Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

OK, here we go with contest #5! If you haven't already read up on why I'm giving these hard drives away, please check out the first contest giveaway.

In honour of the particular hard drive I'm giving away - a slightly older 300 GB parallel ATA drive - to enter this contest post a message telling me what the first hard drive you remember buying is, and how much it cost you. If you got it as part of a computer, post the specs if you can remember them. Let's take a trip down tech-memory lane...

I'll select the winner at random. Once you win one of the contests, you're out of the running for the next contests in this series. Each winner will be contacted via private forum message and they'll have 72 hours to respond to claim their prize - so be sure email notifications are turned on for your forum account. The last contest I ran someone missed out on winning a prize because they didn't reply to my message for two weeks!

The drive I'm giving away in this fifth contest is a Maxtor DiamondMax 300 GB (PATA). This contest will close on Thursday October the 1st 12 noon GMT -7. Enter now!

UPDATE: The contest is now closed. And the winner is...Bob Christensen! Thanks to everyone that entered. It was fun reading about some really old technology.

OK, here we go with contest #4! If you haven't already read up on why I'm giving these hard drives away, please check out the first contest giveaway.

All you have to do is post a message telling me if you've ever experienced a hard drive crash. When was it? What did you lose, if anything? Or have you been fortunate enough to never have a hard drive tank on you?

I'll select the winner at random. Once you win one of the contests, you're out of the running for the next contests in this series. Each winner will be contacted via private forum message and they'll have 72 hours to respond to claim their prize - so be sure email notifications are turned on for your forum account. The last contest I ran someone missed out on winning a prize because they didn't reply to my message for two weeks!

The drive I'm giving away in this second contest is a Seagate 7200.10 400 GB (SATA). This contest will close on Tuesday the 22nd of September at 12 noon GMT -7. Enter now!

OK, here we go with contest #3! If you haven't already read up on why I'm giving these hard drives away, please check out the first contest giveaway.

All you have to do is post a message telling me how you'd use the hard drive. Will you replace the hard drive in a current computer? What size is your current drive? Or add it to a current system as a backup drive? Or will you put the drive in an enclosure? Post one message in the discussion thread (it can be the same text from the first content).

I'll select the winner at random. Once you win one of the contests, you're out of the running for the next contests in this series. Each winner will be contacted via private forum message and they'll have 72 hours to respond to claim their prize - so be sure email notifications are turned on for your forum account. The last contest I ran someone missed out on winning a prize because they didn't reply to my message for two weeks!

The drive I'm giving away in this second contest is a Western Digital Caviar 500 GB (SATA). This contest will close on Monday 14th of September at 12 noon GMT -7. Enter now!

UPDATE: The contest is now closed. The winner is...The Yaz! He has 72 hours to claim his prize. Thanks for your participation everyone! Please watch for the next contest.

OK, here we go with contest #2! If you haven't already read up on why I'm giving these hard drives away, please check out the first contest giveaway.

All you have to do is post a message telling me how you'd use the hard drive. Will you replace the hard drive in a current computer? What size is your current drive? Or add it to a current system as a backup drive? Or will you put the drive in an enclosure? Post one message in the discussion thread (it can be the same text from the first content).

I'll select the winner at random. Once you win one of the contests, you're out of the running for the next contests in this series. Each winner will be contacted via private forum message and they'll have 72 hours to respond to claim their prize - so be sure email notifications are turned on for your forum account. The last contest I ran someone missed out on winning a prize because they didn't reply to my message for two weeks!

The drive I'm giving away in this second contest is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500 GB (SATA). This contest will close on Friday the 4th of September at 12 noon GMT -7. Enter now!

UPDATE: The contest is now over, and the winner is...cmchavez. Here's what he posted:

"Currently I have a 200 gig system drive that I back up only the personal documents and settings folders to a separate, external 160 gig drive; basically my CYA drive to prevent my wife from killing me over digital photos that haven't yet been burned to backup disks. I'd probably swap out the main system drive for a larger drive, then use the 200 gig drive as a secondary storage drive with a recurring Robocopy task to provide a secondary backup copy of all the essential files. Definitely would make things better on the family computer!

Congrats cmchavez! Stay tuned for more contests everyone...

In a discussion thread that started talking about my collection of old RAM, I mentioned that I had a bunch of "small, old hard drives" that I didn't have any use for, and the response when I stated the capacities was quite amusing - my definition of "old" is any hard drive older than two years, and "small" is anything under 500 GB or so. A few people in that discussion thread are still using sub-100 GB hard drives, so it seemed like it was time for a giveaway!

