Since it now looks like Apple will not be giving me any worthwhile reasons to upgrade to a new laptop anytime soon - I decided to spend last night doing some serious upgrading of my own.

My MacBook Pro is now sporting a 320GB (!!!) Western Digital Scorpio HD, doubling my storage capacity and increasing my HD speed significantly. Having that capacity in a container so small boggles my mind.

Using TimeMachine to restore from my backup drive made this the most painless system upgrade I have ever attempted. Kudos to Apple for making something so complex so brain-dead easy. Time Machine really is a killer feature.

I've also been doing some software upgrading and acquisition to help fill up all that extra space. I encourage any of you with Macs to check out the MacHeist II promotion where you can get a bundle of 11 great Macintosh applications (sold for $368 separately) for just $49. (BTW - If you click on the link and end up buying, I get a 12th bonus app free...)

I wrote about the first iteration of the MacHeist last year - and I continue to think that it is sheer marketing genius. If you are interested in viral marketing done right - this is one of the best examples I have ever seen.

The promotor of the Heist has put together a great bundle, he's donating 25% of every purchase to a charity you get to choose, and developers I never would have heard of are getting some great exposure. The total raised for charity is already over $175k with a week in the promotion remaining - impressive!

I was already planning to buy the uber-cool secure digital wallet and password manager 1password (the iPhone sync pushed me over the top), and the PhotoShop-like Pixelmator looks amazing and seems well worth the price of the bundle. The rest of the apps I have not had a chance to check out too deeply yet, but I suspect that there are a few other gems to be found. All of them have gotten rave reviews.

The Heist has a week left, so check it out and treat yourself to some new Mac apps.

Enjoy!

Checking a few stock quotes using Google just now, I burst out laughing when my search for "GOOG resulted in the following targeted "sponsored link"...

Filthy rich? We'll help.
Throw away your newfound cash
at Woot. You're welcome.
woot.com

Well, Google stock is flirting with $500/share again...

*laughing*

See: vanishingpointgame.com

To promote Windows Vista, Microsoft is sponsoring a very elaborate online puzzle game.

The grand prize includes "a chance to see the ultimate vista" - a trip to the edge of space aboard a rocket plane, including some zero-gravity time. Nice! Lots of other more earthly prizes are up for grabs too.

Imagine this:
The Rocketplane® XP Vehicle is a four-seat fighter-sized vehicle fitted with a delta wing and a V-tail which provide good flight characteristics both subsonically and supersonically. The vehicle is powered by both turbojet engines and a rocket engine, enabling it to accelerate to speeds just over 3,500 feet per second (2,386 miles per hour) and reach altitudes in excess of 330,000 feet (100 kilometers) providing the sensation of weightlessness for three to four minutes!

But you don't even need to solve puzzles to win. Jut by registering at the site you earn "20 points" - and each point is an equal chance in the final drawing for the prizes.

Mention "chris@radven.net" when you sign up and we both get 20 points. It only takes a minute to register, so why not?

Solve some puzzles and you can earn more. Some of the puzzles have had solutions found already - check the online forums here for some hints.

But hurry - the contest ends and the winner will be contacted on February 1st.

Enjoy!

Macintosh Users - go here: www.macheist.com
{Hurry - only three hours left!}

On the surface this is just a simple one-week sale to get $350 worth of some pretty impressive Macintosh software for a special bundled price of just $49.

But lurking below the scenes is one of the most interesting bits of viral marketing genius that I have seen in a long time. Anyone interested in Internet marketing should check out how the MacHeist came together. In the span of a week, the 18-year-old creator of the Heist has accomplished raising $150k+ for charity, probably $500k+ for himself, and he is giving the 10 participating developers an amazing amount of exposure that I think will pay off extremely well for all of them in the end.

I can't tell whether the controversy was planned or not, but the Mac blog-world is in a tizzy with discussion over whether or not the heist is a "scam to fleece developers" or marketing genius and a win for all involved. I believe strongly in the later - but the firestorm of "scam" posts and stories is what made me stop and check out the website and ultimately plunk down my own $50. I was planning to buy RapidWeaver and Delicious Library anyway - and now I get them both for way less, and I get 8 other very cool looking apps to try that I probably never would have even heard of. Nice!

It is a rare treat to see something new done in marketing that feels like a true win-win for everyone involved. Congrats to the MacHeist team for pulling off something that seems to be both truly new, and legitimately cool.