Matt Hester announced on his blog a chance to win a free laptop or some other prizes, all you have to do is create a screen cast that shows the use of PHP and IIS 7.  The catch being that you can only enter if you are a Microsoft MVP in the US, which means that those who actually enter should have a great chance at winning.

Doing a screen cast is not that hard to do and actually I do them just for fun.  There are some on this site, and also I have a few at another site, even one that deals with Installing PHP on IIS 7.  The thing I found the most amazing is the comments on the blog that show generally apathy to actually having to learn something outside their comfort zone.  To me a MVP is the best and brightest in his speciality, but not only that but someone who is just technical.  They should have no problem picking up something else that really isn’t that hard. There are a ton of tutorials out there:

Installing WordPress on IIS 7 – Part 1
Installing WordPress on IIS7 – Part 2
Install MySQL on IIS7 Server 2008

Someone who is as technical as an MVP should not have an issue reading up and producing something even basic to enter. I think back to a few days ago when I was hanging out with my wife getting things ready for our Thanksgiving party, and Jeopardy came on the tv.  She watched for awhile and commented on what a lame game show it was compared to Deal or No Deal.  The main reason of course was because the questions were "hard".  DOND was much more popular with her, because you could win just as much or more but your really didn’t have to know much to win. Is it out of style to want someone to really earn a chance to win something?  I hope not, and I hope that the majority of the MVP community didn’t bother to comment and just went about doing it.

I wish Matt the best of luck with his contest and I hope he gets some amazing entries.  I wish I could enter, but I’m no MVP (yet!), but when I do I hope I am one who will just do it!

UPDATE:  Well apparently no one is doing it after all, I just saw a second follow-up post from Matt that he has had no entries for this contest from a MVP.  How ridiculous is that?  Maybe they will open it up to non-MVPs, but I think they will just end up canceling it.  Here’s hoping some of the MVPs step up and do it not just for the laptop, but to produce something that could be used to help others work with PHP on IIS 7.