I have seven hard drives in total to give away, ranging from a new 750 GB drive down to a 300 GB drive. All told, I have 3350 GB in storage up for grabs. The drives in this giveaway are:

• Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750 GB (SATA)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500 GB (SATA)
• Western Digital Caviar 500 GB (SATA)
• Western Digital Caviar 500 GB (SATA)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 400 GB (SATA)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 400 GB (SATA)
• Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300 GB (PATA)

So here's how this going to work: every week for seven weeks I'm going to give away one of the drives. Each contest will be the same as this one: all you have to do is post a message telling me how you'd use the hard drive. Will you replace the hard drive in a current computer? What size is your current drive? Or add it to a current system as a backup drive? Or will you put the drive in an enclosure? Post one message in the discussion thread. I'll select the winner at random. Once you win one of the contests, you're out of the running for the next contests in this series. Each winner will be contacted via private forum message and they'll have 72 hours to respond to claim their prize - so be sure email notifications are turned on for your forum account. The last contest I ran someone missed out on winning a prize because they didn't reply to my message for two weeks!

The drive I'm giving away in this first contest is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 400 GB drive. This contest will close on Thursday the 27th at 12 noon GMT -7. Enter now!

UPDATE: The contest is completed, and the winner is dirtboy. Thanks to everyone for entering! Many more hard drive giveaways coming up...

"Thanks to HP, Microsoft and Timbuk2 we put together a great prize bundle that we are sure has everything you need to perform well at school. This promotion is supported by 25 websites - and each of these has a prize bundle to giveaway. Each prize bundle comes with two laptops, software and a custom bag: 25 of those bundles, 25 winners, all up for grabs throughout August 2009."

Who doesn't like free stuff? Each of the 25 Web sites involved (which doesn't include us unfortunately) will be giving away a prize package that consists of an HP dv6, an HP Mini 110, and a custom Timbuk2 bag. The first contest will start on August 12th, so check out the site for more details.

"HP Friday announced the HP You on You project, a contest on YouTube that invites entrants from around the world to create and share videos that express who they are - without showing their faces. The contest uses new video creation tools on YouTube, including improved video remixing and webcam video tools, to allow people of all skill levels to submit videos that run the gamut from comedies to mini-biographies and documentaries, and showcase their individual passions, causes and creative gifts. Running through Aug. 30, the contest offers the opportunity for contestants to win more than $300,000 in cash and prizes from HP. The contest is an extension of HP's award-winning "The PC Is Personal Again" campaign, which features achievers including Shaun White, Serena Williams and Fergie discussing what they do with their HP PCs in a series of "Hands" commercials that don't show their faces."

Feeling creative? Got a video camera or Web cam? Go for it and win some prizes!

Remember the iZel review that I published a few weeks back? Well, the makers of the iZel have offered us three to give away to lucky Thoughts Media readers! This contest is open to anyone in the US or Canada (sorry rest-of-world). Entering the contest is really easy: all you have to do is post a message in this discussion thread telling me what kind of device(s) you'd want to use with the iZel. That's it! I'll randomly select three entries and each person will win an iZel. Nice and easy! The contest is open until the 16th of July, at 12pm (GMT -7). Enter now!

UPDATE: Only one entry per person, and if it's your first post, please allow up to 48 hours for it to show up.

UPDATE #2: The contest is now over and the winners have been randomly selected. iZel has a little consolation prize for everyone though. If you use the coupon code 5OFFIZEL you'll get a $5 discount off the normal price of $24.95 from Amazon.com [Affiliate]. The coupon code is valid until midnight July 31st, 2009.

"We want to hear how you've used your MID stories and are offering up some great prizes in exchange for your articles, photos and videos. Share your story on what you've done with your MID in real life for your chance to win a new MID of your choice or some great accessories. To enter the Real Life MID Stories Giveaway, visit MidStories.com/giveaway/ and tell us how you use your MID. Where are you using your MID and how has it improved your digital lifestyle? What are your favorite applications and services that make you more mobile? Upload photos of you and your MID in action to illustrate your story. You can really make it stand out by recording a video and including a link to it in your submission. Entries must be at least 300 words long."

Everybody loves contests, so I'm happy to tell you about this grand-opening contest over at MIDstories.com, a new site I posted about last week. There are five prizes in total, with the first place price being a $599 USD credit from Dynamism toward an Intel Atom-powered MID. Check it out!

