The Insider: Horizon Air to repaint 4 planes with school colors

FLYING PENNANTS: Locally based carrier Horizon Air has four jets that need repainting and Chief Executive Jeff Pinneo has decided to have some fun with new designs. The planes will be painted with the school colors and logos of the four largest public universities in Oregon and Washington. The 70-seat Bombardier CRJ-700s will be painted to honor the University of Washington, Washington State University, Oregon State University and the University of Oregon.

WSU gets the first paint job -- in late December -- followed by Oregon, OSU and UW. That is the order in which each school OK'd the use of its trademarked logo.

The universities are not paying for the paint jobs, which should take 10 days each.

Seattle, Pullman and Eugene were among the first seven cities that Horizon served. Once put into service, the planes will travel all over the West Coast.

MICROSOFT'S POPULAR GIVEAWAY: What price privacy? About the cost of a copy of Windows, for a surprisingly large number of computer users.

A Microsoft initiative dubbed the Windows Feedback Program got lots of attention online last week by offering consumers a free copy of Windows Vista, Office 2007, or another piece of software from the company.

The catch: With PC users' consent, the initiative gets its "feedback" through a program that collects performance data, sees which programs a person uses, counts the number of files in specific folders, and gathers a range of additional information about how the PC is used.

Microsoft says it uses the data to improve its products.

All that data collection might sound creepy, but apparently it was OK with a large number of PC users. After some online publicity last week, the company said it exhausted the supply of software it had set aside to give away.

A company representative said in an e-mail that, while the free copies of Windows and Office are no longer available, people can still sign up to participate and get the monitoring program installed on their computers if they want.

Um, yeah, we'll get right on that.

DEALS ARE HERE THIS YEAR: The Washington State Office of Tourism has kicked off a holiday season campaign to take advantage of the Canadian dollar's parity with the U.S. dollar.

The state is eager to have deal-seekers flooding in, rather than out, for the first time in a generation.

"After years of graciously hosting Washington visitors, Canadians can affordably enjoy all the state has to offer through Boxing Day and beyond," said a release issued from Olympia.

Tourism officials are urging our neighbors to the north to come, shop, dine and visit attractions.

The campaign slogan?

"Go Loonie."