TechCrunch Disrupt NY is right around the corner. Everything kicks off this weekend in New York with the Hackathon starting on Saturday and going through the night until Sunday afternoon. The main event kicks off next Monday, where expert speakers and guests will come together to talk with us about the latest in technology. The full agenda is here.

Every week we have been giving away a chance to win a free ticket to Disrupt NY. We only have two free tickets left. These tickets will get the two winners into the conference, plus all of the after parties that follow including the screening of Shawn Fanning’s documentary on Napster, DOWNLOADED.

To win a ticket all you have to do is follow the steps below. The giveaway will start now and end tomorrow at 12pm PT. Yes, that’s only one day, so be sure to act fast.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us why you want to come

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winners tomorrow. Anyone in the world is eligible. Please note each ticket is for one person only and does not include airfare or hotel.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

We’ll see you soon, New York!

Update: This giveaway is now over. We will update this post once we have our winner.

Spring has arrived in New York City. The sun is out (besides today). The snow is finally gone. It’s time to shed the winter layers and head outside. And in the spirit of spring, we want to give one of our readers a ticket to Disrupt NY and the ultimate outdoor toy: A Parrot AR Drone 2.0.

Disrupt NY kicks off later this month. The lineup is stellar and we have a new venue. The hackathon and conference will be housed in the Manhattan Center, located conveniently in midtown with plenty of access to public transit. Tickets are still available but we’re giving you a chance to win one right here.

The winner of this giveaway will walk away with one ticket to Disrupt NY (valued at $2,995) and one Parrot AR Drone 2.0 ($299.95).

Want a shot to win? Follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

• Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag), or
• Leave us a comment below telling us something fun – anything!

The contest will start now and ends April 22nd at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet or comment once, or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner once the giveaway is over. Please note the winner will only receive one (1) free Disrupt ticket, and it does not include airfare or hotel.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

Update: This giveaway is now over. We will update this post once we have our winner.
Update: Congratulations to Rahat Kukreja!

Disrupt NY is less than a month away. Tickets are still available at the early bird discount, but only for one more week. Or you can save some cash and win a ticket here thanks to our partner New Relic.

Fresh off of raising $80 million at a near-billion dollar valuation and announcing its mobile app monitoring offering, New Relic is footing the bill for four lucky winners this week. If that wasn’t enough, New Relic is also giving away free RC Helicopters to any developer who sets up their web or mobile monitoring on their applications.

Want in? Here’s all you have to do to enter.

To win a free ticket to Disrupt NY:

1) Retweet this post making sure to include the #Nerdlife hashtag in the tweet. We will post the winners at the bottom of this post on Monday after 7:30pm PT.

Please only tweet once, or you will be disqualified. New Relic will make sure you follow the step above and choose the four winners once the giveaway is over. Please note the free Disrupt tickets are for one ticket per winner only and do not include airfare or hotel.

To get a free Remote Control Helicopter from New Relic:

1) Follow this link and try New Relic’s Web Monitoring service or their newer Mobile Monitoring service (some basic dev skills required). You’ll get data on your web apps with your New Relic account and 14 days of their best PRO level of service for free. No worries, no obligation to buy whatsoever.

About New Relic: New Relic is a fast-growing SF SaaS company that serves over 300,000 developers worldwide and collects over 100 billion metrics every day for sites like Groupon, Wanelo, Kickstarter, Nike and Comcast. They also are the first nerdy systems management company to get over 300,000 views on a rap video celebrating the #nerdlife. Watch it below. MC Frontalot FTW.

Update: Congratulations to: 

Happy Friday, everyone. As you know, we love giving things away here at TechCrunch, and this week, we have a Fitbit One Wireless Activity + Sleep Tracker and an Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale to give away. But that’s not all!

TechCrunch Disrupt NY is right around the corner and tickets are going super fast, so we want to give away another ticket to a deserving person who would like to attend (and then party with us). The winner of this giveaway will win all three — the Fitbit One ($99.95), the Smart Scale ($129.95) and a free ticket to Disrupt NY (valued at $1,995 right now).

