John C. Dvorak (; born 1952) is an American columnist and broadcaster in the areas of

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

and

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

. His writing extends back to the 1980s, when he was a regular columnist in a variety of magazines. He was vice president of Mevio, and has been a host on

TechTV TechTV is a defunct 24-hour cable and satellite channel based in San Francisco featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. In 2004, it merged with the G4 gaming channel which ultimately dissolved TechTV programming ...

and TWiT.tv. He is currently a co-host of the ''

No Agenda ''No Agenda'' is a podcast hosted by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak that is recorded twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays at 9 a.m. Pacific Time. The show is primarily focused on mainstream media deconstruction. The show has no advertisers and ...

'' podcast.

Early life

Dvorak was born in 1952 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. The nephew of sociologist and creator of the

Dvorak keyboard Dvorak is a keyboard layout for English patented in 1936 by August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, William Dealey, as a faster and more ergonomic alternative to the QWERTY layout (the ''de facto'' standard keyboard layout). Dvorak proponents ...

August Dvorak August Dvorak (May 5, 1894 – October 10, 1975) was an American educational psychologist and professor of education at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. He and his brother-in-law, William Dealey, are best known fo ...

, he graduated from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

with a degree in history, with a minor in chemistry.

Writing career

Periodicals

Dvorak started his career as a wine writer. He has written for various publications, including ''

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

'', '' PC Magazine'' (two separate columns since 1986), '' MarketWatch'', '' BUG Magazine'' (

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

), and '' Info Exame'' (

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

). He has been a columnist for ''

Boardwatch ''Boardwatch Magazine'', informally known as ''Boardwatch'', was initially published and edited by Jack Rickard. Founded in 1987, it began as a publication for the online Bulletin Board Systems of the 1980s and 1990s and ultimately evolved into a ...

'', ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'', ''

Forbes.com ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family (publishers), Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing ...

'', ''

MacUser ''MacUser'' was a monthly (formerly biweekly) computer magazine published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. and licensed by Felden in the UK. It ceased publication in 2015. In 1985 Felix Dennis’ Dennis Publishing, the creators of MacUser in the UK, l ...

'', ''MicroTimes'', '' PC/Computing'', ''

Barron's Magazine ''Barron's'' is an American weekly magazine/newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. Founded in 1921 by Clarence W. Barron (1855–1928) as a sister publication to ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''Barron's'' covers U ...

'', ''Smart Business'', and ''

The Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published si ...

''. (The ''MicroTimes'' column ran under the banner ''Dvorak's Last Column''.) He has written for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'', ''MacMania Networks'', '' International Herald Tribune'', ''

The San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...

'' and ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

'', among numerous other publications. On episode 524 of the ''No Agenda'' podcast, he mentioned that MarketWatch had "gotten rid of him" after

Adam Curry Adam Clark Curry (born September 3, 1964) is an American podcaster, announcer, Internet entrepreneur and media personality, known for his stint as a VJ on MTV and being one of the first celebrities to personally create and administer Web site ...

made a suggestion for his next column. He did not give further details. Dvorak created a few tech

running jokes A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling. Though they are similar, catchphrases are not ...

. In episode 18 of

TWiT TWiT.tv, which is the operating trade name of TWiT LLC, is a podcast network that broadcasts many technology news podcasts, founded by technology broadcaster and author Leo Laporte in 2005, and run by his wife and company CEO Lisa Laporte. ...

(This Week in Tech) he claimed that, thanks to his hosting provider, he "gets no spam."

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 and ''Dvorak's Guide to Desktop Telecommunications'' in 1990, ''Dvorak's Guide to PC Telecommunications'' (Osborne McGraw-Hill, Berkeley, California, 1992), ''Dvorak's Guide to OS/2'' (Random House, New York, 1993) with co-authors Dave Whittle and Martin McElroy, ''Dvorak Predicts'' (Osborne McGraw-Hill, Berkeley, California, 1994), ''Online! The Book'' (Prentice Hall PTR, October, 2003) with co-authors Wendy Taylor and

Chris Pirillo Chris Pirillo is an American entrepreneur and former television personality. He is the founder and former CEO of LockerGnome, Inc., a now-defunct network of blogs, web forums, mailing lists, and online communities which are now closed. He is b ...

and his latest e-book is ''Inside Track 2013''.

