Well hey everybody! WTF IS THIS? A CONTEST?! WHERE WERE YOU DURING XMAS!  Yea, yea I know.. well, The gift giving season has extended into 2013!

The other day after a re-install of my MacBook due to a memory failure which resulted in a drive corruption (Don’t even get me started!) I had to find my  handy dandy License Key card for VMware Fusion… Well, let’s just say that took a bit of time and hours before I was able to find my key, I came across this little gem!

Whoa, whoa, whoa… Wait a minute, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT!? Yea, I know, right?! But here’s the thing. I don’t like to hoard stuff when those of you in the community can benefit from it and rock out your life in an epic way, I mean … It’s certainly not THIS…. But it’ll do donkey, it’ll do…

But seriously… I said something about CONTEST didn’t I? Okay, well here in pretty large and bold lettering….

CONTEST!

So you want to win yourself a copy of VMware Workstation 9 and you’re all like “WTF DO i HAS TO DO?!?”  It’s actually pretty simple. I provide you two paths to contestdom!

Path #1

In the comments, write an example/story/whatever of something you are unable to virtualize and the reasons why.   Seems pretty straight forward.  

This is actually two-fold.  On the one hand, us in the community get a sense of what other challenges our peers are suffering through of things unable to virtualize and all of the pains associated.  But on the other hand, if we as the community have SOLUTIONS to your unvirtualizable scenario, then we ALL win.  Sounds excellent, right?   I particularly love finding solutions where there are apparently none, so I’m hoping you’ll all participate in this!

Path #2

In this path, I want you to tell me how you might go about actually using this license you will win.   Maybe it’ll change your life, maybe it will transform your career, maybe you’ve been too lazy to upgrade your previous version and this fills that niche, you know… Whatever.

Optional

Optionally, it’d be pretty awesome if you followed us on Twitter so as to stay up to date on whatever ridiculous banter we share, I suggest following a few twitter handles, which everyone prospers by this effort anyway, you can gain an extra ‘entry’ by doing it, but only do it if you really want to :)

• @cxi (me) – Christopher Kusek on Twitter!
• @nerdblurt – Luigi Danakos who you’ll find out a bit more about in a moment! Blogger at nerdblurt.com
• @sixfootdad – Damian Karlson, dear friend and virtualization rockstar, and #vBrownbagger
• @vDestination – Rockstar of a friend and blogger Greg Stuart, the movement behind vDestination.com
• @davemhenry – Dave Henry – He’s the kind of guy in the virtualization community you should just know, and madman behind geekfluent.com
• @that1guynick – Nick Howell, rockstar, Datacenter Dude, NetAppian, all that jazz! datacenterdude.com
• @h0bbel – Christian Mohn, Another rockstar who shows off his mad skills at vNinja.net 
• THIS JUST IN! The rockstar Christian Mohn just mentioned seconds ago… is tossing ANOTHER Workstation license into the pile! +1

HOW DO i WIN A COPY OF VMWARE FUSION?!?!

I know what you’re saying, “I don’t have a PC and don’t need Workstation! I have a MAC because I’m a MAC USER OMG MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC!. Yea I hear you, I’m writing this on LiveWriter (best blog writing tool in the world!) in my Win7 VM under Fusion… Hell, if I weren’t using the key for THIS instance, I’d be giving this away too.   But no. My dear friend Luigi, Nerdblurt mentioned above actually had his OWN CONTEST running, and when he saw I was going to give away a copy of Workstation, well, it was like a match made in heaven.  You know. But not in a creepy way. :)

So introducing the Blog post by Luigi:

VMware Fusion 5 Contest!

You need to check out his blog post for details on this, which I definitely encourage you to my fellow friendly fusionistas out there!  This is an amazing opportunity for a freeeeee license to kickstart your… well, whatever you’ll be kickstarting! I know my life changed when I got my first copy of VMware back in 97 or so, and what better way to take things to the next level today!

So good luck to all, I hope to see some awesome submissions, but most importantly… I wish you all good luck as I want all of you to walk away from this experience better for it.   Good Luck and stay virtual! (or some other lame tagline ;))

Yea baby, you heard me! For FREEEEEE!!! This functionality existed in the past and then twitter stripped it away (unfortunately) There were numerous ways which I covered in the past here

How to mass unfollow or follow people on Twitter .. and more …

How to mass follow and unfollow on twitter: over 10k club!

But then it all went away.. until NOW! (Again ;))

Featuring Twitter Mutuality!

I decided to give this a try today – Why not (I had hit an odd condition where I had a bunch of people I was not following but should have been!) so I decided to give it a try.