Want a shot to win all three? Follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

• Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag), or
• Leave us a comment below telling us something fun – anything!

The contest will start now and end April 5th at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet or comment once, or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner once the giveaway is over. Please note the winner will only receive one (1) free Disrupt ticket, and it does not include airfare or hotel.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

Update: Congrats to Daniel Correa, founder of Gloup!

Want a chance to win a free ticket to Disrupt NY, as well as a free Kindle Fire HD and a Kindle Paperwhite? Yes? Who wouldn’t? If so, keep reading.

The Kindle Fire HD is one of the best 7-inch tablets available. While the original model was the first small tablet with a nice price tag, its successor is a much sturdier device. With a 1280×800 display and 16 GB of storage, the Kindle Fire HD will allow you to easily watch, read and listen to content from Amazon’s digital stores. If you’re already into the Amazon ecosystem, you’ll constantly use this tablet.

The Kindle Paperwhite is Amazon’s latest e-reader. Even though a full-fledged tablet will allow you to do more, a dedicated reading device is a must for book lovers. The fifth generation is a major improvement over the Kindle Touch. Everything was improved from the operating system to the display resolution. In addition to those updates, you can now read in the dark thanks to Amazon’s frontlighting system.

So if you want a chance to win both products plus a free ticket to our big event in New York, all you have to do is follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

• Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag), or
• Leave us a comment below telling us why you want to win all three prizes

The contest will start now and end March 25th at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet or comment once, or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner once the giveaway is over. Please note the free Disrupt ticket is for one ticket only and does not include airfare or hotel.

Good luck!

Update: This giveaway is now over. We will update this post once we have our winner.
Update: Congrats to Dave Weinberg!

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

TechCrunch Disrupt NY is right around the corner! We have already announced many influential speakers, including Kevin Systrom of Instagram, Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital, Ron Conway of SV Angel, Kevin Ryan of Gilt Groupe and will be announcing many more soon. You can view the whole list of speakers and special guests we have announced so far here.

Disrupt NY is going to be an amazing show. We are giving away one free ticket to the show that will get you into the full three days of the conference, plus all of the after parties where you can dance and drink the night away with us. We also are going to give away a Nest learning thermostat.

The Nest is better than your regular thermostat because it can actually learn your daily schedule, and program itself to change heating and cooling patterns accordingly. It knows when you’re away and when you’re at home, and using it can lower your home’s energy bill by around 20 percent. You can also connect to the Nest remotely via the Nest Mobile app for Android and iPhone and change the temperature even if you’re on a business trip on the other side of the world. This second-generation version is compatible with a lot more home heating and cooling systems, too, and smaller than the first-gen device.

Want a shot at winning both? All you have to do is follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what your favorite thing is about New York City

The giveaway starts now and ends next Friday at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner next Friday. Anyone in the world is eligible. Please note the ticket is for one person only and does not include airfare or hotel.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

Update: Congratulations to Kathy Hanley!

As you know TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 is right around the corner. This April we will be, as they say, taking over the Big Apple. We have already announced a few of our special guests and speakers, including Instagram’s Kevin Systrom, Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha, SV Angel’s Ron Conway and David Lee, Thrillist Media Group’s Ben Lerer, Managing Director of Lerer Ventures & co-founder and former Chairman of The Huffington Post’s Ken Lerer, Gilt Groupe’s Kevin Ryan, and Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson. Those are just to name a few. We will have more exciting announcements coming up, so be on the lookout for those.

A couple of weeks ago, we gave away a free Disrupt ticket and a free Lytro camera to a lucky winner. Have you heard about GoPro? Well my colleague Kim-Mai Cutler wrote an amazing piece about their new camera. And guess what? We are giving one of those away, too. One lucky winner will receive a free ticket to Disrupt NY, plus the top model of the new GoPro camera — the HERO3 Black Edition, valued at $399.99.

To win both, all you have to do is follow the steps below. The giveaway will start now and end next Friday, March 1st, at 7:30 pm PT.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what you’re excited to use the camera for

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner next Friday. Anyone in the world is eligible. Please note the ticket is for one person only and does not include airfare or hotel.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

Update: Congratulations to Cassy Graikowski!