Awards and honors

The

Computer Press Association Founded in 1983, the Computer Press Association (CPA) was established to promote excellence in the field of computer journalism. The association was composed of working editors, writers, producers, and freelancers who covered issues related to comp ...

presented Dvorak with the ''Best Columnist'' and ''Best Column'' awards. He was also the winner of the American Business Editors Association's national gold award in 2004 and 2005, 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 received the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology. He has received the title of

Kentucky Colonel Kentucky Colonel is the highest title of honor bestowed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and is the most well-known of a number of honorary colonelcies conferred by United States governors. A Kentucky Colonel Commission (the certificate) i ...

, the highest

title of honor A title of honor or honorary title is a title bestowed upon individuals or organizations as an award in recognition of their merits. Sometimes the title bears the same or nearly the same name as a title of authority, but the person bestowed d ...

awarded by the

Commonwealth of Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. In July, 2016, Dvorak and co-host

won the "Best Podcast" Podcast Award for ''No Agenda,'' in the News & Politics category.

TV and online media

Dvorak was on the start-up team for

CNET Networks ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

, appearing on the

television show A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed b ...

CNET Central CNET Video is a San Francisco and New York based network showing original programming catering to the niche market of technology enthusiasts, operated by Red Ventures through their CNET brand. CNET Video originated as the television program produ ...

''. He also hosted a

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

show called ''Real Computing'', and later 'Technically Speaking' on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

, as well as a television show on

(formerly ZDTV) called ''

Silicon Spin ''Silicon Spin'' was a half-hour business-related technology television program that aired on ZDTV (later known as TechTV) for several years during the dot-com era from 1998 to 2001. It featured guest panelists (often referred to as pundits), usu ...

''. He appeared on ''Marketwatch TV'' and ''

This Week in Tech ''This Week in Tech''–casually referred to as ''TWiT'', and briefly known as ''Revenge of the Screen Savers''–is the weekly flagship podcast and namesake of the TWiT.tv network. It is hosted by Leo Laporte and many other former TechTV emplo ...

'', a

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

audio and now video program hosted by

Leo Laporte Leo Laporte (; born November 29, 1956) is the host of ''The Tech Guy'' weekly radio show and a host on TWiT.tv, an Internet podcast network focusing on technology. He is also a former TechTV technology host (1998–2008) and a technology author. O ...

and featuring other former

personalities such as Patrick Norton,

Kevin Rose Kevin Rose is an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk. He also served as production assistant and co-host at TechTV's ''The Screen Savers''. From 2012 to 2015, he was a venture partner at GV. Earl ...

, and Robert Heron. Dvorak was once banned from the show. In March 2006, he started a new show called ''CrankyGeeks'', where he led a rotating panel of "cranky" tech gurus in discussions of technology news stories of the week. The last episode (No. 237) aired on September 22, 2010. In 2007, Mevio hired Dvorak as Vice President and Managing Editor for a new Mevio TECH channel, where he manages content from existing Mevio tech programming. He also hosted the show "Tech5", where he discussed the day's tech news in approximately five minutes; it ended production in late 2010. He co-hosts a podcast with Mevio co-founder

called ''

''. The show is a conversation about the week's news, happenings in the lives of the hosts and their families, and restaurant reviews from the dinners Dvorak and Curry have together when they are in the same city (usually San Francisco). Curry usually has more outlandish opinions of the week's news or world events, while Dvorak plays the

straight man The straight man is a stock character in a comedy performance, especially a double act, sketch comedy, or farce. When a comedy partner behaves eccentrically, the straight man is expected to maintain composure. The direct contribution to the c ...

in the dialogue. Since early 2011, Dvorak has been one of the featured "CoolHotNot Tech Xperts," along with

Jim Louderback James Louderback (born 1961) is the CEO of VidCon, and was previously the CEO of Revision3. He has had numerous jobs in media companies involved in technology, most notably with TechTV and editor-in-chief of '' PC Magazine''. He is also well kno ...

Dave Graveline Dave Graveline is an American radio talk show host. His syndicated show " Into Tomorrow" has been on the air since 1996 and currently airs on over 100 AM and FM stations throughout the U.S., stations in Canada and on the Armed Forces Network ...

Robin Raskin Robin Raskin (born May 14, 1954) is an American writer, author, publisher, TV personality and conference and events creator best known for her ability to simplify technology for non-technologists. Early publications Raskin began writing about tec ...

