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November 10, 2011
PC

When Windows Went to Oprah with @TimeoutMom



Today, I’m posting on behalf of a great blogger, social media & digital strategy consultant, Melissa Lierman. In the past 10 years, Melissa has spoken, educated, and trained thousands of people at more than 300 events and conferences keeping everyone up-to-date about digital strategy development, social media, marketing, branding, website development, and SEO. She applies those skills in her day-to-day professional life as a consultant and director of social media for a variety of businesses, especially in the tech & health industries.

She is a live blogger & tweeter extraordinaire who is brought in as an individual or with a team to conferences and events to bring events to life LIVE (including two of Oprah’s LifeClass’ live in Chicago this month). When she’s not speaking, she loves the one-on-one strategizing she does with businesses, brands, PR agencies, small businesses, and bloggers. Melissa has three children, is a mom blogger atTimeOutMom.com, an avid tweeter @TimeOutMom, and loves connecting with people all over the world!

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This month I head to Chicago to be a live blogger & live tweeter for Oprah’s LifeClass Live. I had been a few weeks ago as a live stenographer of the words, wisdom, and feelings from the event. While there, my PC could not keep up with the speed of all that I needed to say to the world! I was typing faster than the characters were displaying. It was so frustrating. I’m a speed typist and need more than the normal amount of computing power.

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When Kristina, part of the Windows Team at Microsoft, found out my dilemma on the day of Oprah’s LifeClass – they made some phone calls and got me connected with Chicago’s awesome Microsoft Store and their manager Joseph. Long story short, I zipped over to the Chicago Microsoft Store the day of the show with two other bloggers – Allison D Graham and Margarita Ibbott.

Upon our arrival, Chicago’s Microsoft Store Manager, Joseph literally took me by the hand and showed me every laptop he had and discussed with me my power and speed needs. We spent the next 20-30 minutes going through the look, feel, and power of laptops at his store. Now, I could have spent all day learning with and playing with all of these Windows PCs! However, due to the time crunch I was under I asked Joseph to narrow it down to three PCs that would meet my needs and from those I then chose the ASUS-U56E laptop.

A big thanks to Joseph from the Chicago Microsoft Store for just jumping in, taking care of my need for speed and multi-tasking, and also saving the day for me to make sure I could fulfill my duties as an #OprahsLifeClass blogger again!

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LOOK AND FEEL

I was drawn to this particular laptop for the look and feel. It looks sleek, sharp, and techie! I am a huge multi-tasker with an unbelievable amount of necessary applications that need to be open, especially when I am traveling on the road for business.

The ASUS-U56E was able to meet all of my multi-tasking – my “10 application windows open at a time” needs. My typing never had a lag between what I typed and what was displayed. The whole time I was at Harpo Studios (5:30pm to 10:00pm), I never needed re-charge the battery. So, now that we have the performance out of the way, let’s talk about its sleek style and beauty.

Now, I didn’t plan it but this laptop actually color coordinated perfectly with my deep steel grey suit with deep jewel toned teal shirt. It looks techie, smart, and sleek! I loved the whole package.

One detail that I was unaware of until I was sitting in the OWN studio was the fact that this laptop has two rubber feet plus a huge raised rubber bar at the back of the laptop. Why was this so amazing? Well, I was sitting in Harpo Studios for 5+ hours using that laptop typing as fast as I could and that feet & bar helped tremendously because I was doing all of this work from my actual lap!

The keyboard is very important for me. The matte keys were a nice feel, size, and shape. I typically have problems with flat (non-curved) keys because I type so fast. Often with flat keys, my fingers slip over to another key once I get going. I did not have this problem with these flat keys. I am wondering if this is due to their matte finish. Nonetheless, they work well for me!

This laptop was a huge success for me! The ASUS-U56E laptop not only allowed me to do my job again as Oprah’s LifeClass Live Tweeter & Blogger, but never held me back or slowed me down like the laptop before! It looked great, performed great, and did not slip off my lap for the 5+ hours I was laptop blogging. What more could I ask for?

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