First I used three of my test accounts in order to ensure that it would actually function/work, and if it didn’t or my account was compromised I’d be able to simply change the password and move on.    It seemed to function and operate as expected… so I took it to the next level.

Lo and behold, BAM!  It worked! It not only worked though.. it worked VERY well, VERY fast and extremely efficient.  All for the major price of $0 (Wow!)

Is my account compromised? Will they use my credentials for evil? (This does not use oAuth for verification, so it’s VERY possible they’re storing your credentials in some database for major exploitation.   My advise there – Use the tool if you want and then change your creds… Until I get confirmation one way or the other of how safe and legit this may be (I seem fine for now) you can take advantage of the tool and move on.

In the past I’ve discussed tools which had limits for having over 10K followers/following.  This tool does not seem to be even phased by my 16k followers, so take that to heart and take advantage of this! If this works for you and you like it, be sure to let me know in the comments or on twitter @cxi :)

Win A Free VMworld Pass From boche.net

I’m not sure I could have made the TITLE any more detailed and specific! But just incase that wasn’t straight forward enough.. here is a semi-hijack of Jason’s blog post, including the important details.. most especially HOW to WIN

Do NOT comment on my blog to win! Go to Jason’s and enter to WINWINWIN!!!

Win A Free VMworld Pass From boche.net

Contest Rules:

1. Post one comment/reply and only one comment/reply to this blog article below.
2. Include your first and last name.
3. Provide a valid email address when completing the comment form.
4. Include a short bio about yourself and how you use VMware currently or how you would like to leverage VMware products.
5. Include three (3) things you are looking to gain from attending VMworld 2010 (ie. Why do you want to go?)
6. Contest entry must be recieved by noon CST Thursday June 17th, 2010.
7. One (1) random winner will be chosen Thursday evening June 17th, 2010. 
8. Contest results will posted Friday June 18th, 2010.
9. The winner will be contacted via email address provided in #3 above.
10. The winner will recieve a VMworld 2010 San Francisco conference pass only.
11. The conference pass is non-transferrable and non-refundable.
12. Transportation, hotel, and other expenses are not covered by boche.net.
13. No purchase necessary.

Good Luck!

Win A Free VMworld Pass From boche.net

There’s only two months left until June 30th! Yea I know you have a lot on your plate between now and then.. but for those of you who are certifying.. and happen to be taking any of the following exams – You get not only a Second Shot at taking the exam… but you also get 50% off?! Whoa! Half off?!?!

So, for those of you who are not so sure what all of the obscure numbers listed really seem to reflect to in form of exams.. here is the breakdown of what gives you a SECOND SHOT and 50% off! (Remember – Second Shot is available for all exams and all countries… but this 50% off deal is limited to these exams listed!)

70-432 TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance
70-448 TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance
70-450 PRO: Designing, Optimizing and Maintaining a Database Administrative Solution Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008
70-452 PRO: Designing a Business Intelligence Infrastructure Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008
70-562 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Application Development
70-564 Pro: Designing and Developing ASP.NET Applications Using the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
70-693 Pro: Windows Server 2008 R2, Virtualization Administrator
70-669 TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Desktop Virtualization
70-680 TS: Windows 7, Configuring
70-682 Pro: Upgrading to Windows 7 MCITP Enterprise Desktop Support Technician
70-659 TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization
70-652 TS: Windows Server Virtualization, Configuring
83-640 TS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring

So, just like all of my other announcements around vouchers and such… let me know if you need vouchers and I’ll give you what I can! Second Shots! 50% off! 20% off,10% off vouchers!

Hit me up via email, comments, twitter, facebook! etc :)

That’s right! I have a few vouchers available.. and at this time, I’m giving up one of these free vouchers to one of you fortunate souls!

What do you need to win? Comment on this blog post – that’s it! That doesn’t take much! Oh, preferably.. comment on how you’d go about using it – As far as I’m aware.. this voucher is good for ANY country, so I’d love to hear whatever your story is, of how this voucher will benefit you, your life and your career! or.. whatever!

So, simply comment away, and WIN! – It’s literally THAT easy – do your best to share this among the community and with others, because this won’t be the first voucher I give away and I love champions of the cause!   I’ll give out the free voucher.. lets say…the week or April 19th.   

And, not that this will help your cause (Although, it won’t hurt it ;))

I’m still looking for donations to help me in supporting children with disabilities – as I run the Boston Marathon on their behalf 2 weeks from today! So, please support me if you can

As seen in this blog post: Putting my life on the line to improve another’s – Please RT and donate

Thanks, and good luck on the vouchers! If I’m able to meet my goal of $2500, I’ll immediately offer up one more FREE voucher for give away!   Thanks!