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Shortly after landing at 5:40 am local time, two hours after the worst one hour of turbulence I’ve ever experienced, we were safely on the ground in search of an ATM. The money changer at the airport helpfully pointed Nate and I in the right direction. A few minutes later I stopped back at the money changers with 3 crisp 1000 TWD notes (approximately $100 US) and a request to break on of them. After a quick count of ten 100’s in a money sorting tray I stepped away from the counter only to be called back again. The money changer was trying to convince me I’d given him a 500 TWD note and that he’d given me too much money. A nice way to make $500 if you can pull it off. Unfortunately for him I wasn’t that jet-lagged, yet. Later in the morning I was extremely thankful when the cab driver graciously returned my phone after it fell from my pocket on the way to the hotel.
Three of the last for HP HDX Dragon contests are now live, so the chances to get an HP HDX Dragon are drawing to a close. Geekzone simply wants you to find the locations of their 3 pizza gatherings and post them in the forums - you do need to be a registered member of the Geekzone forums to enter. Full details here.
The Tablet PC and Mobile PC World contest gives you several chances to win in their giveaway. You simply register to be a member of the Mobile PC World forums and answer 3 questions for each day of their giveaway. You get an entry for each set of three questions. Full details are here, questions you need to answer are here.
Last up is the Gear Live giveaway. You need to participate in the Gear Live forums in order to win. Here’s a video showing you the package of stuff and more details on what you need to do.
I keep meaning to make a video demo of the PlecoDict Software I use to lookup Chinese characters on my phone. For anyone learning Hanzi, this is by far the best thing out there. I still haven’t gotten around to making a video demo, but here’s a pretty good feature walkthrough I found on YouTube. Taiwan is about to put my traditional character recognition to the test when I head to Computex, so I can’t imagine going without PlecoDict.
I’m in the process of filtering through all the results of the free software survey I conducted as part of my HP HDX Dragon Giveaway. The most disturbing results I’ve found so far - 8% of respondents don’t back up their data! At least some of them were honest enough to fill in the blank with something like ‘I should probably do this.’ At least they’re all aware they have no backup plan. The 1% of respondents who consider the Windows System Restore feature their backup plan are even more worrisome, because they think they have a backup plan. System Restore only helps you recover operating system components and return the Windows Registry to a previous state. If your drive crashes, your data goes down with the ship! There’s a reason Microsoft includes a separate backup utility in the Accessories > System Utilities folder; you need it. I like online solutions like Roxio BackOnTrack Online (not free) or the free 1GB storage at Club Backup better than installed software, but there are plenty of free solution that will get you backed up in addition to using System Restore. Early analysis of the survey data show that SnapBackup and the freeware version of SyncBack will come in near the top of the list.
More chances to get an HP HDX Dragon are available. First up, BleepingComputer. You can enter the BleepingComputer.com giveaway by signing up for their forums and reading the rules. I couldn’t see the rules without signing up and don’t want yet another login so you’re on your own for that one. Next we have hardwareGeeks call for a photo or video of your current workspace. When you post the photo to their contest page, you’re supposed to let them know how the HP HDX Dragon will benefit you. If you want to hack this contest, here’s my tip:
1) Dig out your old Pentium II computer from the basement or go snag a crusty computer from Craigslist.
2) Boot the computer and connect to Internet visiting hardwaregeeks.com.
3) Take photo of this pathetic setup then write about how the HP HDX Dragon will bring you current.
A variation on this hack would be to find a working TRS-80 or Commodore 64, connect to television (B&W is better than color for this), submit photo. Anyway, you get the idea - a weak system will standout amongst all the hardware tweakers who will be too proud not to show off their liquid-cooled, backlit beasts. GeekNewsCentral is the final contest I’ll announce today - Todd’s kicking things off with a read/listener/viewer survey (I just gave you a clue to one of the survey answers). 5 more chances to enter the GeekNewsCentral giveaway are coming, so check in every day to make sure you improve your shot at winning. And if you do take my advice and go with the “retro” setup for the hardwaregeeks.com giveaway, be sure to put a link in the comments here - I’d love to see it.
These two giveaways get my award for best looking graphics promoting 31 Days of the Dragon, which does nothing for your chances at winning. :)
The Green button wants to know what you want to see in the next version of The Green Button. Suggested feedback you’re free to borrow from me: tell them they need to reduce the number of clicks it takes to get the information you want on The Green Button. I love their stuff, but finding it can be a chore at times. I clicked their fancy button, then clicked contest details, then clicked contest rules to find out what I had to do to enter. Another click to enter, followed by starting a new thread in the forum. That’s too many clicks. You can start the clicking process at their great looking contest graphic or you can dramatically reduce the clicking and read the rules here.
I Started Something has the best looking contest page, all so you can enter your name and email address, which are the only two requirements for entry. You get a second entry if you happen to have Vista and you are willing to install the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program on your computer. Based on my own experiences with driver frustrations that still aren’t resolved in Vista (which is only partly Microsoft’s fault), installing the CEIP isn’t the solution - Microsoft knows what the problems are already, it’s getting hardware manufacturers up to speed in a sluggish Vista market that’s the problem. Rules of the contest are here.
As posted on the front page
">Oz Hull is the lucky recipient of the HP HDX Dragon giveaway from this site. If you’re names not Oz Hull, there are still other ways to get your hands on a Dragon.
The Lockergnome giveaway is officially underway. Chris has three simple requirements: Be present in the chris.pirillo.com chatroom at the time of the giveway, subscribe to his YouTube channel, and make a comment somewhere on chris.pirillo.com. Official details here.
PlanetX64 is also giving away an HP HDX Dragon. You’ll need to do some treasure hunting to enter their giveaway. It starts with a subscription to the PlanetX64 newsletter. Good luck!
I typically scan the headlines of ProBlogger about once a week to see what Darren is covering. I don’t read everything and infrequently find things that help me directly, but occasionally there’s a gem that’s worth passing along. Today there’s an interview with the founder of StrongLifts.com that everyone who dreams of blogging for a living should read. As I’ve said before, when I tell people I blog for a living, the usual comment (even from highly successful entrepreneurs) is something like, ‘you can make money doing that?’ Yes, you can make money blogging. In some cases you can make a ton of money blogging. But if you’re only focused on the money, you’ll never get there.
Mehdi, the founder of StrongLifts, hits on some key things in the interview about building a relationship with your audience. It may help that the blogs topic, strength training, requires a long term persistence to reach your desired goal, so Mehdi is already familiar with the idea of delayed gratification, but there’s good advice no matter what you blog about. So if he’s not focused on money, what is the focus?
Building experience, building a reputation and building a readership is more important in the long-term [than money].
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