, Dave Whittle, Steve Bass, and Cheryl Currid, a
CoolHotNot's web site
He shares his "Loved List" of favorite consumer electronics, his "Wanted List" of tech products he'd like to try, and his "Letdown List" of tech products he found disappointing. Dvorak hosted the show ''X3,'' which, like the defunct ''Tech 5'', was a short tech-focused cast. Unlike ''Tech 5'', it was in video format, with two co-hosts. The last update was 24 June 2012. Since September 2009, Dvorak has hosted the ''DH Unplugged'' podcast with personal money manager Andrew Horowitz. He is a co-founder, with

Gina Smith Gina Smith (born November 11, 1957) is a Canadian equestrian. She won a team bronze medal as part of the Canadian Equestrian Team in dressage at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, together with teammates Cynthia Neale-Ishoy, Eva Pracht and A ...

and the late

Jerry Pournelle Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s ...

, of the web sit
aNewDomain.net
where he is also a columnist. In September 2015,

famously "banned" Dvorak—his long-time friend and frequent guest—from

for comments Dvorak made on Twitter. In reply to Dvorak's comments that Laporte was biased, Laporte told Dvorak "you won't ever have to worry about it again", insinuating that he never wanted Dvorak back on TWiT. Laporte apologized a few days later. Dvorak returned to TWiT on December 23, 2018.

Criticism and advocacy for new technology

On February 19, 1984, in an article in ''

'', Dvorak listed the mouse as one of many reasons

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

computer might not be successful: "The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things." In 1987 he revisited the article and recanted, writing "The Mac mouse is great. I've been converted." In 1985, following Steve Jobs leaving Apple, Dvorak wrote, "Maybe when the smoke clears, we will have heard the last of Steve Jobs as guru, seer, visionary and hapless victim too ... He'll go the way of pet rock, electric

carving Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and ...

knives,

silly putty Silly Putty is a toy based on silicone polymers that have unusual physical properties. It bounces, but it breaks when given a sharp blow, and it can also flow like a liquid. It contains a viscoelastic liquid silicone, a type of non-Newtonian f ...

, Tiny Tim, and the three-tone paint job. Let's hope so." In the May 26, 1987 edition of PC Mag, Dvorak investigated the origin of the term

nerd A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly tec ...

, crediting and quoting Theodor S. Geisel (Dr. Seuss) with coining the phrase in 1950 having "never heard the word before." In his 2007 article for MarketWatch regarding the iPhone, Dvorak wrote, "If pple'ssmart, it will call the iPhone a 'reference design' and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures. .. It should do that immediately before it's too late." Although he later admitted having been wrong about its success, he criticized Apple's

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...

when it first appeared in 2010, stating that it was no different from other previous tablets that had failed: "I cannot see it escaping the tablet computer dead zone any time soon." Dvorak has mentioned in the past that he is a fan of

MorphOS MorphOS is an AmigaOS-like computer operating system (OS). It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC (PPC) processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale dev ...

and used the Video Toaster in its heyday. In 2018 he wrote an article on Medium in which he claimed he was fired from ''PC'' Magazine because of an article he wrote that questioned the safety of 5G.

Criticism of Creative Commons

In 2005, Dvorak wrote "Creative Commons Humbug", an opinion piece criticizing Creative Commons licensing.

Personal life

Dvorak married Mimi Smith-Dvorak on August 8, 1988. He is listed as a minister of the

Universal Life Church The Universal Life Church (ULC) is a non-denominational religious organization founded in 1962 by Kirby J. Hensley,James R. Lewis, The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions' (2001), p. 769-70.U.S. Department of the Army, ''Religious R ...

. He said on show #600 of ''No Agenda'' that he occasionally posts online under the pseudonym Mark Pugner.">No Agenda Episode 600 - "Seven Proxies"
/ref>

References

External links

*
PC Magazine: John C. Dvorak's column

PC Magazine: John C. Dvorak's profile

PC Magazine: John C. Dvorak's Inside Track

MarketWatch: John C. Dvorak's Second Opinion

aNewDomain.net: John C. Dvorak's column archive

''CrankyGeeks'' official site

No Agenda Show Podcast

Dvorak's current list of best, most wanted, and worst tech products

DH Unplugged
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dvorak, John C. Amateur radio people American male journalists American male bloggers American bloggers American columnists American people of Czech descent University of California, Berkeley alumni Living people TechTV people American podcasters 1952 births 21st-century American non-fiction writers Berkeley Macintosh Users Group members