Last week, I asked, “Who wants my (not so) old Tablet PC?“

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who took the time to write and make a case for why they would make a good home for this machine. The respondents included:

• An amateur photographer planning a trip to the Czech Republic this fall, who would use the machine to download photos for archiving and preliminary editing. Having just traveled to Italy and done the same, I know how well this particular Tablet PC works for that task.
• An IT manager for an international charity who wants to replace his paper note-taking routine with OneNote and pass his desktop PC along to a colleague using an older PC. (The good news, in this case, is that OneNote works exceptionally well on a desktop PC, lacking only handwriting support.)
• A contract software developer in the Pacific Northwest who worked on the original Tablet SDK and wants to write a new version of the crossword puzzle app but doesn’t currently have a digitizer.

But the winning entrant is a Houston-based therapist who wants to cut down paper in her practice. As a bonus, I know she has excellent hardware and software support in the same household and has already had the opportunity to experiment with the Tablet PC form factor. Best of all, her spouse is planning to write about the experience.

I’ll let Dwight pick up the story from here.

I was thinking about (and leaning against) writing more on the whole FM/”people ready” thing, but then, thankfully, Scott Rosenberg said everything I would have said. Nut graf:

FM refers to the technique as a “conversational marketing campaign”; the approach is really the Web equivalent of a magazine advertorial. Advertorials — including advertorials that involve a publication’s editorial staff — have been around a long time, and while they can be abused, they are hardly cause for deep moral indignation, as long as they are clearly labeled (FM’s is) and not trying to confuse readers.

The fact that no one saw this coming is what’s strangest to me. Anyway, go read Scott’s piece.

Valleywag’s Nick Denton has his knickers in a bunch because some of the AA+++ bloggers who are part of the Federated Media network have conspired to do a Microsoft “people ready” campaign.

Here’s a screen snap of the post in which Nick gets in high dudgeon about all this:

Denton pontificates: “One would have thought that tech opinion-leaders as influential as [fill in the blank] would ration their credibility more carefully.”

Uh yeah. Note to Nick: If you’re going to diss people for their lame ads, you should avoid doing so when you have a picture of Gene Frickin Shalit wearing a pair of TiVo frickin antennae on the same frickin page.

Just sayin’.

Full disclosure: FM is my ad rep, and if they had brought me this dumbass ad campaign I would have told them no. With adjectives.

Updated in the cold light of day: There actually is a serious issue here, which is that ad deals and editorial content should never get mixed up. At all. Back in February, an FM salesperson asked me if I would be interested in talking with a potential advertiser about reviewing their product. My response, in full, was:

I’m not comfortable with the idea that any editorial pitch is related to an advertising pitch or vice-versa. They are welcome to pitch the product to me, and if I find it interesting and worthwhile I’ll cover it. (And based on the brief description it indeed is something I would probably like to cover.) That decision will be completely independent of any advertising decisions they make.

Hope that makes my position clear for FM and for the client.

The company in question never ran an ad on my site. They never contacted me about reviewing the product. That ad salesperson has not contacted me since then. And nobody at FM ever asked me about contributing to the Microsoft “people ready” campaign, which looks like it really does cross the line between advertising and editorial.

And Denton misses the point, in my opinion. He says those A-listers should “ration their credibility more carefully, and reserve it for products and companies for which they felt real enthusiasm,” implying that the problem was they sold out to (ugh) Microsoft and not someone cool like Apple or Facebook (both of which Denton mentions in his post). No, the problem is that they appear to have sold out. Period. This would not have been more acceptable had it been done with a different advertiser.

I have an Acer C314 Tablet PC, with a 2.0GHz Pentium M processor, 1.5GB of RAM, a 100GB hard drive, and Windows Vista Business.

It’s been a thoroughly reliable performer for me (well, after two trips back to the mothership to have the keyboard replaced).

I’ve documented its recent performance here. I’m in no hurry to send it away, but I’m curious: Is there anyone who’s dying for a portable PC like this at a bargain price? If so, let me know. Conditions: You have to know what this computer is all about. You have to be enthusiastic about Tablet technology (because you can do better with newer machines that don’t include Tablet features). You have to understand that it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an ultralight. (And yet I dragged it all over Europe without complaining. Go figure.)

If you’re interested, drop me a line and let’s talk. (Update: I can’t give it away, but I’ll make a very fair deal for someone who can convince me they’ll give it a good home.) If you’re not interested, hey, I could use this notebook for another year and not be unhappy.

(Curious to see whether the ASCII converter I used to scramble my e-mail address really works. Guess I’ll find out soon enough. Update: Doesn’t work. Link replaced.)

Update: No more e-mails, please. I’ve made a decision. Read the details here.

This is truly one of the best error messages I’ve ever seen:

My favorite part is the second exclamation point, which really lets me know that this is an important message.

It should come as no surprise that the driver in question is unsigned and very, very flaky.

If you use Windows Vista, you might have seen an odd error message informing you that “COM Surrogate has stopped working.” There are multiple causes for this error, but in my case and that of at least one other person I spoke with this week, the solution is as simple as upgrading Nero 7 (as of today, the current build is 7.9.6.0). You can download the update, but I was impressed by Nero’s self-updating module. Open the Nero StartSmart program and choose Nero Product Setup from the top of the Tools group. The Update tab is the first one in the Product Setup window.

Not using Nero? Have you installed the DivX software program? Same problem, and again the solution is as simple as updating the software to the latest version.

If neither of those programs is the culprit, read the longer list of possible solutions put together by the How-To Geek. (And if you haven’t seen the Geek’s site, go and visit. You’ll find some crisp writing and relevant stuff, like this collection of Windows Vista How-Tos.)

Lightsaber sound effects, nanotechnology, built-in reproductive capabilities. The Onion has the details.

(via Barb Bowman) 

Special bonus snark: How Steve’s Reality Distortion Field has become contaminated!

Update 2-July: Survey is now closed. Thanks, everyone! 

If you’re a regular or occasional reader of this site, help me out by taking a few minutes to fill out a short survey.

Most of the questions are the sort you’re familiar with if you’ve ever filled one of these out, designed to give potential advertisers a clue as to the demographics of the people who visit here. In addition, I convinced Federated Media to let me add five questions that are specific to this site. Those results will help me determine what you want me to write about.

As an incentive, I’ve got five copies of Windows Vista Inside Out or Windows XP Inside Out (retail value $35 or more) to give away to a randomly selected group of respondents. To qualify for that drawing, leave your (real) e-mail address in the box next to Question 19. If you’d prefer to remain anonymous, just leave that box blank.

Thanks for your help.

Update: The link to the “thank you” page that should appear after you click Submit is pointing to an internal address instead of an external URL. It appears the survey is being submitted correctly, but I’ve sent a note to the folks at FM asking them to look into this issue and fix that link.

Update 2: Link to the “thank you” page is now working properly. I’m assured that all previously submitted surveys arrived safe and sound, so if you got the error page at the end there’s no need to fill in the survey again.

No wonder I can’t keep up. Seriously, I would imagine most of these are internal and/or not relevant to what I do, but there are literally dozens and probably hundreds of Microsoft employees who are writing interesting stuff. I’m sure I’m missing a whole bunch of smart people.

Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog Directory is a great starting point, but it’s far from complete. Which Microsoft bloggers do you read? Are there any great sources of inside Windows information flying low under the radar in Redmond? Leave links and tantalizing clues in the comments section, please.