Thats right!! Last months contest was such a hit I’ve decided to do it again! However, this time, I’m using a cool new site to help me do it. ContestMachine is an online contest site that will host your contests for you. They offer free and paid accounts with the obvious benefits for paid accounts (more contests per month).

This month, all you have to do is register for the contest through the widget. Thats it. One lucky winner will receive a Pound of Carolina Morning Blend Coffee (whole bean or ground, your choice) and 1000 Entrecard Credits! A second winner will receive 500 EC Credits. How freaking cool is that??

Oh yea, here’s the widget!

Popularity: unranked [?]

So I like to think that the way Rowling ended the series leaves it open to other authors to come in and pick up where the 7 books left off. There certainly is room to do so (what, with the last chapter being 19years after the fall of Voldemort…). I think further proof of this is evident in the chat JK had with some fans online (well, more like she answered submitted questions) most of which were dealing with the futures of several of the main characters.

There have been other sagas to allow this (star wars is one of the most prolific) and the HP story line could be one that is profitable for many over a long time. It certainly is open to the rebuilding of the wizzarding world, discussing how the characters get to where they are at the end of the last chapter (How does neville become a professor??).

Some of the things JK says in the chat (Ginny is the captain of the Holyhead Harpies, the all witch Quidditch team…) would make great story lines in themselves. Plus what happens to the trio’s children as they embark upon their time at hogwarts? While I would like to fancy myself a good enough writer to pick up a quill and fill in these blanks, I think I will leave it to some one better qualified…

Popularity: 8% [?]

Three weeks ago I took the plunge and upgraded my laptop from Windows XP (I have an ubuntu install on there as well) to Windows Vista Ultimate in order to check it out and make sure it will work with the software we use here at work. After hearing about messy upgrades and the tightened security in Vista, I was a little leery of the whole process, but I was surprised by the ease of upgrade.

The upgrade was seamless, the laptop went from windowsXP to Vista with out any problems. I have had to upgrade several drivers (mostly video drivers) and reinstall some of my software (itunes and an ISO mounting program) in order for it to work correctly but otherwise it worked well. A couple of clicks disabled the security prompts (which weren’t that annoying to be honest…). I did not find though that vista was a vast improvement over windows XP.

The laptop in question is just over a year old, it is an HP Pavilion dv8000 model, dvdrw, 1gb memory, 2 100gb Harddrives, an ATI Radeon Express 200M video card, 1400×900 display and an AMD Turion64 cpu (the thing rocks). Ran XP wonderfully, runs linux like a champ. Vista seems slow and clunky at times. I do like the gadgets (though they don’t always work correctly) but it takes longer to boot and startup than it did under XP which is not an improvement. The overall gain in the gui isn’t that great when compared to XP or KDE or Gnome under linux (I actually think I prefer KDE with compiz fusion to the vista aero).

Am I upset I wasted the time to upgrade to vista? No. I can always reinstall XP (I still have the discs), though I wonder if it will free up the license for Vista so I can install it elsewhere… do I think everyone should upgrade to vista? No. Unless you’re buying a new PC, then it only makes sense to buy one with vista on it. Would I recommend Ultimate? Possibly, though if you’re using it in a strictly work environment, go with Business Plus or whatever and for home, definitely pick up the MCE Edition…

Popularity: 9% [?]