TechCrunch Disrupt NY, one of our biggest events of the year, is well on its way! We have already begun to announce which special guests and speakers will be joining us this April, but that’s only the beginning. We have so many exciting guests and speakers to announce, special after-party details to share, startups to meet with, and other surprises up our sleeves.

In just a few months TechCrunch will again be taking over New York City, and we’re giving you a way to experience all the action. Tickets are already on sale, but this is your first chance to win a free ticket to Disrupt NY (valued at $1,795).

The winner of this giveaway won’t just win a free ticket to Disrupt NY though. Listen carefully… they will also take home a brand new Lytro camera. We’ve written plenty of posts about this impressive little camera which you can all find here. Long story short, the Lytro is the only camera that lets users constantly refocus photographs even after the photo has been taken. It’s a hot little number for sure, and it’s valued at around $400.

Want a shot at winning a brand new Lytro and a free ticket to Disrupt NY? All you have to do is follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TCDisrupt hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us why you should win

The contest will start now and next Friday, February 15th, at 7:30pm PT.

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner next week. Anyone in the world is eligible. Please note the free ticket is for one ticket only and does not include airfare or hotel.

Here are some sample photographs taken with the Lytro camera. Be sure to click on them to experience the change.

Update: This giveaway is over. We will update this post once we have our winner.

Update: Congrats to Pawel Puchalski!

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, the 6th Annual Crunchies Awards are nearly upon us! Voting concluded last night and the last set of tickets are on sale now. If you want to purchase them in time for next week’s show you’d better hurry, because the tickets are going fast.

Next Thursday is going to be a night you will never forget. We have all-star surprise guests, musical guests and an Emmy Award-winning writer hosting the show. That’s not all; the after party will be a blast as well.

This is one of your last chances to win tickets to this year’s show. The Crunchies are being held at the gorgeous Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco next Thursday, January 31st, starting at 7:00pm, with the after party following directly after. The after party will have drinks, hors d’oeuvres, special guests, and more.

Also, it’s a fancy show, so be sure to dress your best.

Just because we love you all and want to give everyone a shot at coming to the show, we are going to pick three winners for this giveaway. Each winner will receive 2 tickets to the show, plus we’ll throw in a free Nike+ Fuel Band where you can track your day, set goals for yourself and more. Oh, and we’ll even let you pick which color you want. Darrell Etherington and I each bought one in Vegas after CES, and we have been competing with each other every day since. They are each valued at around $150. You can check out more about the Fuel Bands here.

So, who wants a chance to come with us and win a Fuel Band? If so, all you have to do is follow the steps below:

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #Crunchies hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us why we should PICK YOU

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner on Sunday, January 27th at 7:00pm PT. Please note this giveaway is for two free tickets and one free Nike+ Fuel Band only and does not include airfare or hotel. Good luck everyone.

Update: The giveaway is now over. Congrats to Mike Ashland, Cristian Constantin Olarasu, and Kyle Banuelos!

It was early 2011 and TechCrunch’s comment section was overrun with trolls. Bullies and asshats were drowning out our smart commenters. We hated our commenters because, well, they hated us. So we rolled out Facebook Comments in an attempt to silence the trolls — by removing their anonymity.

But we eventually discovered that our anti-troll tactic worked too well; The bullies and asshats left our comments sections, but so did everyone else. Now, several years later, after dozens of endless meetings and conference calls, we’ve decided we’re going to try out Livefyre instead of Facebook Comments.

Frankly, our trial with Facebook Comments lasted way too long at too steep of a cost. Sure, Facebook Comments drove extra traffic to the site, but the vast majority of our readers clearly do not feel the system is worthy of their interaction.

And we want our commenters back.

Livefyre offers the best mix of commenting and admin tools currently available, and our developers stand behind it. Some sites have killed comments altogether, turning instead to Twitter and aggregators for user interaction. But we want your feedback. We want to know what you think about an article. Call out our typos, join the discussion, give us counterpoints — just don’t be a dick. Remember, Elin is always lurking in the comments with her banhammer ready.

