So because the days are cold you like to be able create power for a fridge..
Ehm well depending on where you live, you might be able to actualy use that outside cold, and dont use a fridge.
Simply store it inside a covered deep hole or something like that.
Thats how it was done in the past, then perhaps the remaining energy demand of low power devices
You could maybe solve with solar power, or a dual windpower solution.. since labtops have a batery, they dont require continous power (only your router does.), low power (9V) could also be used for Leds if you get the voltage down a bit more. ... there are also other fridge solution runing on 12V or so, like in camping fridges, that could lower the wattage you need.

Well i work nearby an ISP and they have a few of them. The problem is their expensive, while their energy storage is quickly drained or lets say limited. In case of the ISP, they use them just to prevent a powerdip if the grid goes down, so they have time to start diesel engines for power generation. Anyway take a look at this plant below it is a flywheel plant. http://www.beaconpower.com/products/EnergyStorageSystems/SmartEnergyMatrix.htm

Altough that plant can hanlde peak power fluctuations, it can not handle long perios delivery of energy. The earlier peak powerplant can handle 20 ~40 megawatt.. while a tipical big windmill allready delivers about 2 to 10 megawatt.

.. maybe dough its possible to store the energy inside compressed air ..

So its confirmed now the marketing guys from vista has lost their minds. No customer will accept this, luckely by the time it will be ready linux will be grown up. I think later or soon, the monopoly breaks downs the tree is starting to fall. Any empire ends, and i think this could be just the reason fir it.

Your lack of knowledge about windows doesnt make windows bad
For example he could use restore points.
He could set folder permission, to protect against destruction.
Or just some simple backup program like Paragon, and a boot CD.
He might also lock down XP, there are excellent reads about how to do that.
YOu might get a start here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457006.aspx
So you could write your own policies, and only allow for certain programs to execute.
Windows is a verry open aplication environment, so how about helping your parents remotely
I help my parents sometimes using http://www.logmein.com/ when i cannot be there.

Oh and yes my parents use vista, so there is verry little change they will get mallware installed.

Altough i believe microsoft could still improve their OS.
It is still a best choice for older people, due too its interface standards.

Well solar power in space is usauly for small spaceships.
One of the biggest spaceships now is the ISS (and its allready trouble to keep it up running)
It prodcuces electric energy using its many solar arrys
It can produce about 32.8 kW of DC power (see wikipedia)
Altough thats a lot for solarenergy, its next to nothing
Compared to the energy required to get it up there.

What if you would use all that energy and craftmanship to build windmills..
Todays big windmills (huge ones) can generate up to 6MW of power. (= 6000 kW)

Mow we're talking watts.. but still a normal powerplant generates about 500 to 1.300MW
So you could remove a small one with about 100 windmills, that sounds perhaps as to much, but actualy there are more airplaines and cars builded each year. So perhaps create windmills for a while instead of cars.. (hmm not such a bad idea)

But with some clever engineering you could produce somehthing that doesnt use wind but seacurrent flow. since water is heavier, it is much more powerfull for propelling a generator.

I bought a REAL PSU, one with no fan at all inside.
It has cooling ribons and doesnt make any sound.
okay it had cost me some bucks.. but in return i got a lot more silent PC

Its from silverstone, it even has logic inside to protect angainst short circuits.
And that actualy helped a few times.

ESpecialy random writes should be faster, since there are no mechanical parts that has to be moved to a random disc location. For the overal speed it depends lots of what kind of memory is used. I was about buying one for my system disk, but it's price turned me to sata again, i guees we have to wait a year before it will drop in price.

price drop will come, since chip making industry is going ahaed dark economics, and this is about the only new tech they came up with which has a large market segment.. so maybe next year i buy one.

Oh and they are shock proof and can better deal with heat, and absorb less elecetric energy..

I realy dont understand the buzz about linux on a ARM as if it is something new only linux could do.
If you want to close your eyes okay, ok slashdot is i gues funded by SUN, it would explain a lot about the topics here.
But in a real world without marketing of symbian.. that world is filled with PocketPC devices.
While they dont sell as much as mobiles... the reason their just good, people dont change them each year.
And thats perhaps the negative point of windows pocketpc, it just works too well to be a succes for selling new devices.
I'm sure you dont believe me, but wait till you see integration with outlook / excel /word etc etc.
Actual a friend of me is running his whole planning for his company on a small pocketPC...

There is a moment you cant pull the power of a machine on which you depend, at that moment your enslaved by the machine.

Well the una bombers manifest explains it too.

There is a moment you cant pull the power of a machine on which you depend, at that moment your enslaved by the machine.