “green” conversation at this week’s Netroots Nation. We’ll be roving the halls and streets of downtown Austin asking attendees their impressions of the event and whether Netroots bloggers and candidates running for office are paying enough attention to the environment. If you are planning to be in Austin, drop by the Convention Center and share your thoughts and insights.

Dispatches from this event will be frequent, so stay tuned to ReGeneration.org as well as the environmental section of this blog for updates and reports. For my own part, I will be joining the conversation via Twitter. If you're a Tweeter, you can follow my updates via TDatReGeneration. If what transpired at SXSW this year is any indication, Twitter will play a big role, perhaps even shaping the event itself.

We’ll also be igniting the “green” conversation at a Grist/ReGeneration party this Saturday from 5-8:30pm at the Cedar Door. The first 150 people get a drink on us, and everyone qualifies for the door prize: a green Dell Inspiron 1525.

If you can't make it, you can still join the conversation by commenting on our blog posts or sending us a message via Twitter. Either way, we're looking forward to hearing from you.

We were honored to be recognized today by IDC as one of the first companies to receive their Green Recycling and Asset Disposal for the Enterprise, or G.R.A.D.E. certifications.  IDC’s new report, the 2008 Assessment of U.S. IT Asset Disposal Service Providers, Doc #213383 was released today and you can read the Dell news release here.

IDC developed this new certification in response to demand from its end-user customers about responsible ways to retire PCs and other IT hardware. The G.R.A.D.E. certification process is based on 34 IT Asset Disposal (ITAD)-related functions and tasks and uses a multi-dimensional weighting system that incorporates the broad offerings of remote applications, onsite services, logistics, in-plant processing, and post treatment. The certification is currently focused on the U.S. market. 

Dell’s asset recovery services are helping our enterprise customers responsibly retire used IT equipment and simplify the management of their enterprise by protecting against data and environmental liability and minimizing the cost of disposal.  Services we offer include value recovery, robust reporting, reverse logistics and responsible recycling.

Our continued commitment to making recycling convenient, easy and responsible for customers is not only evident through this certification, but also through our assistance to small businesses for their product recovery needs,  free and convenient product recycling for consumers and setting responsible recycling standards.

Dell’s product recycling efforts are a cornerstone of efforts to be the greenest technology company on the planet.  For more information, visit www.dell.com/earth. To join with the company and thousands of others in lending a voice and saving the planet, visit www.regeneration.org.

Since my post about multi-touch coming to Latitude XT customers via a software update. Several sites like GottaBeMobile, jkOnTheRun and Gizmodo mentioned it, and Joanna Stern from Laptop Magazine even published a pretty solid overview and video demo of the new functionality.

Now let me get to it... the download is now available for Latitude XT customers at the following links:

• Vista 32 Bit
• Vista 64 Bit
• Windows XP Tablet

If you'd rather get there on your own from the Latitude XT Drivers & Downloads page, the update is called N-Trig - Application in under the Input Device Drivers section. All versions have a date of 7/15, and both Vista versions are 14MB and the XP version is 15MB.

Here's a video where Hans Eilers from the Latitude XT team walks customers through installing and calibrating the update:

Since we introduced the award-winning Latitude XT tablet, capacitive touch capability is one thing that set it apart from the competition. Several weeks ago at the Wall Street Journal's D6: All Things Digital Conference, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer highlighted upcoming multi-touch capability that Windows 7 will bring. Chris Flores' post and video kicked off a flurry of conversations in Techmeme, and we were pumped that they used a Latitude XT was one of the machines Microsoft used show off multi-touch in Windows 7.

But, Latitude XT customers don't have to wait for Windows 7 to use multi-touch. Tomorrow we will introduce a software update globally via support.dell.com for the Dell tablet that will bring multi-touch to both Windows XP and Vista. With this update, customers can use the functionality in several standard apps like Google Earth, Outlook and Microsoft Office, web browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, and XP's Windows Picture viewer and the Vista's Windows Photo Gallery. Take a look at this video from Hans Eilers and Roy Stedman from the Office of the CTO for a demo of how this works.

I'll add the link to the software update here in this post when it's ready.

Update, July 16: I forgot to update this post with the links. If you'd like a bit more detail on how the install process works, take a look at this post from yesterday.

• Vista 32 Bit
• Vista 64 Bit
• Windows XP Tablet

You may recall that in April, Lionel blogged about our intent to develop premium services and services in retail. Well, today we have a little more information to share—specifically a concept Wal-Mart will begin testing in select stores called Solution Station by Dell.

These services are designed to make it easier and more affordable for people to set up and use digital lifestyle technology. Beginning this month, Wal-Mart will be testing Solution Station by Dell services in about a dozen Dallas-area Wal-Mart stores.

These services will be available on Dell and other branded systems and include things like home television installation, PC set-up, wireless network set-up, computer upgrades, services designed to protect computers and in-home training. Wal-Mart customers in the test locations can also sign up for basic computer support and repair for their laptops and desktops.

We'll keep you posted as we explore different ways to support our retail partners in the marketplace.