There are bound to be bugs at launch. Let me apologize for those now. But to us, a buggy Livefyre launch, with lots of you using it and breaking it, is still better than Facebook Comments.

What you will be doing:

TechCrunch Profiles

• You will now be creating “TechCrunch” accounts where you can sign in socially and all of your comments will be tracked on your profile screen, which is launched by clicking on a username. This means you can maintain your anonymity,  but there is still accountability as your comments are all attached to one profile.
• You will have the option to edit your own profile at any time and edit notifications. Just hover over your username. You will see the options there.

How it works:

Livefyre features

• Post comments in real-time for everyone to see, and have a live discussion right on our site.
• Easily format your post to express your opinions with rich text like bold, italic, lists, and more.
• Click or Type “@” in the comment box to tag users in the conversations and your friends from Facebook or Twitter. Personalize the message you share to their wall or send in an @reply to include them in the discussion.
• Links containing “http” will automatically be hyperlinked; YouTube videos, Flickr images, and other media from across the web will automatically be embedded in the comment stream, playable inline and all.
• Share your comment to Facebook and Twitter clicking the icons next to the “Post Comment As” button.
• If you hover over the time-stamp, you’ll reveal a few options: delete your comment, “flag” other’s comments as Offensive, Spam, Off-topic, or Disagree, and share any comment to Facebook and Twitter or get the permalink to the comment.
• See that little notifier pop-up in the right hand corner? That is a live update of new comments on the page, displaying the user’s comment and avatar. Your view won’t move until you click on the bubble, which scroll and reveal the new comments.
• You’ll also see us using the LiveBlog to report the stories that you care about most in real-time. Our editors will post content as a story unfolds, and users can like, share, and reply to any post to spur conversations about the best events and interact directly with other users talking about the same moment.
• You will now be creating “TechCrunch” accounts where you can sign in socially and all of your comments will be tracked on your profile screen, which is launched by clicking on a username. This means you can maintain your anonymity,  but there is still accountability as your comments are all attached to one profile.
• You will have the option to edit your own profile at any time and edit notifications. Just hover over your username. You will see the options there.

The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards will soon be upon us and (if you hadn’t noticed) we just announced our new host. The Daily Show’s John Oliver will take the stage at this year’s Crunchies Awards and we couldn’t be more excited. Not only is he hilarious, but he has been nominated for multiple prestigious awards and won the Emmy Award for Best Comedy Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series in 2009 and 2011. We told you this award show, coined the Oscars of tech, will not disappoint, and we meant it.

We’re incredibly lucky to have John Oliver host, but we also have plenty of surprises up our sleeves — expect to hear more about them in the weeks leading up to the show on January 31st at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Tickets are already on sale and we are filling up fast. Since we have just released the full list of the finalists nominated, voting has begun. However, since we know not all of you will be able to purchase tickets, we wanted to give our loyal readers a chance to win some. Today, we are giving away two free tickets (valued at $120 each) to the Crunchies Awards — only one reader will win, but they’ll be able to bring a friend, colleague, date, or whomever they choose. The night will be filled with surprises, influential tech gurus, drinks, hors d’oeuvres, giveaways and much more.

Want a chance to come join us? All you have to do is follow the steps below!

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #Crunchies hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what your favorite comedy show is

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner January 6th at 7:30pm PT. Anyone is the world is eligible. Please note: this giveaway is for two tickets only and does not include airfare or hotel.

Update: Congratulations to Gregg Hanano for winning!

The presents are piling, the fire is crackling, the drinks are flowing and in some parts of the world the snow is falling. From all of us at TechCrunch, we hope everyone is having a merry Christmas. For this week’s giveaway, we wanted to do something extra special, because well, it’s Christmas! The lucky winner of this giveaway will win a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 10. Want them both? Details to enter are below.

The Nexus 4 is the brand new world phone from Google that comes with all of Google’s latest apps, including Google Now. You can read our review on the almost perfect phone here.

