Laptop Raffle Features Alienware Beauty.

The HeliOS Project is happy to announce our semi-annual raffle. We do these twice a year so as to secure partial funding for the next half of the calendar. See the last paragraphs for how to enter and rules for this drawing.

This event sports some of the best prizes we've ever offered. From Alienware and Acer laptops to AMD personal internet devices to autographed copies of Carla Schroeder's Network Cookbook, we think we've got the Geek Thing covered. Take a look at what your 10 dollar donation puts you in the pot for:

Alienware m5500i-R3 Series. Dual core 2 gig chips with a gig of ram and 100 gigs of hard drive space. Radeon Mobility X1400 graphics brings you into the game. DVI output is present with a dvd burner and card reader. System is currently SuperOS with all the bells and whistles ringing and blowing. Runs great under full compiz effects...I've used this laptop for making first impressions with new users and it is a powerful tool. Not to mention that it performs beautifully. You can see a full slideshow here. An extra five dollars insures we ship a 1 gig stick of ram for you to upgrade it with.




Acer TravelMate 5720: Problems aside from getting the TrustedCore shredded into non-existence, this is a fantastic laptop. That bully will not bother you any more on this machine. Also I've now heard two stories of people falling with their 5720's and having the computer
breaking their falls...and then firing right up. I can believe it. Sporting a built-in WORKING webcam, it delivers your smiling face via the HD Radeon Mobility 2400 XT graphics setup. It is powered by a 2x Intel Core T7500 dual core chip. This comes with one gig of ram, a 160 gig hard drive. It has a VGA AND a DVI out with a dvd burner rom present. Personally. as much press as the Alienware gets...? I think this TravelMate 5720 is the better laptop. It has a card reader in the front and like the Alienware, it takes conventional and express PCMCIA devices...however wifi is built-in so you will probably not need them for connectivity. Full info can be found here.
An extra five dollars insures we ship a 1 gig stick of ram for you to upgrade it with.

Each laptop comes with the charging device and the Acer has a new spare battery still in the box included.

You want weird prizes? Check this out.

We are offering two AMD 50x15 Personal Internet Devices.

What are they? A minimal function computer about half the size of a toaster. It is capable of surfing the net, sending emails, and it comes with some fairly cool software to include a word processor and other office apps. It has plenty of USB inlets as well as a hookup for a camera to download and upload/email pictures. Aside from the fact that these run a CE version of Microsoft XP, they are pretty cool. Need a computer for the kitchen? Maybe one stashed in the garage or on the workbench for looking up part numbers? A friend keeps one in the glove compartment with 6 feet of cat five so he can connect at client's homes and access the internet. Keyboard and mouse are supplied but it needs a monitor. hey...it's a friggin' raffle. Some wifi dongles will work with this but you have to see which ones will work. Drivers and other software are installable via USB since there is no cd rom. These are new and still in the box, we are giving away two of them. You can see all about them here.




We never, and we mean never, have a raffle without bringing The Goddess Of The Grid and her Linux Networking Cookbook to you. Carla Schroeder has written, what has been described to me, as the definitive Linux Networking manual. I've loaned my copy to 20 year experts in networking and they've all asked me how they could obtain a copy. We have two left from the last raffle...some folks just don't want to get THAT serious about their Linux but their loss is your gain. And by the way...they are personally autographed by Carla.

Entry is Easy. The top left of this page holds a donation link or you can click here to enter. Donations per item are $10.00. So if you donate 30 dollars, you have three tickets in the drawing. if the donation is for like say... 25.00 then we immediately know you want two tickets and want the extra gig stick of ram shipped if you win one of the laptops. Unfortunately, we cannot ship the computers overseas, the cost is simply prohibitive, however Ms. Schroeder's book is shippable anywhere in the world. Directors of The HeliOS Project, volunteers for The HeliOS Project and employees of HeliOS Solutions are not eligible for this drawing. The laptops offered are previously owned and come with no warranty. I've personally both used and inspected these computers from the inside out and they are in great condition.


The funds for this drawing will see to it that we have gas money, maintenance costs and the everyday funding we need to operate our HeliOS Project effort for the next six months. Thanks for everything you do for us and most importantly, thanks for being part of what we do.

The drawing will be held on the Third of July...time to be announced. We are trying to arrange the local firehouse to do the drawing. If that fails, winners will be announced on Twitter.

All-Righty Then