My ACER Ferrari 1000 Tablet

So prior to Christmas it seemed like I’d done something right, to someone, somewhere. Not only did I receive a baby daughter in November but shortly after, and not as planned, came Mr. FedEX with a rather large box from ACER/Microsoft and AMD. What was it you ask? Only an Acer Ferrari 1000 Notebook with Windows Vista Ultimate pre-installed and Office 2007 Ultimate too.

I know there was a big uproar about the entire giveaway, and a great deal of fanfare due to the “morality” of the entire event, and in case you didn’t follow it read Mitch Denny, Craig Pringle or Frank Arrigo. All I can say however is that being on the receiving end was rather nice – if it weren’t for the fact that I’m a Tablet Guy and the Ferrari is a “just” a notebook.

Not to sound ungrateful but I must admit, to the horror of many geeks around the globe, that the box sat untouched for much of the festive season. When I finally got around to opening the box I was disappointed I hadn’t cracked her open earlier; I fell in love with Windows Vista and was overwhelmed with all the new Office features.

So there I was with an AMD Dual Core beast with all the bells-and-whistles staring back at me, and yet there was no pen. First thing I did was connect to the internet, obviously, and looked for the latest Windows Updates, of which there were none. Then I quickly modified my Sidebar via the Gadget Gallery, and then I stared…I stared at the closed lid of my little box. What was staring back at me you might ask; only the most beautifully molded piece of Carbon Fibre (replica I think) staring right back at me, and at the heart of the stare was the shiny-Red Ferrari emblem, embossed as only the precious horse should be.

I believe there are only three types of men in the world: those that like Porsches, those that like Ferraris, and everyone else. I for one have always been a Porsche man, and if you ever sat in a Porsche Cayenne you’d know what I mean; and yet when this little Black Stallion pranced on his little yellow shield of honor all I could think was thank you Microsoft, thank you.

Many journalists battled with the morality of handing bloggers a FREE top of the range notebook. They saw it as a bribe and even worse as a form of blackmail. I think Mitch Denny put it best when he said we were already converted, we’ve only been blogging about the merits of Microsoft forever…come on! You only have to read my blog for 6 seconds to know that I am an unpaid evangelist, part of the VEP (Volunteer Evangelistic Program…LOL), who is a passionate advocate for all things MS, although my primary expertise is Tablet PC.

The dilemma lies herein; do we keep the notebook, give it back to Microsoft or give it away. When I received an email today from Frank Arrigo I couldn’t help but feel a little nudged! Perhaps they did have expectations of the giveaway…of course…and perhaps, rightly so, Frank was wondering why I hadn’t blogged about the event given that my blog has quite a “nice” global following. So tonight I’ve blogged about it, and even posted a simple video. You may remember Wacom gave me a Vista enabled Tablet board recently which cleverly turns any notebook, or desktop, into a Tablet PC. So what else was there left for me to do but Ink Enable my Ferrari; and that’s exactly what I did. The following is a little video showing exactly that. I am happy to blog about any of the Ferrari features you like, and even comment on Vista. This is your space so let me know how I can benefit you from this giveaway.





And for those of you interested my plan is NOT to keep it…that leaves two choices, I believe. ;-)