The Nexus 10 is the latest tablet from Google. Dubbed the “the ultimate tablet for watching movies or reading magazines,” the Nexus 10 runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, features front and rear-facing cameras, and much more.

Here’s how to enter:

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TechCrunch hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what you love most about Christmas

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner on New Year’s Eve night. Anyone in the world is eligible. Good luck everyone and merry Christmas!

Update: This giveaway is now over. We will update this post once we have our winner.
Update: Congrats to Sean Adams!

We’ve written numerous posts about the Lytro camera and have done gift guide reviews on it, so we thought — why not give one away? Thanks to Lytro, we have one free 8GB camera to give away.

The Lytro is one of the most sought after cameras out there right now because it’s so different. By using propriary systems, the photograph’s point of focus and now perspective can be altered after it’s shot. There isn’t another camera that can do that. Sample photographs and giveaway instructions are below.

They also just launched Perspective Shift and Living Filters that add new dimensions to pictures taken with the Lytro, allowing anyone to shift and share pictures on Facebook, Twitter, and on other social channels.

Want to win one? All you have to do is follow the steps below:

1) Like our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #LytroMeTC hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us why you want one

The contest will start now and end tomorrow, December 7th at 6:00pm PT. That gives you only one day, so be sure to enter quickly. Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner once the contest is over.

Hang on a second though, there’s another fun contest you can enter. Right now, anyone can have a chance to get “Lytro-ized” by submitting a weird, funny, or bizarre picture to @Lytro on Twitter with the hashtag #LytroMeTC. If interested, this will enter you for a chance to have your picture selected and turned into a Claymation by the creators of MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch. It’s awesome. Be sure to visit lytrome.tumblr.com to check it out and tweet @Lytro if you would like to enter.

Good luck everyone!

Update: This giveaway is now over. We will update this post once we have our winner.

Update: Congratulations to Roberto Cipriani for winning the Lytro!

The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards are coming up fast and today is the absolute last day to nominate your favorites in technology. Nominations close tonight at 11:59pm PT and will not be open again, so think about who you would like to nominate, and go do it!

The Crunchies Awards are going to be held on Thursday, January 31st, 2013 at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. The ceremony begins at 7:30 p.m., with our after party to follow. As with all of our after parties, there will be a hosted bar, hors d’oeuvres, interactive entertainment, and other fun surprises.

We have 20 categories for this year’s Crunchies. Some we’ve had before and some are brand new.

Best Technology Achievement: To recognize the most significant new technology achievement of 2012
Best Collaborative Consumption Service: To recognize the best service built on social relationships
Best E-Commerce Application: To recognize the best transaction-based application
Best Mobile Application: To recognize the best mobile application
Fastest Rising Startup: Up and to the right in 2012
Best Content Discovery Application: To recognize the best application to find entertainment, news, inspiration, etc.
Best Design: To recognize the best user interface or product design, including special consideration for cross-platform design
Best Bootstrapped Startup: To recognize a startup’s impact that has raised less than $100K from individuals, angels or others
Sexiest Enterprise Startup: To recognize the best enterprise startup making an impact in 2012
Best International Startup: To recognize startup achievement outside the United States (company must be founded, headquartered and operated primarily outside the U.S.)
Best Education Startup: To recognize the best startup focused on education technology applications in 2012
Best Hardware Startup: To recognize the best hardware startup for their achievements in 2012
Best Time Sink: To recognize a favorite application to use when you’re not working or to avoid thinking about work
Biggest Social Impact: To recognize a service aimed at improving our world (does not need to be a charity)
Angel of the Year: To recognize the most significant impact by an angel (individual) investor in 2012
VC of the Year: To recognize the most significant impact by a venture individual in 2012
Founder of the Year: To recognize an exemplary startup founder or founding team for outstanding accomplishments in 2012
CEO of the Year: To recognize an exemplary CEO for outstanding leadership in 2012
Best New Startup of 2012: To recognize the best new startup that launched to the public in 2012
Best Overall Startup of 2012: To recognize the best startup for its overall accomplishments in 2012

Nominate who you would like to win HERE. Past winners have included Pinterest as Best New Startup of 2011, Dropbox as Best Overall Startup of 2011, Jack Dorsey as Founder of the Year, Twitter for Biggest Social Impact, Evernote for Best Mobile Application, Path 2.0 for Best Design, Siri for Best Technology Achievement, and many more. You can view the entire list of last year’s nominees and winners here.

