Visit Donate To American Red Cross Hurricane Relief To Enter Raffle for a Copy of Visual Studio 2005, Office or Windows to learn more.  Only 5 donors so far, 4 great prizes.  That's quite surprising to me, but good for you if you haven't donated yet -- the chances of winning are extremely high.

Those affected by the hurricane still need our help, so take time today and give.

Through the generous gift from one of the MVPs I can sweeten this offer for helping Hurricane Katrina and Rita Victims.  We now have a copy of Windows XP Professional and Office Professional Edition 2003 to raffle in addition to Visual Studio 2005.  Instead of one lucky winner we will have three.

Interestingly enough, we only have three people currently in the running.  Give them some competition -- odds are really good right now for anyone to win.  The real winners are the folks devastated by the hurricanes.

Details are located in Donate To American Red Cross Hurricane Relief To Enter Raffle for a Copy of Visual Studio 2005, Office or Windows. Hurry, offer good until September 30!

Richard Kuo, CTO of SnapStream writes how they are being affected by Hurricane Rita, which has now become a category 5 storm.  Scary.

It's a good time to remind folks to donate to the Red Cross for a chance to win Visual Studio 2005.  Details are on my post Donate To American Red Cross Hurricane Relief To Enter Raffle for a Copy of Visual Studio 2005.  I'm sure folks in Texas will need the help as well, so be generous and give.

If you haven't already given, let this be your incentive, as it was for Brian...

"I got up last Saturday morning planning to go to the Red Cross web site and make a donation and reading your post pressed me to do it sooner rather than later."

I posted Donate To American Red Cross Hurricane Relief To Enter Raffle for a Copy of Visual Studio 2005 at the very start of a long holiday weekend, so perhaps folks missed.  Based on the stats for this blog, I have about 200 regular readers. I know Media Center users and developers are a passionate bunch of folks, so I'm hoping the community will step up. The math is pretty awesome...

200 Readers X $100 Each = $20,000

Don't miss out on this wonderful opportunity to help the thousands in need.

[Thanks to Brad C. who caught my poor math skills...]

Total Raised So Far: $1,323

Update: Through the generous gift from one of the MVPs and a fellow Microsoft employee I can sweeten this offer.  We now have a copy of Windows XP Professional, Office Professional Edition 2003 and Visual Studio 2003 to raffle in addition to Visual Studio 2005.  Instead of one lucky winner we will have four.

Ed Bott, Newsgator, Thomas Hawk, Microsoft and a great discussion during our team lunch today made me want to do *something* to help in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

The result: I'm going to raffle off a single copy of Visual Studio 2005.

Here is how you enter...

1) Visit https://give.redcross.org/.

2) Donate a minimum of US $100 (One Hundred US Dollars) towards 'Hurricane 2005 Relief'.

3) Forward to me the email confirmation you receive from the American Red Cross.

FAQ

• The email confirmation from the American Red Cross does not contain any credit card information -- it's only your name, address, donation amount, time stamp and two tracking numbers.
• Unless you state otherwise when you forward the email confirmation I will post your first and last name in updates to this post to recognize your contribution.
• The email confirmation from the American Red Cross includes a link which can help you identify whether or not your company has a matching gifts program, and give you some details on how to leverage.
• Raffle entries will be accepted through September 30, 2005 11:59 PM.
• I don't know the ship schedule for Visual Studio 2005.  The software will be delivered to you sometime the first week of October or when it becomes available in the retail / reseller channel, whichever comes last.

Contributors

• Greg Duncan http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com
• Brian Lakstins http://www.balconsulting.net/DasBlog/default.aspx
• Steven Ackerman http://spaces.msn.com/members/sjackerman
• Paolo Hutchison
• Stephen Carroll

• Robert Jordan