I'm a technology journalist with over three decades of experience; I've worked in-house at a major magazine publisher and at AOL in the early days of online content. Now I'm a freelance writer contributing regularly to CIO.com, The New Stack, Computer Weekly, The Stack, AskWoody and a wide range of other titles. Over the years I've written for many outlets from the Guardian and the FT to SFX magazine, TechRepublic, ZDNet, Pocket Lint, Tom's Hardware and Data Center Knowledge, and I've contributed to the Linux Foundation's State of the Edge report for multiple years. I was also the launch and executive editor for IT Expert, a (short-lived) title covering small business IT consultancy.
I cover a wide range of topics but I specialise in Microsoft . I've co-written two books on Windows 8 and one O'Reilly book on Azure AI services with my writing partner, Simon Bisson. I've also published some folk stories and short mysteries about the world of tech on Amazon Kindle: that includes the Cassidy Smith series of technomysteries, The Vampires of Silicon Valley and The Lord of Death stories.
I cover consumer, small, business, enterprise and developer markets within technology, writing reviews, news, tutorials, interviews and features. I'm also available for commercial copywriting; I've written and edited white papers, case studies and other commercial editorial for a range of clients.
I'm always interested in new contacts for interviews and profiles, in new technology stories and in potential commissions for editorial or commercial work.
Specialties: researching, writing, editing, copywriting, mobility, flexible working, productivity software, development, consumer electronics, multimedia, gadgets, Web development and architecture, cloud native, enterprise development, smartphones, digital convergence, business IT, Windows, Microsoft Office
Career: 4
Freelance
Aug 2001 - Present
I'm a full-time freelance writer, covering mainly technology. I write for online titles, magazines, newspapers and commercial clients across a wide range of market areas.
IT Expert magazine
Mar 2008 - Sep 2011
I launched and edited IT Expert, a magazine from Agency Fish, aimed at consultants, value added resellers and system integrators who work with small business.
I joined AOL shortly after it set up in the UK and took over the Technology channel, building it up to cover home entertainment, digital media, mobile phones and gadgets and science as well as computing; I was responsible for content, design, partner relationships, budgeting, commissioning and publishing and I managed a team of two assistant produers who I recruited.
I started at Future as a graduate trainee on MacPublishing, moved on to the launch team for PC Answers, moved to PC Plus as a staff writer and moved from writing to commissioning and editiing, managing reviews, looking after our online section and our online presence.
The 2021 State of the Edge report is an annual, vendor-neutral project from the LF Edge working group looking at today’s edge computing ecosystem with a focus on the increasingly interconnected domains of critical infrastructure, networks, software, and hardware. I contributed the section on the current hardware landscape and how this evolves in future, especially for AI acceleration at the edge.
The Bring Your Own revolution has come to software development. New tools, APIs, and self-provisioning services like Amazon Web Services are bringing development outside of its traditional silos, to business leaders and individual end-users. What users bring to work isn't just devices; it's tools and technologies.
Another year of contributing to the State of the Edge report. This time this year I got to go back to the predictions I'd made in a previous year about edge compute in space
just as it became somewhere between timely and political. I spent a couple of months digging into why you might want to do compute in space, what the physics really says about cooling, radiation and the other restrictions, how much edge compute is already happening in satellites and whether that's useful, as well as whether lunar exploration and industrialising the moon will take space edge to the next level. The tensions over astronomy and the ever increasing number of satellites aren't going away, but what do we get out of compute in space?
Active on:Bluesky networkBookHiveStandardFlashesWhitewind
17521 activity events across 12 months, most active on Bluesky network.
Posted: I came up with a phrase that encapsulates how I feel about people posting obviously genAI comments in replies just because they had to go a…Bluesky network·
Posted: alt text as usual it's a colour coded map of just how bad covid is in the UK this weekBluesky network·
Posted: if you get yellow bars in your vision after scrolling a dark mode site, go to the optician if you don't already have astigmatism on your pr…Bluesky network·
