Tech Newsletters

What Tech newsletters do you read?

I have a few favourites and where they offer it, I also subscribe to them. In most cases the writing, research and running of these newsletters is a one man business and I have to say I am mildly jealous of their success. It is something I have had an itching to do for a while, but every time I look around there is already a better one for the market I'm considering out there.

Is this to say I am not as good or can't be as good (even better) than the current ones I read or is it just that I don't want to swim uphill against the tide? I guess it is probably a little of both, but a lot of it includes the fact that I simply can't dedicate the time I need to make it a success to the project. Initially, like all my favourite newsletters it would be a free only edition with those wishing to subscribe able to do so. If it became popular, then like the ones I read I'd have to make a business decision to either close it or turn it into a business and therefore give up my day to day job. Maybe more of this anon.

For now, I want to list the ones I read and maybe one or two I have given up reading for various reasons.

My all time fave used to be Fred Langa's The Langa List. He was a one man band that had grown up and Fred is someone who has enormous respect for his length of service in IT as well as his depth of knowledge - these coupled with a friendly and approachable writing style as well as the ability to give multiple possible causes (and their answers) to problems made his newsletter very popular indeed. He offered the newsletter in various formats as well as a free and paid for version - with the paid for version getting extra snippets on top.

However, Fred has now merged with WindowsSecrets and, purely in my opinion, I don't think this was the best thing for his readership, himself or even me if I'm being honest.

I should add that I also read WindowsSecrets and have a paid for subscription to it. However, their approach is very much more formal, less friendly (less Fred can I say) and has multiple writers. This last aspect is probably a good thing, as it means you will get in-depth experience from those that know. The downside is that since the merger the actual content of the combined newsletters is very much reduced when you consider that both Fred's and WS's used to put out at least 3 times the amount they do now separately. Fred has gone from 14 to 20 items, 4 times a month to every other week with maybe 2 or 3 items. WS has just added Fred's bit in and reduced the length of theirs. It is monthly published newsletter.

Replacing Fred as my favourite is Ian "Gizmo" Richards's Tech Support Alert. I like this because he doesn't shy away from complicated issues and in his monthly editorial will usually give some extremely sound advice on a subject dear to his heart. For the last 6 or more months he has spent time and effort researching and testing the best combination of freeware products to protect your PC from all the various nasties out there. Aside from the, one would hope by now, obvious strategy of not getting infected in the first place he gives clear, precise reasoning as to why he advocates what he does.

I can heartily recommend this one. Again a variety of formats as well as paid or not versions are available and in the next month or so he is upgrading his subscription model to make it easier for all of us subbers. This is also published monthly.

The next one I like is Scot Finnie's self named Scot's Newsletter. Scot. like Fred, has spent a lot of time in the business and has been a professional writer for a fair while giving his newsletter that extra advantage. He tends to have one main topic of interest for the month and will spend a chunck of the newsletter going into great depth. Like Gizmo, he does most of his own testing and this can be seen by the thoroughness of his conclusions. As an example of his writing, a recent in-depth research over several issues was trying to determine which was the best AV for him (it was FSecure if you are interested). Scot makes it 100% clear that his results are for him, but that if his investigations help you then great and he also, unlike the others, sticks mainly to paid for apps and issues to do with broadband and OSes - however, he will cover hot topics and has recently introduced a Mac section much to his wife's delight.

Scot's newsletter is 100% free but he happily accepts donations. In line with the other two I sub to, I have also donated to Scot's an amount similar to the annual fees of the others.

Now, here's one I used to sub to but have opted out recently. This one is Marc Liron's XPUpdate. Marc's newsletter used to be a regular, minimum, once a month affair with lots of interesting snippets along with some excellent freebies for those new to the XP OS. What made it interesting and the reason I found it initially, is that Marc is an MVP in Digital Media and I was trying to track something down to do with codecs. The other thing I liked about Marc is that he is British and to date was the only British based newsletter I subbed to.

However, all this has gone by the by and before I say why I should add that Marc's newsletter has always been free. I have fallen out with Marc's approach because he now exclusively uses his newsletter as a vehicle for selling his latest video or latest marketing scheme for (as a current example) "MySpace Marketing Secrets". Secondly his entire approach on his websites (yes, plural) is to very much follow the pattern of the Americans. Long single page websites with lots of text emboldened or highlighted and at least 3 or 4 attempts per page to get you to "secure your copy now". Next, despite being British all of his sales spiel is very Americanised to the extent that the quoted prices are all in dolars.

Sorry Marc, you lost me when you stopped being about "Making Windows XP a little easier". It would have been nice for a British author to stay British and what's more he is a Christian so I had a lot of time for him.


And that folks is about it. There are lots of software, hardware or subject specific stuff I read as well but on the whole none that match the quality of the first 3 or 4 I mentioned. I'll just finish with this.

If you are someone who reads a newsletter on a regular basis and think I should review it - then please drop me a line and I'll look it up. Secondly, if you do read it regular then do you also support it in terms of cold hard cash? If it was your business, how would you feel if nobody bothered to say thanks? One other reason I like all of these newsletters .... they don't generate any other spam for you having signed up and if you want to drop out, then your eMail address is removed promptly and without fuss.

All in all, for all the magazines I sub to or support we are talking a few £10's of pounds for the lot.