Show Your OS Some Love: Contest Winners

We don't know what our real winners look like, so we're taking a guess. You guys have great hair! Image courtesy of The Oregon Trail Red Cross. Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Thank you to everyone who entered our contest! We've picked the winners of the copy of Office 2010 and the two Cinch licenses.

Office 2010: The winner is commenter Crystal, who says that:

"If I had Office 2010, I would use it design newsletters for the literacy non-profit I work at. Our newsletter reaches the underserved Native American and low-income middle and high school students we mentor (we read books along with them and discuss them through online forums and school site visits to inspire a lifelong love of reading), the educators we support, and the donors who support us."

Cinch: The winners are commenter ZenStealth, who says that:

"My favorite Mac OSX feature is both Expose & Spaces (renamed Mission Control in OSX 10.7). I have a lot of open windows on at all times, and by using Spaces to create virtual desktops, I can easily organize all my windows into convenient categories (which is really awesome to me, because I have mild OCD)....I am currently running the trial version of Cinch right now, and unfortunately I can't buy it (even for $7) because I am a poor high school student. I would love to win one of the two licenses, because having auto-sizing windows is one of the things I miss using when I switched PC to the Mac."

and commenter Cary, who says that:

"I'm also a fan of iCal. As a CA (same thing as an RA), I can check class times, test/quiz dates, meetings, programs, and so much more... And when you're OCD like I am, the color-coding is great to use."

If you're one of the winners, please get in touch with us at emily@hackcollege.com. Thank you to everyone who entered! You are a creative, talented bunch.

HackCollege Contest: Show Your OS Some Love

And by "kittens" we mean "software." Image courtesy of Flickr user Simon Lieschke. Licensed under CC 2.0 BY-NC.First off, election day is tomorrow. If you haven't voted yet, do so! (You can even check in on Foursquare.)

In addition, we're having a contest. A few weeks ago when Emily went to the Microsoft Open House, they kindly gave HackCollege a copy of Office Professional Academic 2010 for Windows 7. And Cinch, the Mac-only window locking program we covered a little while ago, has given us two free licenses to give to readers. So, if you want to compete for some swag, here's what to do:

For Cinch: Tell us your favorite Mac OSX feature. You can get as creative as you want in showing it to us--make a video, take a photo, do an interpretive dance, or just leave us a comment. Either comment on this post or send us a tweet tagged with #GimmeCinch.

For Office 2010: Tell us what cool projects you're planning on coming up with using Office. Do you publish a newsletter with Publisher about your college club? Are you writing a paper on why college costs so much? Making a budget spreadsheet to show your eventual world domination? Tell us what you're working on. Just like with the Cinch contest, you can be as creative as you want with how you present it. Either comment on this post or send us a tweet tagged with #HackOffice.

Bonus New York Contest: As part of the Microsoft Open House, we were given a tour ticket to one of those sightseeing buses. If you live in NYC or will be visiting sometime soon and want the tickets, send a note to emily@hackcollege.com. The first person who asks can have it. (EDIT: The tickets have been won! Thank you to everyone who emailed about them.)

The first two contests will be open until next Monday, when the judging will take place. Good luck!

Twitter Contest: Win the Lenovo A63

Okay, remember this? Well, it's finally time for us at HackCollege to give away the behemoth Lenovo A63. We are having a Twitter contest. That means you need to Reply to this tweet on our profile with the hashtag #lenovoa63 and a suggestion as to why we should pick you as the winner. Examples include but are not limited to, a picture of your current computer situation, why you would need the computer and how you would use it. Most importantly we want you to be creative. 

The dates for this contest are as follows: it starts on Saturday June 26th and ends Wednesday June 30th. If you are seeing this after the dates in the previous sentence, don't worry. Some of our friends are giving A63s away, just like us! Here they are:

Gear Live: June 27th - July 1st
Bright Side of News: June 28th - July 2nd
ActiveWin: June 29th - July 3rd
Daddy Forever: July 1st - July 5th
Geek News Central: July 2nd - July 6th
ClintonFitch.com: July 3rd - July 7th
Absolutely Windows: July 5th - July 9th
PlanetAMD64: July 6th - July 10th
Women Home Business: July 7th - July 11th
MediaBlab.com: July 8th - July 12th
TwentiesLife: July 9th - July 13th

So have fun and get creative with this thing!

Blog the Olympics, Courtesy of Microsoft

This post is sponsored by Beer Tees Season Favorite:  Fun Halloween Costumes Popular Product:  Pabst Beer T Shirts Most Popular Category:  Beer T Shirts

Blog the Olympics. Courtesy of Microsoft.

Secret: if you start a blog, you will get bombarded by PR people. 99% of it falls into the "noise" category. Every once in a while, you'll get an email in your inbox of a company doing something cool or giving away something awesome.

Today an email landed in my email inbox saying the Microsoft will be sending a student blogger to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver for free. The Olympics. For free. Actually, they are basically paying you. They'll throw you an Acer laptop and Microsoft Office, so you can get your job done while you're out there. Talk about a February well-spent. 

While I may not be the best fit for the contest, I entered anyway. I encourage you to do the same. 

While we may harp on Microsoft plenty around here, I think the Redmond company is slowly starting to get it. Gone is the Microsoft that made me switch to a Mac. With Windows 7 coming out soon and Microsoft Office (online!) right around the corner, Microsoft will once again make me seriously consider my next computer purchase. Damn you, Microsoft, damn you. Why are you making me like you again?