John C. Dvorak

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For the inventor of the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, see August Dvorak.

For the Czech composer of Romantic music, see Antonín Dvořák.

John C. Dvorak

John C. Dvorak is an American columnist and broadcaster in the areas of technology and computing. His writing extends back to the 1980s, when he was a mainstay of a variety of magazines.

1 Periodicals
2 Books
3 Awards
4 Audio and video
5 Personal
6 Criticism of Apple
7 Trivia
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Periodicals

Dvorak writes for various publications, including PC Magazine (two separate columns since 1986), Marketwatch, BUG Magazine (Croatia), and Info Exame (Brazil). Dvorak has been a columnist for Boardwatch, Forbes, Forbes Online, MacUser, MicroTimes, PC/Computing, Barron's Magazine, Smart Business, and Vancouver Sun. (The MicroTimes column ran under the banner Dvorak's Last Column.) He has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, San Francisco Examiner and The Philadelphia Inquirer among numerous other publications.

His PC Magazine column is licensed worldwide.

[edit] Books

Dvorak has written or co-authored over a dozen books, including Hypergrowth: The Rise and Fall of the Osborne Computer Corporation with Adam Osborne, Dvorak's Guide to Desktop Telecommunications in 1990. His latest book is Online! The Book (Prentice Hall PTR, October, 2003) with co-authors Wendy Taylor and Chris Pirillo.

[edit] Awards

The Computer Press Association presented Dvorak with the Best Columnist and Best Column awards, and he was also the 2004 and 2005 award winner of the American Business Editors Association's national gold award for best online columns of 2003 and 2004, respectively.

He was the creator and lead judge of the Dvorak Awards (1992 – 1997).

In 2001, he was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology.

[edit] Audio and video

John C. Dvorak on CNET Central in 1995.

Dvorak hosting Episode 19 of CrankyGeeks. July 20th, 2006

Dvorak was on the start-up team for CNET Networks, appearing on the television show CNET Central. He also hosted a radio show called Real Computing on NPR, as well as a television show on TechTV called Silicon Spin.

He now appears on Marketwatch TV and is a regular panelist on This Week in Tech, a Netcast audio program hosted by Leo Laporte and featuring other former TechTV personalities such as Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, and Robert Heron. As of December 2005, that "TWiTcast" regularly ranks among the top 5 at Apple's iTunes Music Store. Dvorak also participated in the first and only Triangulation podcast, a similar co-hosted technology discussion program. In March 2006, Dvorak started a new show called CrankyGeeks in which he sits with a panel of "cranky" tech guys to discuss common technology news stories of the week.

[edit] Personal

Dvorak was born in 1952 in Los Angeles, California.^[1] He attended the University of California, and has homes in the San Francisco Bay area and in Washington State. His wife, Mimi Smith-Dvorak, was an occasional writing collaborator.

Dvorak asks a speaking fee of between $10,001 and $20,000 per appearance.^[2]

[edit] Criticism of Apple

Dvorak has been a long time critic of Apple Computer, even during his stint as a columnist for MacUser magazine. In 1984 he famously criticized Apple's inclusion of a mouse with their computers, saying “There is no evidence that people want to use these things.” In 1999, he ridiculed the iBook as “‘girly’”,^[3] saying, “It looks too juvenile— something a kid, a little girl, would like. Something you'd get at Toys 'R' Us.” For this he was slammed not only by Mac aficionados, but also by female computing pundit Janelle Brown for reinforcing gender stereotypes. In 2005 he suggested that recent good press about Apple was due to media bias, writing “With 90 percent of the mainstream writers being Mac users, what would you expect?” He later predicted that Apple would release a Video iPod in spite of Steve Jobs' denials, suggested that the Mac brand should be discontinued, predicted that Apple would switch to Intel chips, and suggested that Apple might be switching over to Windows and abandoning their Mac OS to save money.^[4]

On 9 June 2006, he explained to Dave Winer that he would bait Mac users in order to increase traffic to his website.^[5]

On 28 March 2007, he wrote an op-ed piece for MarketWatch predicting failure for the Apple iPhone.^[6]

[edit] Trivia

Dvorak created a few tech running jokes — in episode 18 of TWiT (This Week in Tech) ^[7] he claimed that, thanks to his hosting provider, he "gets no spam". This became a short-lived catchphrase and half-hearted chant among the audience. No mention was made of his false-positive rate (how much legitimate mail gets inappropriately deleted).
While Dvorak was a columnist at MacUser magazine, a running joke was for readers to write in to the letters column and debate whether Dvorak was a real person or a fictional creation.
Dvorak has expressed admiration for the Wikipedia concept and said in another TWiT episode that he has made corrections to the Wikipedia article about himself (a practice looked down on by Wikipedians). However, in December 2005 he predicted on his blog that "once Wikipedia becomes a target for [organized vandalism] the 'wiki' is dead. Well, at least on the grande [sic] scale."
In episode 86 of TWiT ^[8] Dvorak accused Noam Chomsky "or one of his minions" of editing Chomsky's Wikipedia entry, referring to it as "one giant advertisement". Dvorak asserts that the information listed is "accurate, but who needs it..who wants to see..it's ridiculous". Chomsky was referred to by the New York Times as "arguably the most important intellectual alive" ^[9], later echoed in a poll taken by the periodical Prospect ^[10]
Dvorak is a noted collector of Bordeaux wines and has been a tasting judge at various international events. He started his career as a wine and food writer.
Dvorak appeared as primadonna version of himself with Steve Gibson in the Up in Smoke Video Podcast, a mini sitcom about a cigar shop.
Dvorak, while at CNET Central, used to make a habit of throwing "mediocre" CDs he was reviewing at the camera, once hitting a cameraman and cutting his lip^{[citation needed]}. He has recently revived the practice on Cranky Geeks; now he throws cue cards at the camera.
Dvorak has said on TWiT that the New York Stock Exchange is heading towards a Stock market crash in 2009, based on a cycle.
In a 2006 CrankyGeeks episode, Dvorak said that the first person to show him a chatroom was Robyn Williams.

[edit] References

^ John C. Dvorak (HTML). Smart Computing® Encyclopedia. Smart Computing. Retrieved on April 25, 2006.
^ John Dvorak (HTML). AllAmericanSpeakers.com. Retrieved on April 25, 2006.
^ Dvorak, John C. (26 July 1999). The iBook disaster (HTML). PC Magazine. Retrieved on April 25, 2006.
^ Dvorak, John C. (15 February 2006). Will Apple Adopt Windows? (HTML). PC Magazine. Retrieved on April 25, 2006.
^ http://www.scripting.com/2006/06/09.html#When:10:38:44PM
^ http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/apple-should-pull-plug-iphone/story.aspx?guid=%7B3289E5E2%2DE67C%2D4395%2D8A8E%2DB94C1B480D4A%7D&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo
^ Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, Steve Gibson, Robert Heron, David Prager, Roger Chang, Bob Young, Mike Lazazzera. (2005) This Week in Tech Episode 18 [TV-Series]. California: This Week in Tech.
^ Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, Steve Gibson, Robert Heron, David Prager, Roger Chang, Bob Young, Mike Lazazzera. (2007) This Week in Tech Episode 86 [TV-Series]. California: This Week in Tech.
^ Robinson, Paul (February 25, 1979). The Chomsky Problem; Chomsky. New York Times: "Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today."
^ Prospect Poll (HTML). Smart Computing® Encyclopedia. John Kelly.