Late last week, I decided to begin the process of moving the forums from the aeroxp domain to the winjade domain, finalizing a transition that was planned before the turn of the year. That said, the original plan didn’t play out as intended, which is why I’m writing this today.

For now, the board is still frozen in order to prevent further writes (which would necessitate yet another board database migration, which none of us can do at the moment due to the burden of time). I’m going to be in New York over the next two days covering product announcements and developing more content, so there will not be any updates to the board before Thursday at the earliest. That said, you can take a look to your right to see other sites which are definitely worth your time during this outage. Personally, I would like to recommend taking a quick look at UrbanTops, a planned nonprofit venture between Michael Reyes of HardwareGeeks as well as myself. There isn’t much there, but you can get a feel for some of our upcoming plans.

We’re all looking forward to seeing you again! We anticipate being back online, forums and all, by this Saturday, and I look forward to getting back to bringing more of the videos you all know and love now that time has become an ample asset.

Update: The board has successfully been upgraded. We’ll be working out some minor kinks here and there before opening it up later today (Sunday).
Update 2: and we’re back! Barring some user-uploaded files which are currently being migrated, the board is now up and running.

-Bryant, on behalf of Sam, Stan, Rob, and the rest of the winJade staff

Starting today, I’ll be at the Consumer Electronics show looking for new Microsoft-related happenings. This means that I’ll be skipping a lot of the new TV-related news (3D TV, basically) and most other home entertainment bits. Most of what I catch will either be with computers or Microsoft-based gadgetry.

That said, if you’re looking for broad CES coverage beyond video interviews and reviews, be sure to watch Neowin’s dedicated CES-related postings.

Enjoy the show!

My thanks goes, as noted before, to Microsoft for providing the licenses to give away. Best of luck to you all!

Last Update: the final drawing has been completed. Congratulations to @wizardcm for winning the last license! I’ll strive to find more to give away from CES.

Windows 7 launched on October 22nd to mass fanfare, and a good friend of mine at the event thought it would be fantastic to spread the Windows 7 spirit. In addition to assisting with Mary Jo’s Windows 7 afterparty in NYC (giveaway video here), he passed a few licenses my way to give away on winJade, so here it goes.

I’ve got three Windows 7 Ultimate licenses to give away (pictured above), and they’ll be given away as follows:

• The first on Christmas Day (25th). @yertosaurus nabbed this one!
• The second on December 28. @migue333 won this license!
• The last on December 31. @wizardcm got this last license!

If you want one, dive in to find out what you need to do. It’s pretty simple.

There are three steps for you to take part:

1. Tell us what you think is the best new feature in Windows 7. You can expand on this with whatever else you want, such as what you wished made it into Windows 7 prior to RTM or what you hope ends up in Windows 8. Remember to comment with a valid email address, and a valid twitter URL (twitter.com/yourtwittername) as the URL in your comment. Otherwise, I’ve got no way of getting in touch with you if you’ve won. If your comment doesn’t immediately appear, don’t fret; I need to approve comments before they show up, but I’ll still see your comment either way.
2. Follow @eganist on Twitter. Otherwise, you’ll have no real way of knowing whether or not you won, which would truly suck if you happened to be one of the ones to win..
3. Retweet This. Or, if you’d prefer using your own client, just tweet “RT @eganist Win 1 of 3 #Windows7 Ultimate licenses for Christmas, New Years’ from #winJade: http://is.gd/5v9lu” without quotes.

I need at least 100 qualifying retweets by 11:50 AM Eastern Time on Christmas Day for this giveaway to go ahead, so be sure to enter!

Each retweet counts as an entry, so if you want multiple chances to win, you can retweet that line (at most) once every 12 hours. The comment and any tweets need to be up before the drawing dates listed above to qualify for said drawing dates. That’s it, really. 

Regarding shipping, here’s the thing: I can send the physical disc to any winners within the continental United States. However, I cannot ship the disc on my own to any winners outside the continental United States. As such, if you happen to win and you’re not in the continental United States (meaning the 48 states that happen to be touching each other), you have a choice of either reimbursing my shipping costs or agreeing to receive only the key on one of these discs. To the rest of you within the continental United States, if you happen to win, we’ll discuss how to get this thing to your place via email.

I should note that Microsoft employees, any employees working with the PR firms Waggener Edstrom and Edelman, as well as close friends and immediate family of me or anyone working for winJade cannot participate (it would be unfair, and you know it).

For those of you visiting from AeroXperience, you guys are likely well aware of how AeroXperience was started. We began as a set of forums in March of 2004 dedicated to Windows Code Name Longhorn, which later became Windows Vista. We’ve prided ourselves with breaking news about some of the most coveted features in Vista during the Vista development process as well as with breaking the initial reports of the direction of Windows 7. AeroXperience has been one of the most accurate (and most opinionated, in some cases) sources of Windows coverage and news; amongst our bloggers, we’ve had the pleasure of having both Stephen Chapman and Rafael Rivera posting on behalf of AeroXperience during our run, and as I sit here next to them now in the PDC press room, I want to shift the attention to what winJade is and how we plan on rolling this out.

winJade is, in some senses, a new direction for us while allowing us to persist in our current mission of delivering relevant and informative Microsoft coverage. During this initial blog roll-out (planned for PDC), the purpose of the blog will still be to deliver the informative material and solid commentary on the world of Windows which you’ve come to expect. However, the purpose of the forums will shift from merely being a place to discuss Windows to becoming more of a home for novice Windows users, experienced users, and Windows experts to come together and not only talk about Windows and help each other but to also work on individual and group projects. winJade will be a home for people with ideas to implement those ideas, gather feedback, and gain an audience for the next great Windows program, tool, or concept. Stan and I have a few ideas we will be revealing on winJade when the time comes in addition to the innovative ideas which continue to find development time on the forums.

My utmost thanks go to Sam Johnson for implementing my vision for the new winJade blog, to Frank with Contrast Hosting for helping us in this transition, and to the many members on the forums who kept track of our progress and offered the many suggestions we’ve read.

From AeroXperience’s start as a home for discovery in Windows Longhorn to winJade’s mission for information and innovation, we’re looking forward to being your home not only for Microsoft news but for some of the most promising Windows-related projects.