All about Microsoft's "Lauren"

[Originally posted March 31, 2009 on Fortune.com.]

Her hair is red, her eyes dark brown, her physique slim. She stands 5'2" in her stocking feet and weighs 113 lbs. in her birthday suit.

Her name is Lauren De Long, and she set a million geek hearts aflutter with her spunky performance in the now famous "you find it, you keep it" PC ad, in which she chose an HP (HPQ) Pavilion running Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Vista Home Edition over any computer in the Apple (AAPL) store.

She also set off Apple 2.0's hottest flame war — 402 comments and counting — with the line "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person." (See How Microsoft put Apple owners on the defensive.)

She was supposed to be an ordinary American who answered a Craigslist ad for a market-and-research job and to her surprise found herself starring in a multi-million dollar Microsoft advertising campaign.

But a little inspired sleuthing by the wife of a Seattle-based investigative reporter turned up her film and television credits, her Now Casting bio and resume, her IMDB listing, her MySpace photo gallery and her official website.