The industrial conglomerate, whose products range from health-care supplies to abrasives and Post-it notes, said it will offer $10.50 a share for Cogent Inc., Pasadena, Calif., whose board recommended that shareholders accept the bid.

3M, which is based in St. Paul, Minn., said the net cost of the proposed acquisition would be around $430 million because Cogent holds about $18 million of cash and $496 million of marketable securities, including U.S. government, corporate and municipal bonds.

“Companies are flush with cash,” said Robert Profusek, global head of the mergers and acquisitions practice at law firm Jones Day, which wasn’t involved in the deal. “You’ve got to put it to use.”

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BoomTown is always up at 5:30 am PT, but now I will apparently be joined by twitch-fingered Apple fanboys waiting for the iPad pre-order rush to begin this morning.

Currently, the Apple Store online has this note of heady anticipation (A Post-It? Katie, surely you could do better!):

Getting the actual magic tablet into your grubby mitts will have to wait three more weeks until April 3, when the Wi-Fi-only version comes out, followed soon by the 3G iPad.

Meaning it will be a month of me doing videos of overstimulated dudes in line at Apple (AAPL) stores.

Until then, here are a couple of my videos from the iPhone debut in late June 2007 in Palo Alto and San Francisco:

And there it was in Yahoo’s second-quarter earnings call yesterday, when–as the first question–an analyst asked Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz what she thought about Bing, the new and innovative search offering from Microsoft.

“I think actually Bing is a good product,” said Bartz. “I think they’ve done a good job. I think Microsoft should be given kudos for Bing.”

It was a politic thing to say, to be sure, especially with Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) still zeroing in on a search and online advertising deal, as has been previously reported by BoomTown.

Sources I have spoken to over the past two days say the deal is still on good footing and could be struck very soon, even as early as tomorrow, although it is still not a certainty–especially given the bumpy history between Yahoo and Microsoft.

Thus, it behooves Bartz not to let loose with one of her patented zingers–and you just know she has several at the ready, in case the deal goes south–right now when the pair of companies that I have described as the Internet’s version of the Lindsay Lohan-Samantha Ronson drama might finally agree to join together in a partnership.

That’s why Bartz did not say, “I personally think we would be better off if we never heard the word ‘Microsoft,’” as she did at an investor conference in June, when asked about a possible search and online advertising deal.

And why she did not say, as she did on Fox Business Network around the same time, about the early kudos for Bing: “One day is one day…it does not a trend make.”

And why Bartz did not say, as she scribbled on a jokey-but-pokey Post-It note to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (see photo) that she left in the Green Room of the seventh D: All Things Digital conference:

“Steve,
forget it
won’t help
ha
Carol”

Nope, now is the time for some judicious happy talk from Bartz, who appears to have a lot more self-control than I have ever given her credit for.

She’ll need it, for sure, if she does actually pull off a deal with Microsoft–because that is when the real fireworks will begin between the Silicon Valley Internet giant and the Redmond, Wash., tech behemoth.

Well, I can dream, can’t I?

Or, as the perfect song, “Happy Talk,” from the classic musical, “South Pacific,” goes: “You got to have a dream/If you don’t have a dream/How you gonna have a dream come true?”

And, for those who have missed it (you cretins!), here it is in all its glory, in a video from the lovely movie version:

If a search and advertising partnership between Yahoo and Microsoft is ever struck, perhaps a little CEO-to-CEO note-passing should get some credit.

Yesterday, we wrote about the purple Post-It that Bartz passed to Ballmer via the makeup person in the D: All Things Digital Green Room.

Both Bartz and Ballmer were interviewed onstage at D7 this past week, and were asked about the talks, which ended yesterday in Carlsbad, Calif.

BoomTown also reported that Ballmer and Bartz, as well as key deal execs at both Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT), had met in person once again about such a partnership at the conference.

Onstage, Ballmer dodged the question about meeting, joking about the sticky note Bartz had left for him.

That Post-It was stuck in a D7 program book that is kept by Dawn Griffith, our most excellent makeup person for all seven of the conferences.

Over the years, Griffith has asked all D7 speakers to sign programs next to their bios and Wall Street Journal-style dot drawings.

This year, Bartz and Ballmer shared a page in the book.

Bartz spoke on Wednesday morning and put the note below Ballmer’s picture, knowing he’d sign the program when getting his makeup done for his Thursday morning appearance.

And, not surprisingly for Bartz, it was a tough-love poem–although, thankfully, there is no cursing.

Here’s the image of the note (click on it once to make it larger), which reads:

“Steve,
Forget it
Won’t help
Ha
Carol”

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (pictured here) had yet another one-on-one meeting yesterday evening at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., said several sources, in ongoing discussions about a search and advertising partnership.

In addition, top deal execs from both Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) continued their talks, including Yahoo U.S. head Hilary Schneider and top Microsoft digital exec Yusuf Mehdi.

BoomTown originally broke the news recently that the pair had met in person several months ago to jump-start talks that had waned under Yahoo’s previous management.

Both Bartz and Ballmer were interviewed onstage at D7, and were asked about the talks.

Ballmer dodged the question about meeting, joking about a Post-It note Bartz had left him in the D7 Green Room.

Bartz acknowledged that they had been talking, but was not specific.