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. ;-)