Neowin HP Magic Giveaway winners

[*RedBull*]

If I was a mod i'd be going through this thread hitting the ****ing ban button so fast peoples heads would spin. Seriously. What a bunch of whinny little bitches.

Well said. Not that I'd imply YOU were a WHINEY LITTLE BITCH. :p

must be a reason you aren't a mod...

[Denis W. Veteran]

I thank all those that participated, and once again congratulate those that won. I for one am proud of the members here and all the different entries that we had. If there were a way to have more winners, I'm sure we would have done so. Heck, we split the prize into 8 when it was meant for only 1 person, which is much more than I can say for the other sites that participated. So be thankful you had at least that much more of a chance to win than anywhere else.

Very good point.

As another example, I also entered Long's contest on his site. His rules were simple, just enter an email and also optionally download this small tool to verify you're on Vista, that gets you another entry. One person walked away with a giant jackpot. :p

As this site has quite a large readership, imagine if what Long did was done here. Numerous one post wonders would sign up, then half of said one post wonders will generate a giant whinefest when one single person walks away with everything.

Now say that they do offer all 8 prizes separately and fed our entries into a randomizer. Then you'll have people complaining that the randomizer was flawed, or whatever method of choosing the winners is flawed.

At least for this contest, it keeps the number of entries down to a low enough level but still allowing those who really want to win something to demonstrate that through their entry.

(note: I'm not saying random click-here-to-enter entries are entirely bad. There's pros and cons to both contest methods.)

[Brad.]

Well said. Not that I'd imply YOU were a WHINEY LITTLE BITCH. :p

must be a reason you aren't a mod...

Please, for your own sake stop posting in this thread. You've said what you've wanted to.

Congrats to all, after seeing the top 10 I wish I had have entered my idea :(

[sawdustfarmer]

First i would like to thank the HP and neowin for running this contest, and for all the staff who voted for me, and also to those who entered the entries were awesome

I Just read through all the posts and i'll clarify a few things to anyone who had any questions, yes the logo is made with saw dust (4 huge bags worth) it was all carefully planned from the start, its 35 meters in diameter, and took 2 full afternoons to make (about 6-8 hours), the circle was made using a rope with a line marking spray can on the end, and the N was made by laying a grid over the logo on the computer, printing it out and then using the print out to get the right distances for the the 35m version

The photo was taken using my digital SLR with a fisheye lens filter, (I could not possible capture the whole entry without it) to get the height of the photo i had a ladder leaned against my neighbors shed which is about 2 stories high

you can see below my idea, (the red dot is where i took the photo from) it would be sweet if it got on google maps :)

oh and by the way i don't have anything to do with saw dust, it was just coincidence i used saw dust to make the logo, we use saw dust for the horse stables, oh and aren't horses magical?

Thanks again to everyone

[tomwarren Veteran]

is there still any proof that the touchscreen hp compuer was donated to charity?

Sorry I should have mentioned this in the final post. We are still deciding on a final charity, more details should be available in the coming weeks. We will have a full post about it once we have donated it etc :)

[Scirwode]

I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to enter as I was much too busy with work and all. I had quite a few ideas which though may or may not have won first prize, I believe it could be up there at the top as they are quite good. Sadly all of you got lucky because I had to attend to matters at work :p . Joking aside though, I'm very much impressed with the level of creativity that the Neowin members have. I work in the Multimedia industry and although some of the work shown here may look simple to the untrained eye, quite a bit of planning went into it to make it a reality. Take sawdustfarmer's comments for example, as though he many not have spent quite a bit of money to create it, the time and effort spent to prepare the canvas was much more. The same could be said of the Neowin logo in the snow, it's not easy when your canvas gets larger and larger. The two photographs were also quite impressive as they created something by using something that is unconventional, which in this case is the light from a mobile phone.

Creativity is not about spending the most money or the most time in creating a piece of art, it's about using the resources that you have at your disposal and utilising it to the best of your ability. To those who are complaining, you may have taken more time with your work, but it did not do enough to stand out as the top 10 deserved to stand out. Again congratulations to the lucky winners (Y) .

You may not be so lucky next time when I enter :whistle: :devil: :laugh: .

Scirwode

[Berserk87]

you guys picked the worst week for this competition ;(

had/have exams all this week, working and studying all week last week.

i totally should have entered. =\

[jwjw1]

So maybe a few did use photoshop to stack some long exposures...they were all very creative,especially the ones that used natural surroundings and basic materials. Photoshop is Magical...LOL

Congrats to the Winners.

[MitchLeBlanc]

The whining out here is absolutely incredible! Shouldn't there be a level of gratuity that Neowin was able to put on a competition and give you guys a shot at the prizes? If you didn't win, it's as simple as that. All of this talk about rule violation and the like is just so frustrating. This thread is meant to be a congratulatory thread to the winners of the competition.

