Microsoft HQ

(This is being cross-posted both as a comment in the M4 review and as a new blog post dated 3/8/2006):
So I was taking a look at my SiteMeter today and I noticed that I suddenly started getting a whole ton of traffic from Redmond, Washington using “Microsoft Corp” as their ISP. What’s confusing about it is that they all seem to be looking at Page 7 of the M4 review (the one on the Toshiba Power Saver, Centrino Hardware Control, and battery life), but I can’t seem to figure out why that specific page is so fascinating. Either you guys are all just goofing off on company time or this is actually related to something you’re working on (maybe trying to figure out how to get more battery life out of those new “Origami” Ultra Mobile PCs?) Regardless, I still love the M4 (wouldn’t be able to survive this semester without it); so I just wanted to give you guys a shout-out and thanks for putting the tablet OS together.

As a side note (hoping to capitalize on possibly having Microsoft’s ear for half a nanosecond):
I think it would definitely be to your advantage in creating buzz for this Origami/UMPC stuff if you were to give a few units to certain members of the Tablet community/blogosphere so we can post reviews of them (people like Rob Bushway, Eric Mack, Tracy Hooten, myself [hint, hint ;) ], etc). It would be especially effective if the machines were to keep instead of being lent out for a few days or a week so we could review them as “lifestyle” machines as I gather they’re supposed to be. I know that I personally have gotten a lot of emails from people who bought the M4 because of my review and that some of the others (like Eric Mack) have had the same experience. So I think it reasonable to think that some solid reviews like that would have a similar effect on UMPC sales. I can’t speak for others in the community (although I’d guess they feel the same way), but I personally would be very willing to do another massive, good-and-bad (aka: fair), in-depth review like this in exchange for one of those devices [another shameless hint ;) ].

As a second and even more shameless side note:
I’m a Professional Flight major at Purdue graduating in a little over a year. Any chance you guys would be interested in an intern or first officer for your corporate flight department around that time?