You know there's something wrong with the market when it's news that someone managed to get a refund for a product they didn't want in the first place. Dave Mitchell of Sheffield, UK will go down in history as the first guy to get a refund from Dell--or any major PC vendor, for that matter--for the "Windows tax," i.e. the $100 or so almost every major PC manufacturers will make you pay even if you never intend to use or even activate the copy of Microsoft Windows the machine ships with. Of course, Dell isn't the worst offender when it comes to the Windows tax, and has for several years now allowed you to buy desktop machines without Windows, but laptops have been a different monster entirely--until now. The license agreement for the OEM version of Windows Mitchell received read, "If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA, you may not use or copy the software, and should promptly contact manufacturer for instructions on return of the unused product(s) for a refund in accordance with manufacturer's return policies," and historically most manufacturers have only accepted returns if the customer returned the PC as well. After sending a letter to Dell UK's offices on November 1, Mitchell received his refund today, which seems alamingly prompt to me. Mitchell was diligent in collect proof that he had not used the product, saying, "I booted the laptop, then photographed every step of the boot process up to and including clicking on the XP 'no I don't accept' button. I also scrolled through each page of the EULA, taking a photo of each page."

While Mitchell's success, the story of which is rather anticlimactic, isn't exactly earth-shattering, it may well embolden a whole generation of would-be Windows-returners. Maybe 10 years from now the "Windows tax" will be but a hazy memory.

[Via Slashdot, natch]

Update: Reader thewildman points out that it's been done before. Anybody got any other Dell return stories?

With USB drives getting larger in capacity but smaller in size every day, the space on which you can scrawl your "If found..." contact info is becoming more and more limited. The solution? Make your USB drive identify itself and ask to be sent home if someone finds it and plugs it in to their computer. The Daily Cup of Tech has a tutorial and a little program for making a box with your contact information (or anything else you might want to tell your USB drive's would-be finder) pop up when it's inserted into a computer. Unless you're a programmer, you'll want to scroll down to the bottom where you can download a pre-compiled version of the program. Of course, this will only work if a) the receiving computer runs Windows, and b) AutoPlay isn't disabled on it, but this is a pretty cool technique that just might get your precious USB drive returned to you the next time you misplace it.

[Via Street Tech]

We've seen a couple round-up reviews of tax software, and while features and ease-of-use matter, a question that shouldn't be neglected is: which will give me the biggest refund? AP's Ashley Heher pitted H&R Block's TaxCut, Intuit's TurboTax, and 2nd Story's TaxAct against eachother to find out. She found that while TaxCut and TurboTax had similar results $600 versus $588, TaxAct, somehow, came up with figure tiny by compare: $175. Of course YMMV with these things, but that $425 discrepancy is enough to give anyone pause.