finally HP said the desktop pc is ready

After my post yesterday, finally I have received a good news from HP this afternoon.

I did sent an email to the HP Marketing Manager (MM) yesterday asking the status of my prize, a HP Desktop PC which I won at the Window Vista Launch recently.

And today after failing to get the person in charge on the phone several times (I failed to get her on the phone yesterday too), I decided to call the MM himself. He told me that the PC is available for pickup.

I've just log on to my email and saw the MM's reply and he thought I already collected the PC.

I'm just glad that I called the MM or else the PC is going to sit at the office just because nobody cares to inform me (or should I say attend my enquiry).

I'm going to pick it up tomorrow and going to write a review about the desktop PC soon. Hopefully it's going to worth the wait.

where is my desktop pc loaded with Window Vista?

I have waited patiently. Indeed very patiently. My friends including a few bloggers and treasure hunters have been asking me the same questions repeatedly for the past 1 month.

"Hey, how's your new HP desktop PC, ah? Window Vista nice or not?" asked Shuh Yong.

"I'm sure you already get your PC by now," said a treasure hunter in an email.

"Wei, nice or not ah the PC? I thought we agreed to sell it at ebay and then split the money since we don't win anything at the Vista Walk Hunt?" asked Chia Chia, my treasure hunt team mate and friend.

"Joking only lar. What??? Serious ah?! HP haven't give you the PC, meh?" she continued.

"I told you to complain already. Supposed to be your birthday present, wert. Now after more than one month also haven't get. No stock, no stock. Ask them to give you a laptop with similar feature lar," my sister insisted.

"Yah, yah yah. I will call them again tomorrow lor. They said no stock mah. I also cannot do anything, wert. You know I don't like to ask so many times. Not that I'm embarrassed to ask for my prize. But I called so many times till people also scared liao," I explained to them.

"HP is a big company mah. If that model out of stock, sure they can afford to give something better than that model mah. You think which one is important? Owe people a PC or just give away a PC or laptop with similar model and save their face?" my brother added.

"Aiya, you all don't say liao lar. I pening already lar. Tomorrow I'll call again lar. Altogether I'm like call four five times liao. Email to the Marketing Manager also send liao. But he can't even promise me a date," I said trying to calm everyone down.

"I'll give them a call tomorrow and then see if they can settle that for me within this week lar. Seriously I lagi pissed off than you all coz I have to wait for more than 1 month liao. Window Vista punyer mood also tarak liao. Haih, we'll see how lar, ok?" I tried to convince them again.

finally convert to Firefox

Finally I've decided to change my browser from Internet Explorer (IE) to Firefox. Usually I'm a loyal user and reluctant to change a tool or something that I've been using all this while. But somehow I decided to download Firefox and give it a try. And it was a good choice.

I'm not a tech geek so I wouldn't be able to talk about the technical stuff about Firefox. And I haven't really explore the available features in Firefox.

However I must say that I love the (obviously different from IE) tab feature. It means I can open new tabs within a window instead of opening new windows. The Google toolbar is user-friendly. I can do spelling check, check the Page Rank (PR) of blogs and websites, subscribe to news and blogs, etc.

The speed is okay. I don't really feel if there's any difference from IE. The tool options are not bad because I think I have better control of the setting to my browser.

Now that I've been using Firefox for a week, I don't think I need IE anymore.

winning a desktop PC @ the Microsoft Vista launch

Now I feel really bad for complaining about the Amazing Vista Walk Hunt for not providing better Hunt Kit in my previous post.

Why? Because today I received not only extra Microsoft Vista freebies (pen, notepads, paper clips, etc) but also a new HP Desktop PC preloaded with Window Vista for winning the 1st prize in the Windows Movie Maker contest.

I did not save up the 90 sec clip I submitted last night though. My clip is about Visit Malaysia Year 2007 with a little bit sense of humour by using the limited number of photos available in the PC available at the foyer of Low Yat Plaza.

When the Microsoft people called me on my mobile asking me to come over to the stage @ about 5 p.m. today, I was in PJ. Luckily my friends were there to be my representative.

Thank you to my friends (Shuh Yong, Chia Chia, Sok Ei, Jess and Dr Ho), Bro and Sis for taking part with me in the hunt. And especially thank you to my good friend Shuh Yong for noticing the contest and persuaded me to join. Shuh Yong, Jess and Chia Chia also helped me to pick up my prizes today. Love you guys! Congratulations to Dr Ho for winning the 3rd place in the Windows Movie Maker contest as well! Let's celebrate this week!

In the end, special thanks to Microsoft and HP for the prizes! Coincidentally, I'll be collecting the desktop PC on my birthday.

Amazing Vista Walk Hunt

It was quite a happening Microsoft Vista launch at Low Yat Plaza today. My friends, Sis, Bro and I were there to participate in the Amazing Vista Walk Hunt.

However, the registration sucked. There were too many people (about 675 participants altogether!) and very unsystematic. The so-called Hunt Kit was even worse. Well, perhaps my expectation was high. I expect more than just a can of carbonated drink, a wafer bar, a mineral water, a brochure and an ugly sissy black coloured Window Vista bag. Yep, not even a pen or note pad. I know this Walk Hunt is free, but this is the biggest launch by Microsoft, the richest company in the world. Not to mentioned there were only 8 winning teams out of 188 teams. With so many so-called big sponsors like Maxis, Samsung, Toshiba, Intel, Acer, etc, they could only offer so few prizes and freebies. I joined a free AXN mall challenge before and the sponsor (Brylcreem) was so generous we had lots of freebies apart from so many free games like rock climbing, baseball, terror ride, etc.

Despite the lack of system by Time Out Solutions during the briefing, the kedekut-ness of Microsoft and the simplicity (in another word, no uuumph) of the hunt (which only took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete and the questions are less challenging), my teams enjoyed ourselves very much. We enjoyed the fact that we were able to participate together in two teams. We did so much better this time eventhough half of us are newbies. It would be impossible to answer all questions with only one team going from sector to sector.

Although majority of the participants are young people, in their teens or early 20s, the winners are mostly 'old people' (read: pro hunters) with familiar faces like The Lucky Ones and Hunters 'R' Us who won in every single hunt. I have great respect for them and I wish I knew their strategies and how long they took to be where they are now. How do they do it?

After the race, a couple of my team members and I joined the Microsoft Vista Movie Maker contest. The results will be out tomorrow at 5 p.m. Anyway, I'm pretty intimidated by the huge crowd. So I'm not going back to Low Yat Plaza tomorrow.

Amazing Vista Walk Hunt

The people at Crystal Edge did a very good job in sending out reminders to participants of the Amazing Vista Walk Hunt. Not only I received a reminder email but each of my team members actually received a double text messages to remind us about the event on Saturday.

I actually split up my existing hunter friends so that we can have a better strategy with two teams. We sucked in the previous hunts. We don't have expectation to win but just to gain some experience, have more right rather than wrong answers and most of all, hoping for some good freebies to take home with (dear organizer, you know what to do!).

My team no is lucky 23, comprising my Sis, Bro, a friend and of course, yours truly. So, anyone of you joining the hunt, see you guys there.