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We have a winner! It just took us awhile to find someone who reads their email!
If you read our November 2003 issue of TechTrax, you knew that we were giving
away a copy of Office 2003 Pro. Any subscriber to TechTrax was eligible to
enter the drawing, they simply needed to add their name and email to our
private drawing database.
The morning of December 1, 2003, we closed the Office drawing and extracted
the database containing the names of all subscribers who entered the drawing.
Some folks had more than one entry in the drawing because they opted to receive
a custom URL to pass to friends. If their friends subscribed using their
custom URL to access our Subscription page, those folks would get an extra
point. Five extra points meant an additional entry for them was inserted
into the database!
Once the drawing was closed and it was time to find a winner, we opened our
random number generator. (Greg wrote this applet for me using Word
VBA, so I would have an easy way to pick a winner in our many drawings throughout
the year.)
Surprisingly, although we have over 4,000 monthly readers of TechTrax, only
152 people bothered to enter the drawing! So the chances were good for those
who entered and better for those folks who received multiple entries by getting
other people to subscribe.
I entered the maximum number of records in the drawing database, as you can
see below, and clicked the button to find a winner.
The Lucky Winner was record number 96, as shown below.
I opened the drawing database and located record number 96. It belonged to
Sandy. (Last name not shown, because she didn't respond and, therefore, wasn't
our actual winner.)
We sent out our winners email letting Sandy know that she was our big winner.
However, as with all our drawings, if her email bounced (meaning it
wasn't accepted at her end due to her email being full or her address being
entered in our database incorrectly), then we would draw a different winner.
If it went through (meaning it wasn't returned to us), she would have 24
hours to reply to confirm her winning.
Unfortunately, she never replied! After 24 hours, it was time to do it all
again. So we did.
This time the Lucky Winner was number 67.
We looked that number up in our entry database and discovered that our new
winner was Larry.
So the winning email was sent out again, this time to Larry. He received the
same stipulations...the email could not bounce and he must respond within
24 hours. We waited.
Twenty-four hours came and went and it was time to hope that the third time
would be a charm. It was!
The third record that our Lucky Winner number generator displayed was number
24.
Checking that record, we found David Siegel and crossed our fingers
that we might actually hear back from someone this time.
David was ready for us! We sent his winner's email out on December 3rd at
6:56 AM. David replied back by 8:27 AM. We finally found our winner.
So Who Is David Siegel?
Well, Dave's first comments were to say "Thank you for
the contest win. I am a self-employed tax consultant and could use Office."
We then confirmed
his win and got to learn a little more about Dave.
"Dian,
I'm not sure what you want to know about me, but here's a quick summary.
I and Arona, my wife of many years, live in St. Paul, Minnesota (of which
the state bird is the Loon...draw your own conclusions). I am a self-employed, "semi-retired" tax
advisor, helping individuals and businesses wend their ways through the
tax laws. I golf badly, but sail fairly well with my family on Lake Superior
as often as we can manage. I won't bore you any further.
Thanks again for the prize. I enjoy your website and look forward to using
it often.
Dave S."
Congratulations, Dave. We hope Office 2003 Pro helps you run your business
more smoothly. I was a beta tester for Office 2003 and have been using it
for some time...I love it and I'm sure you will, too!
Thanks again to Microsoft for supplying us with this free copy of
Office 2003 Pro!
Don't miss out on a chance to enter our December drawing.
We'll be giving away Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight. Read
Greg Chapman's review on Flight Sim. Greg is not only a licensed pilot,
but was also a beta tester for Flight Sim. He's very impressed with the program!
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