Pursuing Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches is branching out. The singularly focused website, which was the subject of one of my most popular Web Search columns a few years ago, was recently added as a Facebook group by its proprietor, David Stovall of Tonka Bay.  

“Your Web Search article on that St. Olaf, Iowa, tenderloin created quite a stir two years ago,” David said. “People are still discovering it or its re-publication in other newspapers and e-mailing me.”

It’s easy to see why. Here’s the photo (taken by David) of the monstrosity that ran with that column:

As I wrote then: “The ‘world’s largest pork tenderloin’ sandwich at the St. Olaf Tap in St. Olaf, Iowa, practically covers a dinner plate. The bun is apparently just a decoration.” Looking at it again, I’m actually reminded of the 1950s movie The Blob.

Still, now I’m really hungry for lunch.

The folks at mono are at it again. The Minneapolis-based branding agency — which created the popular Monoface as well as online campaigns for clients such as Sesame Street and General Mills – has moved to a larger office in Uptown. Of course, it couldn’t just send out a note letting media types like me know that it has a new address. The devious people at mono also created a YouTube video mocking their move. The clip shows “protesters” trying to get passers-by in  Uptown to sign  a petition to keep the agency out of the neighborhood. Why? Because it has done dastardly things such as using children in a Sesame Street ad and designing an ad encouraging people to eat carrots. Brilliant.

Take a look:

At least half a million downloads occurred in 24 hours as part of CodeWeavers’ Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge software giveaway. “My guess is the real number is going to be closer to three-quarters of a million” once the numbers are tallied, said Jon Parshall, COO of the St. Paul-based developer.

Parshall sounded euphoric, incredulous and exhausted in a follow-up phone call Wednesday, the day after his small company of 20 people kept its promise to give away its core product — software that allows Mac OS X and Linux systems to run Windows applications — as part of the stunt. The online community was stoked by my article that was first posted Sunday night and ended up receiving more than 76,000 page views, placing it among the Star Tribune’s top five stories of the week. Then the fire blazed out of control Monday when the news hit Digg. By the time the day of the giveaway, Tuesday, rolled around, it had become a download-ready frenzy.  An estimated 160,000 downloads happened in the first six hours of the giveaway, which started at midnight.

“Our e-mail server was destroyed,” Parshall said, and the main website had to be taken down because of the traffic. The downloads ended up being handled by a mirror server.

Parshall readily admitted that the challenge was a promotional gimmick, but the publicity was intended to come from posing the challenge over the summer, not having to fulfill it. As part of the challenge, the company presented five positive things that must occur during President Bush’s last six months in office. If any happened, such as the price of gas dropping to year-ago levels, CodeWeavers said it would give away its software free for a day. The goals were all realistic but seemed unlikely to be met. When gas dropped to $2.79 a gallon, the company was stuck.

“I would have been happy with 10-, 20-, 30,000 downloads,” Parshall said. Instead he might have as many as 750,000, which would increase the small company’s customer base by a factor of 10, he said. If even 1 percent of those people upgrade or buy a future product, he said, he would be ecstatic. The company also might get some business from new deals to consult with corporations about their computer setups, but Parshall said it will take a long time to wade through the avalanche of e-mails to see if that’s the case.

In the initial challenge, CodeWeavers had promised to keep giving away software if other goals were met. When I noted to Parshall that the price drop in milk had fulfilled another goal, he said the company had decided to end the challenge, as CEO Jeremy White explains in a follow-up video. “Some people might consider that weaselly,” Parshall said, but the company thought most people would understand the turnabout.

“We can’t afford to do this again,” Parshall said. “We also have to stay in business.”

CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White on the giveaway:

People taking advantage of CodeWeavers’ free software giveaway today have crashed the company’s servers. Besides my article, the giveaway got a huge push online — exactly what the company feared — through a posting at Digg. But don’t fret. While the company has disabled its main site, you can still get everything you need from the shell of a site the company has made available. It includes a link to get a serial number to register the programs as well as links to down load unlocked builds of its core products, which allow Mac and Linux systems to run Windows applications. Keep trying if you don’t get through on your first attempts.

“You will be able to unlock your serial number that was emailed to you for an extended time, (an additional 48 hours), due to this downtime,” the site explains. “We will simply stop giving out new serial numbers at 23:59 (Midnight) Central Standard Time.”

If you’re wondering why CodeWeavers’ website has no details of the free software I wrote about, the site will be updated later this morning. Basically, CodeWeavers is a small company that makes a handful of products for a niche audience. Giving it all away will surely affect the bottom line, so the company understandably is trying to minimize the impact of its promotional gimmick — the Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge — by limiting the exposure of the giveaway. (My article seriously undermined that effort.)

Some other questions that have come up:

What does CodeWeavers’ software do?
First, if you have a PC running Windows, as most people do, the software is of no use to you. But if you use a Mac or a Linux system, CodeWeavers’ products will let you run Windows applications, including games, using those operating systems. You can learn more about how it does that here.

OK, but is it any good?
As a longtime PC user, I have never used CodeWeavers’ products. Reviews are generally favorable online (do a Google search), but some are mixed, such as these comments at Amazon. Basically, it seems to come down to whether the programs you want to use are supported. For free, it’s fairly painless to try it out.

Isn’t this just a promotional gimmick?
Of course it is. While CodeWeavers is giving away its core product for a day, it also is getting a lot of publicity and exposure for the professional proprietary services it offers to corporations. But if you look at the list of rules in the Lame Duck Presidential Challenge, it clearly didn’t make the terms easy. And it is living up to its promise by making the free stuff available.

When will it be given away?
As I noted in my write-up, the giveaway happens on Tuesday. Some people haven’t seemed to grasp this fact. The deal is supposed to start at midnight (Central time) and run for 24 hours.

Finally, you have to love the cheeky attitude and promotional chutzpah of CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White: “I launched the campaign to inspire President Bush to make the most of his final days in office. Who knew that our Challenge would have this kind of impact on the country?” he said. “On the other hand, who knew that the economy would implode, causing oil demand to drop into the abyss and gas prices to plummet as well. Clearly, investigating Bear Stearns, AIG and those guys is misplaced – CodeWeavers is responsible for this mess. So it’s free software for all!”

Where are you registered online? It’s easy to lose track. Worse, how often have you started to register at a website only to find that someone else has already snagged your usual user name? That’s where the new site Username Check comes in handy. Just enter your user name, and Username Check will search the records of nearly 70 sites — from biggies such as eBay and YouTube to lesser-known sites such as Colour Lovers and Rejaw — to see if that name is already registered. More sites are being added all the time. Username Check obviously serves a need, because its founders recently reported that the site had 100,000 unique visitors in its first three weeks.