It’s utterly obvious that the first such post should be about Ed Oswald. Other than yours truly, Ed is Technologizer’s longest serving, most prolific author: He contributes one or most posts most days, and sometimes tackles stories before I’ve gotten up in the morning or after I’ve hit the hay. (He does work a different shift from me that gives him a head start–he’s based in Reading, Pennsylvania–but as far as I can tell, he never sleeps)

I first came across Ed’s work when he was a reporter over at BetaNews, a site where he worked for four years before going freelance last year. But tech reporting, it turns out, was not always in his blood:

Journalism was actually not my first choice of profession. Actually as a kid I wanted to be a TV weatherman. Seriously. However, once high school came around I joined the TV crew and took an interest in reporting. My grades in math and science just weren’t there, so I decide to pursue a career in journalism.

Getting into tech journalism seemed natural to me. I have been a tech geek for as long as I can remember. My first computer back in the early 1990s was an old Panasonic portable computer with an included thermal printer and two floppy drives that I picked up at a ham radio swap meet. Couldn’t do much on it, but I could get on Prodigy, and I was in heaven. I can even tell you my first username on there–VSJT79A. Yeah, I’m a dork.

Writing about technology is great fun to me, and comes natural. I love gadgets, and I’ll say the best part of this job is the chance to play with all the latest and greatest stuff. A techie couldn’t ask for anything more.

As you can tell from his Technologizer contributions, Ed is a generalist–but he’s particularly passionate about anything relating to digital media, as well as the products of a certain company headquartered in Cupertino, California. Other beats include “net censorship,  the intersection of politics and the Internet, and online copyright.”

Oh, and his post about a weird auction site called Swoopo ranks among this site’s biggest hits–he wrote it four months ago, and commenters continue the conversation to this day.

Outside of tech, Ed is still a weather buff. And a Volkswagen fan. And a snowboarding newbie. I’m very happy to have him on board–and I’m glad that he’s happy too.

Okay, that’s one Technologizer introduced; stay tuned, and I’ll tell you about the rest of the crew…

Share/E-Mail

10. Is Swoopo Nothing More Than a Well-Designed Gimmick? A new auction site from Europe has landed in America. It promises brand-name products at low, low prices. Are there any catches? Yes!

9. Google Chrome: Hey, That Logo Looks Vaguely Familiar! Idle musings on the look, feel, and color scheme of the logo for Googe’s new browser.

8. Twelve Bizarro Googles. We mark the search kingpin’s tenth birthday with a look at weird variants, from Klingon Google to all-spam Google to design-your-own-Google.

7. Windows 7 Starts to Come Into Focus. Slowly. Microsoft is playing it closer to the vest than usual with the next version of Windows, but little by little, it’s beginning to reveal its plans.

6. Apple to iPhone Developers: Don’t Compete With Us? The company appears to maintain that iPhone applications that tread too close to Apple apps will be rejected from the App Store. That can’t be healthy for anyone involved–including Apple.

5. Are Macs More Expensive? Let’s Do the Math Once and For All. We published this story in August, but folks are still discovering it.

4. Project Fakebar: Improvising a Google Toolbar Substitute For Chrome. When I discovered that thousands of Chrome users missed the Toolbar, I tried to help.

3. Ten Questions About Google Chrome. Even before I got my hands on Google’s browser, the implications were rocketing around my brain.

2. Needed for Chrome: The Google Toolbar. Once I tried Chrome, I discovered that it neither supported the Google Toolbar nor replicated its functionality. I was sorry to learn that. So were thousands of other folks, and they all found this post.

And Technologizer’s runaway #1 story of September:

1. The Thirteen Greatest Error Messages of All Time. I named ‘em, from Abort, Retry, Fail to Does Not Compete to the worst one of all time, which you’ll need to read the story to learn about. (OK, a hint: Its initials are BSOD.) And then hundreds of thousands of people read my list, and chimed in with hundreds of messages about other famous and infamous error messages they’ve known. They’re great reading in themselves–and will form the basis of a sequel.

Thanks for making September by far the busiest month in Technologizer’s short history. We’re having fun here–and we hope you are, too…

Share/E-Mail

–I just launched a new blog! It’s called McCracken on Media, and it’s aimed at folks like me who are riding the bucking bronto that is the media business in 2008 and beyond. I plan to share much of what I learn as Technologizer grows there, so if you’re into behind-the-scenes stuff, please visit.

–I also guestblogged recently for the American Society of Business Publication Editors on some early lessons from the Technologizer experience.

–And I’m part of a conversation going on at Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends on entrepreneurial experiences. Here’s a post on technology that’s been unexpectedly helpful. Here’s one on achieving profitability. And here’s one on defining moments.

