And the HP Magic Giveaway winner is…

By Dec. 23, 2008, 9:12am PT 28 Comments

hpn80175_blog_300x250_v4_21What a thrilling competition the HP Magic Giveaway has been and we’ve seen over 520 entries for a chance to win this fabulous prize package:

  • HP TouchSmart IQ816 PC
  • HP HDX 18 series Premium Notebook PC
  • HP Pavilion dv4 series Entertainment Notebook PC (with Windows Live)
  • HP Mini 1000 (with XP)
  • HP MediaSmart Connect
  • HP Photosmart C6380 Wireless AIO (printer)
  • HP 564 Photo Value Pak
  • Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007 (Student-Teacher Edition) – 1 DVD with 3 licenses
  • Microsoft Windows Live
  • Corel VideoStudio X
  • Kung Fu Panda (2 widescreen DVDs; 1 widescreen Blu-Ray)

We made it easy to enter with the only requirement being that each contestant would share their best mobile tech tip that provides them magic.  The resultant entries are absolutely chock full of great mobile tech tips and will be saved for the ages to provide good help for all.

There were so many entries that it took us a long time to go through them all, and that we did.  Without further ado the winner of the jkOnTheRun HP Magic Giveaway contest is:

cr0ft (that is c, r, zero, f, t)

cr0ft has 24 hours to send Kevin or I an email (just click our cartoon head on the right) with his/her full name and shipping information for all the loot.  If we do not hear from cr0ft in that time we will announce the runner-up to get all the gear so if you know cr0ft ping them and tell them to get in touch with us.  Congratulations to cr0ft for sharing good advice for everyone!  Here is the winning entry:

Bookmark syncing.

I do that by using the Opera browser (in fact, “use Opera” is a tip itself, but I digress…)

There are (inferior… ;) ) options for Firefox too, like Foxmarks. Bookmarks are invaluable and well sorted ones really allow you to find sites you need both on the go and when stationary, and having them synched and up to date wherever you go is one less worry.

My work laptop, workstation and my home desktop are constantly in sync this way, and with Opera you can even sync the highly useful built-in Opera Notes – and the data goes to the MyOpera servers, where Opera has (to say the least) a vested interest in keeping it safe. It had quite an impact on my browsing habits. Foxmarks and whatever other variants are out there for Firefox probably do a decent job too.

In the unlikely event I win, I definitely intend to share this package around. I have a good friend fighting cancer and facing nasty chemo who will need in-bed entertainment and a way to keep in touch with others via Skype etc to keep her fighting spirit up, so the DV4 laptop would go there. The touchsmart would go to her family/kid for schoolwork and fun along with the printer and all the software. I’d hang on to the HDX and mini laptop myself as I currently just have a desktop at home and a WinMob phone – I could use some laptops to fill the gap.

Good luck to all entrants, Merry Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) and hope you all have a great new year!

Great advice and cr0ft is going to share the wealth too in this time of giving.  Congratulations to cr0ft and thanks to all of those who entered.  We wish everyone could be a winner but thanks for playing anyway.

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