I got an email yesterday from the domain www.microsoft-ace.com. I have been nominated for an ACE (Award for Customer Excellence) for my contributions to the development of Visual Studio 2005.
As much as I like to think that people listen to what I say and that I had a huge impact on the VS product line, there just isn't that much justification for my head inflating to that size. Regardless, this completely came out of the blue, so much so that I didn't know whether it was an elaborate phishing scam or not.
I was skeptical about the email because I had never heard of Microsoft's ACE program, the website was asking for personal details and it has it's own domain name instead of being under www.microsoft.com, kind of like those domain names that look like http://www.ebaysecure.com/letmephishyou. The Microsoft ACE website looks quite genuine, but a quick Google search found other blogs where people had received the same email and didn't know if it was legit.
I flicked off an email to Quite Frankly A Champion and asked if it was for real. For real it was. He said I was an ACE.
I will accept Microsoft gifts gladly with open arms.
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