Share/E-Mail

Share/E-Mail

Each one features a discussion forum and a wall; they’re a great place to find folks who share your interests and exchange opinions and advice.

Registered members can participate in any or all of the groups–and registering is free and easy. (Still skeptical? As with the rest of the Technologizer Community, you can read content in the groups without registering.)

Here are the new groups:

* Windows
* Apple/Mac
* Linux
* Firefox
* Google
* Digital Photography
* Social Networking
* Games
* Vintage Computing
* HDTV/Internet TV

We plan to add plenty more groups, but don’t wait for us–registered members can create their own groups on any topic.

Me, I’m a member of all of the Technologizer Community’s groups. I hope to see you in one or more of them…

Share/E-Mail

I began blogging in earnest on Technologizer six weeks ago. As David mentions, the site has gone from having no traffic whatsoever to being read by thousands of folks every day. I’m proud and pleased–but more than that, I’m grateful to everyone who reads the site, and in particular to those who take the time to leve comments and/or join the Technologizer Community. Thanks for helping to make Technologizer a success–and please stick around. I have more stuff in the works for this site which I think you’ll like…

Share/E-Mail

Those contributors will be freelancers, not staffers, and the work is not going to be huge in terms of either volume or pay. I’m particularly interesting in finding a person or two on the east coast, simply because the one downside of doing this from the Bay Area is that most of the country is awake and doing newsworthy things before we get up out here.

If you know and love personal technology, are extremely well-informed about news, have a smart take on things and know how to express it in the form of blog posts, and are interested in contributing to Technologizer, I’m interested in hearing from you. Drop me a line using my contact form. I can’t promise anything…but I will respond to everyone who I hear from.

Share/E-Mail

My post on Microsoft’s Windows Vista apology/defense struck enough of a chord that it’s the most-read item in Technologizer’s short life. So I’ve created a forum thread in the community for further discussion of Vista. If you’ve got an opinion, I hope you’ll weigh in…

Share/E-Mail

Let the evasiveness end. I’m ready to begin posting on Technologizer, and will be doing so just about every day. And I hope you’ll hang out here with me.

I’m happy to report that I’m publishing Technologizer on the wonderful WordPress blogging platform. And like a bunch of bloggers I admire, from Om Malik to Curt Schilling, I’ve asked Automattic, the company behind WordPress, to host my site. (Automattic also hosts blogs for The New York Times, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and others.) Special thanks to Automattic’s Lloyd Budd, who did much heavy lifting to ready Technologizer for prime time from a technical standpoint.

I want this site to be as much a conversation as a soapbox, and much of the conversation will go on in the Technologizer Community I’ve set up on Ning. Thanks to Ning, a service I not only use but enthusiastically admire and endorse on multiple levels, Technologizer will let members participate in forum discussions and groups, publish profiles, connect with friends with shared tech interests, post photos and videos, and a lot more. Signing up is painless, and I hope you’ll do so if you don’t have a Ning ID already–more than sixty people are in the community as I write this.

That’s it for now. See you shortly, and thanks for being here.

Share/E-Mail

Technologizer will cover the fun, fascinating, and sometimes frustrating world of personal technology–from the Web to digital entertainment to both PCs and Macs. My goal is to create a site that’s always forthright, always opinionated, and always entertaining. Whenever possible, we’ll put products through their paces in hands-on tests before we write about them. And I want all the folks who visit the site to have the opportunity to share their opinions and expertise, too.

I feel like my whole life has led to this project. I’ve been an avid user of personal computers and related stuff for almost as long as there have been “personal computers.” For almost fourteen years, I was a journalist at PC World, the planet’s largest computing magazine and one of its biggest tech sites. I worked with amazing colleagues, helped PCW win a bunch of awards, and ended up as editor in chief. And in general, I had a ball. But in May, 2008 I resigned to try my hand at building something from scratch. Technologizer will be that something.

Technologizer will be an independent site, owned and operated by me. (If you don’t like it, you’ll know who to blame.) But I’m extremely pleased to say that I’m starting it in partnership with the smart people at Federated Media. FM will be handling ad sales for the site and providing other forms of help on the business side–just as they do for a bunch of the biggest blogs on the Web, including several of my favorites.

The site will launch…well, I’m saying later this summer, but it won’t be very long. And I may blog a bit on this preview site a bit before the full-blown Technologizer site goes live.

Meanwhile, here’s some shameless self promotion for me. And if you want to reach me for some reason, you can do so here.

See you soon!

(Photo credit: Marie Domingo)

Share/E-Mail