Panasonic is in the midst of running a 30 day giveaway contest, where they're giving away DVD players, video cameras, digital cameras, etc. Entry is easy, though unfortunately it's for people in the USA only.

There are still more contests to go, so if you want to enter for a chance to win at other blogs, here's where to go:

• Geekzone (contest closes Dec. 20th)
• The Digital Lifestyle (contest closes Dec. 20th)
• CiberPrensa (contest ends on Dec. 21st)
• jkontherun (contest closes Dec. 23rd)

I'm tremendously excited to be able to announce the winner of our HP Magic Giveaway contest. The winner is jenni104, who posted the following story in our contest thread:

"I am a single, disabled mom, living on social security only, with two sons about to start college hopefully. I have had to have my neck rebuilt, and my lower back is inoperable at this time, so the disc degeneration is taking it's toll on me. I also have heart problems, fibromyalgia, myofascia, and have developed severe social anxiety due to the illnesses and how I always feel. I used to teach the severely disabled and now I am on my way to being one of them. We also had to move into a two bedroom trailer from a wonderful house with land. My sons have been subjected to a lot due to my problems.

I would dearly love to help out my sons with their college needs; and this would go a long way to help them. We would keep the desk top here at home to share with the printer, and each boy could have a laptop for school and work with programming. I, of course, would let them help in all decisions regarding who gets what. The last laptop I would like to give to my ex husband, who has lost his house and job due to the economy. He did find a factory job at minimal pay, and that one is about to close too. He is currently sleeping on my sofa here until he ever gets back on his feet. But I would like him to be able to keep in touch with the boys online too, and he doesn't have a computer. This could also help him find work too.

The child's software I would love to donate to the children's wing of the hospital for the poor kids there to enjoy, along with whatever else was not going to be used to better the future outlook of my sons. I do not know how else I will ever be able to get technology for my sons college and work needs other than a wonderful contest like this. Thank you for this opportunity."

While my selection of the winning post was random, I was incredibly happy to see what I feel is a very worthy response to this contest. I've contacted jenni104 via email and private forum message, and she has 72 hours to respond and claim her prize.

I want to thank HP and Microsoft for donating these amazing prizes, Buzzcorps for organizing it all, and of course all of you for entering this contest. Remember there are still contests happening right now, so there are more chances to win. I'll post a round up of links to active contests later today. Have fun!

UPDATE: Our contest is now live, post your entry here.

Remember that awesome 31 Days of the Dragon giveaway contest Digital Home Thoughts was a part of earlier this year? Well this new contest from HP that we've been invited to partake in dwarfs that one on a number of levels. First, the prize pack is even bigger: $6000 in total prizes, consisting of one desktop PC, three laptops, a Media Center extender, a printer, and some software and accessories. Whew! There's some awesome hardware here. The scope is bigger too: there are 50 different blogs involved, and they range from tech blogs like this one, to women's blogs, to student blogs, to Spanish and Portuguese blogs. The complete list is further on in this post. If you do the math, that's $300,000 USD in total prizes, thanks to HP and Microsoft's Windows Live team.

The HP Magic Giveaway is designed around the idea of the magic of sharing, so it's not a coincidence that it's happening as we lead up to the Christmas & holiday season. Each blog is running their own type of contest (and you can enter all of them), but the idea that many of us are focusing on is sharing. One person probably doesn't need four computers all to themselves, so when I kick off my contest later on, it will include some sort of prize-sharing element. Start thinking of who and how you'd share this with others. A contest like this is even more timely when you look around at the financial markets world-wide, and even in your neighbourhood. Stay tuned for more details on my contest.

So what's included in this huge giveaway? Here's the full list:

Hardware

• HP TouchSmart IQ816 PC

• HP HDX 18 series Premium Notebook PC

• HP MediaSmart Connect

• HP Pavilion dv4 series Entertainment Notebook PC (with Windows Live)

• HP Mini 1000 (with XP)

Accessories

• HP Photosmart C6380 Wireless AIO (printer)

• HP 564 Photo Value Pak [thanks for the PDF Gear Diary!]

Software & Entertainment

• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate/Home Premium or Microsoft Windows XP pre-installed on all units (Mini 1000 runs XP)

• Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007 (Student-Teacher Edition) – 1 DVD with 3 licenses

• Microsoft Windows Live

• Corel VideoStudio X2

• Kung Fu Panda (2 widescreen DVDs; 1 widescreen Blu-ray disc)

Read more...