When the Mac OS X Hints book was officially completed, I announced a charity auction of 15 signed copies of the book, with all proceeds going to Doernbecher Children's Hospital here in Portland.
The auction wrapped a while back (with 14 winners each offering $50 for the book), but between the job, the site, the impending arrival of our daughter, and any number of other excuses, I hadn't gotten around to finishing the project. I took the time today, though, and wrote out a check for $800 (I added some of my own money to get to a nice, even number) to Doernbecher, and included a letter explaining where the donation came from. Click on the letter image to the left (or just click here) to see the entire letter (it's a 100Kb JPEG image) if you're interested. The value of the donation was also doubled due to a matching gift campaign by the Ford Family Foundation, so in essence, we donated $1,600 to the hospital!
You'll note that I said 14 books -- one auction winner couldn't be located, so there's actually one signed book left over. Instead of auctioning it off, though, I thought it'd be kind of fun to give away to a lucky reader. So if you'd like a signed (David Pogue and myself) copy of Mac OS X Hints Jaguar Edition, just send me an email (SORRY, CONTEST IS CLOSED NOW!). You don't need any content in the email; just a valid return email address so I can let you know if you've won. I'll collect emails through the end of the weekend, put them in a list, and have Excel generate a random number between 1 and N to determine the lucky winner...
Have a great weekend everyone!
-rob.

