Web Worker Daily

Last week, we offered free passes to the upcoming LessConf in Jacksonville, Fla., to the three WebWorkerDaily readers who gave the best answer to the question, “Which of the speakers at LessConf you’d most like to meet and why?” I’m pleased to be able to announce the winners as:

• Tom Nagle, who wants to meet David Hauser of Grasshopper. “I have been a customer and a user of Grasshopper (and GotVMail) for years, but I have been most impressed with the arc and growth the company has taken over the past six years. As an entrepreneur, watching what they have done is as impressive (and educational) as anything I could read in a book or take in a class. How they launched their company with no outside money, and how they have scaled their growth is worth a two-day business retreat in and of itself.”
• Adam Teece, who wants to meet Gary Vaynerchuk, because “He has been a huge inspiration to me to really work my passion and find ways to make money doing it. Because of him I found one of my passions is teaching people and I love gaming and geek culture.  He has been a big inspiration for my work on creating The Successful Geek brand.  It is still in its infancy and I’m starting to get some great support to really develop it and turn it into something big.”
• Duane Brown, who wants to meet Derek Sivers of CD Baby. Duane “would love to learn about how he came up with the idea, future plans and how he feels he can beat the competition in this indie music scene.”

LessConf is an event for marketers, designers, coders, business people, freelancers and anyone who wants to be inspired by amazing business people. It has a stellar speaker lineup that includes the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk (founder, Wine Library TV), Derek Sivers (founder, CD Baby), Mike McDerment (founder, FreshBooks) and Kevin Hale (founder, Wufoo). The conference is being held in Jacksonville, Fl., on Saturday, Oct. 17th.

Thanks to the kind folks at Less Everything, we have three tickets to give away to WebWorkerDaily readers. For a chance of winning, simply email contests@webworkerdaily.com, letting us know which of the speakers at LessConf you’d most like to meet and why — the best three answers submitted by midnight PT, Monday, Oct. 5th will win a free pass.

Earlier this week, Meryl reviewed WinAutomation, a package that lets you automate many of the routine tasks you do every day on Windows PCs. The kind folks at WinAutomation have offered us three copies of the Professional Edition of the tool, worth $199 each, to give away to WebWorkerDaily readers. To get a chance to win, leave a comment below, letting us know how you would use automation to improve your productivity and reduce wasted time. The best three answers (as selected by WinAutomation’s Jag Foo) will win a WinAutomation 3.0 Professional Edition license. Entries close midnight PDT, Sunday, August 8, and we’ll announce the winners next week.

Thanks to the kind folks at Virgin Mobile USA, we have a free Broadband2Go USB device, worth $149.99, to give away to one lucky reader. The device works with the Broadband2Go network, offering prepaid (no contract) nationwide 3G mobile Internet access.

To be in the running to win, send a description of the craziest thing you’ve had to do in order to get Internet access to contests@webworkerdaily.com. The most deserving story received by 4 pm PT, Friday July 10, will win. Please note that as the device only works in the U.S., this contest is only open to readers from the U.S. The deadline to get in entries closes at 4 pm PT Friday.

Thanks to our friends over at jkOnTheRun for letting us know about the huge HP Magic Giveaway contest. They are one of 50 participating sites that are each giving away a $6,000 prize package containing some great stuff for the Web Worker. The package includes notebooks, desktops, printers, netbooks, software and more.

The jkOnTheRun portion starts on December 16th but you can start entering on the other sites today. More details are available from HP and on each of the sponsoring blogs.

Good Luck!!