This year’s Crunchies Awards show is going to be an eventful and elegant night, filled with special guests, performances, and other surprises. Be sure to stay tuned for special announcements.

Don’t forget to nominate for your favorites, they may just win! Go nominate here now.

And as always, if you want to sponsor the Crunchies, contact our amazing sponsorship team here.

Happy – almost – holidays! As you may have noticed, we have already started our ever-popular TC Gift Guide to highlight some of the best gifts this year.

Since Thanksgiving is next week (time really does fly by) we wanted to give something away we think many people would love to have – a brand new iRobot Roomba 650 Vacuum Cleaning Robot. These things clean your carpet, tile, basically anything and everything on the floor with a push of a button. Plus it’s a robot.

The Roomba 650 is valued at $399.99. John Biggs swears by them and with three kids, you can trust he means it. Want one for the holidays? We are giving a free one away to one lucky winner. If you want to enter, all you have to do is follow the steps below. The giveaway starts now and ends next Monday at 7:30pm PT. We will contact the winner once the giveaway is over.

To enter:

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TechCrunch hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what you’re most excited about for the holidays

Please only tweet the message once or you will be disqualified. We will make sure you follow the steps above and choose our winner Monday night. Anyone in the world is eligible.

Update: Congratulations to Coleen Rogers!

Our first stop for our Northern meetup series was Toronto and it was an absolute blast! Almost 1,000 hungry and thirsty techies poured into the Steam Whistle Brewery to hang out, drink, eat, mingle, meet and talk with us. It was an amazing time and we hope to go back very soon. Thanks again, Toronto, for having us.

John Biggs, Matt Burns, Darrell Etherington, Romain Dillet, Jordan Crook, Colleen Taylor and I have just arrived in Detroit, Michigan and we are getting ready to host our next meetup here tonight at the Hockeytown Cafe. Since we had so much fun and such a great turnout in Toronto the night before last, we wanted to release more tickets for our next two meetups.

If you’re either in the Detroit area, or Chicago area, come hang out with us. It’s free, and based on Toronto, we know you will meet some incredibly brilliant people. Act quickly though, these tickets will go fast. Tickets for our Detroit Meetup tonight can be found here. Tickets for our Chicago Meetup this Friday can be found here.

We’ll keep everyone who can’t make it updated by posting pictures and stories of who we meet and what we see along the way. I will say, we already have some pretty funny behind the scenes ones.

More photos here.

Also, be sure to check out Darrell, our very own fellow Canadian’s, thank you post.

What’s better than checking the weather and finding out it’s going to be a beautiful day? Checking the weather with adorable puppies on it, of course. A Miami based startup has just launched Weather Puppy, a brand new weather app that may just be my favorite app this year.

The app has two free themes, an outdoorsy theme and glamour theme, with themes like Fall Colors and Halloween available for $0.99. There is also a customizable “Add Your Own Doggy” theme, which lets you upload up to seven pictures of your own pup. The thing that really hooked me on this app though was not just the pictures of dogs, but that it enables dog-related charities to fundraise using the platform.

Weather Puppy has partnered with 13 different charities. Paws4You Animal Rescue in Miami, which is the organization the founder currently fosters with. They have since added the Pennsylvania SPCA, San Diego Humane Society (CA), San Antonio Humane Society (TX), Austin Humane Society (TX), Tampa SPCA (FL), The Anti-Cruelty Society (Chicago), Broward Humane Society (Ft. Lauderdale), Animal Humane New Mexico, Humane Society of Utah, Detroit Dog Rescue, Animal Haven Shelter (NYC) and Mohawk Humane Society (NY).

