Notes from the field: One letter sure can change a lot. Recall that old phrase DLL Hell? Well, Mr. Cringely (not to be confused with Mr. Crowley), is contemplating an escape from Dell Hell. Actually, “for the last couple of years it’s Dell itself that’s been trapped in the fiery inferno,” Cringe writes. It’s more than just those exploding laptops, too. The company lost its top PC maker throne, got blasted for ignoring customers, is struggling to avoid a NASDAQ delisting. “But there are signs the Dellies are making a comeback,” Cringe reports. “The results are tangible.” Green IT: In addition to the already-understood benefits, the “outsourced model can provide companies with a potentially greener way to do business, in part thanks to the magic of economies of scale,” Ted Samson writes in this Sustainable IT post. NaviSite is one such example; an official claims that the company is “adding value for our customers, both in terms of being environmentally friendly as well as from a business standpoint.” Think heating and cooling, increased energy efficiency via DC power and flywheels. Columnist’s corner: Wondering if anybody knows, or cares, what process shrink is, Tom Yager takes it on himself to divulge that information. “If Intel’s going to sell nanometers, I figure it’s my duty to explain what it means,” he writes in So long Silicon. I’ll cut to the chase: nanometers, he notes, are not a worthy metric. “Getting Hafnium to the x86 market six to eight months before everybody else, and giving us a first taste of the fruits of the post-silicon era, deserves notice.” The news beat: An IBM executive vice president says great potential resides in linking online worlds such as Second Life and Active Worlds and, as such, calls for a virtual planet, at the company’s PartnerWorld conference. Yahoo readies a Web version of Messenger, the IM service. Microsoft buys ScreenTonic for its technology that takes location-based ads to mobile devices. And AMD pre-empts Intel’s Santa Rosa launch with a new mobile computing chipset all its own, based on the M690. Technology Industry