If you did not win and you've chosen to bicker, do you honestly think that bickering will reverse any decisions? It's childish and immature. Grow up already and somehow harness the ability to congratulate someone else rather than wallow in self-pity.

[neoraptor]

Hi there

First I want to thank Neowin for the contest - it was well organised and definitly more creative than the other blogs i have checked.

Maybe I hold too tight to the "magic" and was not creative enough (thanks to all who commented i should have been first)

About the other entries - I like the first two - great precision guys, good work. The third one seem a bit photoshoped to me because there are not paths/trails of the person's movement between the light logo and the place where he is sitting and also the light from his laptop should be a lot stronger (see the mobile phone light trails). I apologise to the author and the others if I'm wrong.

To those who did not win - next time guys.

Happy holidays and many smiles :)

[MasterC]

The third one seem a bit photoshoped to me because there are not paths/trails of the person's movement between the light logo and the place where he is sitting and also the light from his laptop should be a lot stronger (see the mobile phone light trails). I apologise to the author and the others if I'm wrong.

He made it using a long exposure. When you use a long exposure, if something isn't lit up long enough you won't see it. Refer to the picture I took (and posted) earlier:

When I took that, my friend was using a flashlight and drawing out the shapes in front of him. Notice how you can't see him though. Here's another one with a longer exposure, and you can see my friend behind the shape he's drawing:

The reason you can see him is that the shutter was open longer, which allowed more light to shine on him thus making him visible in the picture. As for the laptop light not being stronger - he could've sat down and opened the laptop last and closed the shutter shortly after, therefore making that light source not as strong.

[Richard Hammond]

Bit dissapointed that only people with expensive cameras and lenses won the best prizes, ones who probably could afford the gadget they have just won, nevermind congrats all.

Edited December 10, 2008 by Richard Hammond

[yeditepe]

Who win TouchSmart? i didn't see it in winner's list...

[tomwarren Veteran]

Who win TouchSmart? i didn't see it in winner's list...

We are donating the TouchSmart PC to charity as previously announced.

[yeditepe]

@creamhackered

Greattt

[GreenMartian]

Maybe I hold too tight to the "magic" and was not creative enough (thanks to all who commented i should have been first)

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

- Arthur C. Clarke

:laugh:

[neoraptor]

@MasterC I can still see the guy on the second picture, but I guess it might be possible.

@Richard Hammond - you have the cars man :)

btw - today is really magical, just updated my debian unstable and voila:

The following packages have been kept back:

gpm kdeutils

The following packages will be upgraded:

file libmagic1 libneon27 libneon27-gnutls

[furby]

<snip>

Thanks again to everyone

Congratulations sawdustfarmer, I really liked your entry. Have you left it out there? We definitely need to get Neowin on goggle earth/maps, next competition...

[MasterC]

@MasterC I can still see the guy on the second picture, but I guess it might be possible.

That was the point of the second picture. It was taken using a longer shutter speed.

[Fourjays Veteran]

Congratulations to all the winners. :) Well deserved.

Can't believe all these whiners... like a bunch of little school girls. I've entered plenty of competitions in my time. If you aren't prepared to lose, don't enter.

[Udayakanth]

Congratulations to all the winners. :) Happy holidays

[Sethos]

Congratulations everyone, excellent competition (Y)

Sadly my entry was rubbish :p

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Very cool entries everyone! I loved the creativity from all of you guys, and hope to see you guys put forward the same effort in future competitions!

[Rappy Veteran]

Congratulations to All (Y)

[Wannes]

And once again I'm hugely disappointed in mankind and its jealousy. Everyone entering the competition had put a lot of creativity and time in their work. Others may have even included money to the equation. It's nice to see that people take the time to participate in such event en get their hopes up. You should because everyone had a fair chance.

One person comes out here saying he could play in the snow yet he didn't. Maybe there was the lack of creativity, maybe there was something else. I didn't have snow down here or, at least, not enough to make such creation but you don't hear me whining do you? My entry didn't get finished on time though I still love my idea and give it a fair shot in the contest. Yet again, you still don't hear me whining.

You had the chance to win prices going up to $1.500,00 but missed the chance though you took a shot. Next time, take that shot again and maybe then you'll get lucky. I hope you realise that a lot of people couldn't enter the competition because they don't have their talent in creativity? What should those people say?

Seriously, grow up or leave the internet. It's obvious that jealousy is a painful and wrong animal but yet again it manages to get everywhere. It's time we put our egos aside and recognise the winners. They didn't use fancy software tools but only real life aspects and some hardware. Both were allowed...

Sorry, I hate to read such replies and still, in all my believe, hope there would be only decent congratulations.