“In addition to other support, the big game changer for the charities is that most are going to sell their own branded themes within the app – giving them a way to fundraise by selling digital content. Most already fundraise by selling physical calendars so this is an easy progression for them and one that opens them up to donors across the country,” says Suraj Hemnani, founder of Weather Puppy with Shiv Takhar.

Another fun thing about this app, as you can see above, is how the dogs change based on the weather. If it’s sunny outside, the featured puppy may be wearing shades. Dark out? Perhaps the pup is sleeping. Cold? They may be hiding under a blanket.

Users also have the ability to share their screen on Facebook or Twitter with a short message. Users can do this once to share to both networks simultaneously as well.

The weather app gives you current conditions (even sunrise & sunset), plus forecasts for the next three days. The data is provided by Weather Underground.

Weather Puppy is available for iOS only at the moment, but the team tells me they are looking to expand soon. Weather puppy is available for download here. Interested charities can contact Weather Puppy here.

Google had a big day yesterday, for better and for worse. However, one of the most exciting stories to come out of yesterday was Google’s unveiling of a brand new, $249 Samsung Chromebook. Samsung’s new portable has a 11.6-inch screen, weighs only 2.5 pounds, and comes with 100GB of free Google Drive storage for 2 whole years.

So, as we usually do, we wanted to give all of our readers a chance to win one!

The contest will start now and go through this weekend, ending this Sunday at 9:30pm PT. That gives you three days to enter. Once the giveaway is over, we will make sure our winner followed the rules below and contact them Sunday night. Everyone can enter, as long as you can receive deliverable packages.

To enter, all you have to do is follow the simple steps below.

1) “Like” our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do one of the following:

- Retweet this post (including the #TechCrunch hashtag)
- Or leave us a comment below telling us what you are dressing up as for Halloween (points for creativity)

Update: Congratulations to T.J. Anderson!

Last week, we gave away 20 tickets to Box’s annual BoxWorks event that’s happening October 7th-9th in San Francisco. There will be incredible speakers going, some of which include: Box CEO Aaron Levie, Andreessen Horowitz’s own Marc Andreessen, eBay CEO John Donahoe, Mozilla’s Brendan Eich, Nest Labs’ Tony Fadell, and many more. You can view the whole list of speakers and the event agenda here.

Not only will there be amazing speakers and discussions, with any event, of course there will be after parties. So, the special winner of this giveaway is going to win a free ticket to the event, plus a VIP ticket to the after parties. A fun fact about this VIP ticket means — Weezer will be at a party. The winner will get to party, meet, and hang out with them.

If you want to win, all you have to do is follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do the following:
- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #BoxWorks hashtag)
- Follow Box on twitter

The contest will start now and end October 6th at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet once, or you will be disqualified. Box will make sure everyone who enters follows the steps above and will choose the winner once the giveaway is over. Please note the prize is for one VIP ticket only and does not include airfare or hotel.

I’ll leave you guys with this — a little throwback to Windows 95. Good luck everyone.

Happy Friday! We have something special to give away. Box is hosting its annual BoxWorks event October 7-9 in San Francisco and we have a bunch of tickets.

Box has some amazing speakers on tap. Box CEO Aaron Levie kicks things off, followed by Marc Andreessen, John Donahoe, and Clayton Christensen. There’s also Tony Fadell, Gary Reiner and Gary Kovacs along with Adam Lashinsky, Andreas Bechtolsheim and our own Drew Olanoff. It’s three days, six keynotes, 55 speakers, and a ton of fun.

So, here we go. There will be 10 winners and each winner can bring a friend, so we have 20 tickets in total. If you want a shot at winning one of these tickets, all you have to do is follow the steps below.

1) Become a fan of our TechCrunch Facebook Page:

2) Then do the following:
- Retweet this post (making sure to include the #BoxWorks hashtag)
- Follow Box on twitter

The contest will start now and end October 5th at 7:30pm PT. Please only tweet once, or you will be disqualified. Box will make sure you follow the steps above and choose their winners once the giveaway is over. Please note the prize is for two tickets per winner only and does not include airfare or hotel.

Fun fact! Weezer will be there. Good luck everyone.