Julie

It looks like you guys had a lot of fun with our contest over the weekend – there were so many creative ideas for mobile devices, I can tell that this is something you’ve all thought about on your own for some time! Now, if only we could find someone to build these devices for you….

Well, in the meantime, while you wait for your dream devices to become reality, how about I announce the winners? Yeah, I thought you’d like that idea. The first place winner of a $50 Amazon or iTunes gift card is: spmwinkel, who cleverly posted a wish for every letter of the alphabet. Great thinking!

Our runners-up, who each receive a $25 Amazon or iTunes gift card, are: Doug, Philip Ferris, and HKK. Winners, I’ll be contacting you via email to find out which store you’d like your gift card from. If you don’t get that email later today, reply to this post to let me know.

And to the winners of the other contests last week – I’ll be sending out the gift cards this morning, so let me know if you don’t get your email!

This officially concludes our special anniversary celebration – we will now return to our regular blog broadcasting. Thanks to everyone for playing along – I hope you enjoyed our 12th anniversary as much as we did. See you next year for lucky 13!

This is it: the final contest in our week-long anniversary party. What will it be? Well, with the weekend coming up, we didn’t want to make you work too hard, because I hear it’s supposed to be sunny and I know you’ve got lots of gardening and stuff to do. So all you have to do is finish this sentence:

My ideal mobile device would….

That’s it – easy as pie! You can be honest, you can be imaginitive, or you can be both. For example, I sometimes honestly wish my computer would sprout arms and legs and start cleaning the house like Rosie on The Jetsons. (I get to cheat and say ‘computer’ because I don’t have any mobile devices of my own.)

So here’s your chance to tell us about the cool gadget ideas you’ve had. Maybe you’ve wished your phone could send music via Bluetooth to your hearing aid. Or you’ve always dreamt of being able to say “beam me up, HTC Advantage” and get teleported to work, avoiding the stress of rush hour.

[Read more…] about Contest Three: Finish this sentence….

Yesterday’s contest took us all for a walk down memory lane – and does anyone else find it strange that two of the comments were from people living in Zimbabwe when they were 12? One of those weird little coincidences, for sure.

Anyway, on to what you really want to know: the winners! There were a lot of great stories that reminded some of us here of our own childhoods. But, unfortunately, not everyone can win, so we finally settled on our four favorites.

The first place winner of a $50 Amazon or iTunes gift card is Robbie – your brilliant plan to use “Pong” to (try to) win yourself a girl won us over during voting!

Our three runners-up, who each receive a $25 Amazon or iTunes gift card, are: Singh (your calculator watch was probably pretty cool back then – I remember those), Melvyn (I actually do believe about your teacher’s name; it’s one of those things that’s so awful, it has to be true), and Patrick (wow – I didn’t have to run the mile until high school, but it was still dreadful then).

[Read more…] about Winners: Kickin’ it old school

For today’s contest you’ll need to exercise your memory, dust off the old photo albums, and think back to the good old days. As you know, we’ve just turned 12, and we want to know what to expect of the next year. So that’s where you come in. All you need to do is answer the following question:

What were you like when you were twelve?

Simple, right? Everyone was 12 once, and it lasted a whole year, so you’ve got to have lots of great stories about it. Were you the president of the computer club, or maybe a jock-in-training, or perhaps you were like, totally, the cheerleading captain. Did you have one of those awesome, giant cell phones like Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell? Maybe you liked to take apart toasters and turn them into shortwave radios, build model cars, or put together little dance routines with your friends (yes, I admit it, that was me).

Spend a little time reminiscing and let us know in the comments below – we’ve only been 12 for a couple days now and we want to know what we have to look forward to! And I promise, no matter how big of a dork – or how “rad” – you were, we won’t laugh…at least, not to your face.

This is the second contest in our week-long 12-year anniversary celebration. We will pick four winners during each contest: the winners can choose between an iTunes or Amazon gift card as their prize. First place winners receive a $50 gift card, and runners-up will get $25. Enter as many times as you like, by submitting your entries as replies to this post. Employees and friends of Ilium Software aren’t eligible to win, but are welcome (and encouraged) to participate anyway. Today’s contest closes at 12:00 noon Eastern Time tomorrow. Winners will be announced during the day tomorrow.

And don’t forget, we’ve got more going on this week besides contests! Shop for anything in our online store and get a big $12 discount off your purchase! You can read more here and start shopping now.

The votes are in! There were a lot of strange, weird, and funny headlines from our MadLibs game yesterday, so it took us some time today to narrow down the list to four winners. But we’ve picked our favorites and now it’s time to let you know which headlines we liked best.

The first place winner of a $50 Amazon or iTunes gift card is Melvyn, for the crazy headline: “Today Microsoft announced its merger with Amazon and unveiled its plans to sell toenails to Bolivia.” Eww…gross. Can you even imagine a merger like that – or living in Bolivia and seeing toenails for sale at your local store?

Our three runners-up, who each receive a $25 Amazon or iTunes gift card, are: Paperjet, Shaun, and MikeCTZA. Well done, everyone! I’ll be contacting you via email to find out which store you’d like your gift card from. If you don’t get that email later today, reply to this post to let me know.

To everyone who played, thanks so much – the entries were great, and it was a tough decision. But don’t go far, because we’ll start a new contest tomorrow and you can try your luck at a prize again!

And just a reminder: we’ve got a big anniversary sale running on our site this week too. All of the software in our online store, and eWallet on the iPhone App Store, are discounted BIG right now. Check it out here!

We’re going to start off our week of anniversary contests with a blast from the past – er, a blast from one year ago, that is.

One of the best contests we ran for last year’s party was a fun-filled game of mobile-style MadLibs; we got a lot of hilarious responses. So, I decided we really should go for another round!

If you don’t know what MadLibs are, well, that’s just sad – they were a childhood staple where I grew up. I’ve got some fond memories of rainy afternoons sitting around laughing at the crazy MadLibs my friends and I used to make up. And that was just last week! Anyway, you can get a crash course on MadLibs here, then head on back to this post more details on our contest.

[Read more…] about Contest One: Say what?!