Today's Tech - The most current review on the site.

Hardware - Reviews of desktop computer systems, laptops and peripherals.

Gadget - Reviews of consumer electronics: PDAs, handhelds, phones, pagers, stereos, TVs, cameras, etc.

DIY - How-tos and indispensable tools for those who want to build, upgrade and maintain the machines in their lives.

Shop Talk - A conferencing area for the latest high-tech news, gossip and information.

Street Noise - Our weblog which daily covers breaking news, gossip, tech releases, and more. If you have anything you'd like to see covered in Street Noise, email us.

Archive - Where all the previous reviews end up.

The goal of Street Tech is simple: to write honest tech reviews from personal experience: to rant about what sucks and to rave about what doesn't. We've put together a crew of writers who love technology but know the smell of bullshit when it arrives as the latest "killer app." If you have something to add to the discussion, please chime in. New reviews appear several times a week with tech news, information and lively conversation, daily in Shop Talk and Street Noise. We also sometimes have guest speakers as part of our Geek-in-Residence program who agree to participate in Shop Talk for a week, talking about their work and answering questions. Past residents have included sci-fi author (and X-Files episode co-writer) Tom Maddox, BEAM robotics guru Dave Hryinkiw and pirate radio historian Andrew Yoder.

About Our Reviews

Road Kill - El stinko tech. Stuff that just doesn't perform as advertised. Technology that only a marketing manager could love.
Object Value - Technology so well designed you almost don't care if it actually works. Did somebody say "iMac?"
Emperor's New Tech - Technology that's clearly been overtaken by its hype.
(Hey, remember VR? Push?)
Neo-Luddite Tech Solution - A solid piece of gear that still works after years of use and abuse. An oldie but a goodie.

The Street Tech Labs Posse is:

GARETH BRANWYN [Le Grand Fromage]
Gareth Branwyn is the Jargon Watch editor of Wired, a contributor to Esquire, I.D. Yahoo! Internet Life, and other mags. His book publishing credits include Jargon Watch: A Pocket Dictionary for the Jitterati (Wired Books), Jamming the Media: A Citizen's Guide (Chronicle) and co-authorship of the Happy Mutant Handbook (Riverside/Putnam). He plans on building a robot to replace him before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

NATE HEASLEY [Senior Editor]
Nate Heasley has been fascinated with technology ever since he first learned to program a TRS-80. Unfortunately, neither his programming nor his social skills have improved much since. He whiles away his days as most of us do, trying to dream up the next big dot-com.

TIM TATE [CTW (Chief Techno Weenie)]
Tim Tate is solid-state. He's quartz-timed and housed in a water-resistant casing with two expansion slots, built-in I/O ports and expandable memory. He's portable, upgradable and can run for days between charges. Comes with standard cross-platform connectivity for easy "Plug-and-Play" networking.

PETER SUGARMAN [Hypermedia Luminary and Street Tech Co-Founder]
Peter Sugarman is yet another toiler in the telecom vineyards. He lives in the Virginia woods contemplating convergence, infrastructure and programming so that he might hold forth on same. He, along with Gareth, Mark Frauenfelder and the Mysterious Ward Parkway, was the wetware behind the critically-acclaimed (honest) Beyond Cyberpunk, a compendium of bleeding edge sci-fi and cyberculture circa 1990.

SEAN CARTON [Interactive Bigshot and Street Tech Co-Owner]
Sean's written several Internet-related books including Dot.Bomb: Surviving (and Thriving) in the Dot.Com Implosion, Internet Virtual Worlds Quick Tour (Ventana), and co-authored (w/Gareth) the best-selling Mosaic Quick Tour (Ventana) and Internet Power Toolkit (Ventana). Sean's also contributes to Wired, bOING bOING, P.O.V. and other mags. They call him MISTER Carton at his advertising and web development firm Carton Donofrio Partners, Inc..

JOHN BERGIN [Designer]
John Bergin is the award-winning author and illustrator of the graphic novels From Inside, Bone Saw, The Crow, Ashes, and Golgothika (Caliber Comics). Other graphic projects have included web design, album cover artwork, and book jacket illustration. He is also the lead musician behind the bands Trust Obey and C17H19NO3. For an extensive bibliography visit his Grinder website.

DAVID PESCOVITZ [Contributing Writer]
David Pescovitz is the co-author of Reality Check (HardWired). Besides being a contributing editor for Wired, his writing about technology and culture appears in the Los Angeles Times, Discovery Channel Online, bOING bOING, Computer Life and New Scientist.

JOE NICKELL [Contributing Writer]
Joe Nickell writes stories for Business 2.0, Wired News, Wired, and other pubs. He is often recognized as the creator of ROX, a DIY television series that's been called "the best TV show in America" (Wired) and "the first TV show broadcast in cyberspace" (Time).

TIFFANY LEE BROWN [Contributing Writer]
Tiffany Lee Brown (a.k.a. Magdalen) feels rather ambivalent toward all the cybercaca she writes about. She's contributed to such upstanding pubs as Wired, Mondo 2000, The Rocket, Bust and STIM. Her words &/or face show up in some books, too.

SCOTT HESS [Contributing Writer]
Scott Hess is the Program Director for JAMtv a web-based music network headquartered in Chicago. In a previous life, he researched emerging models for commerce and community on the Internet for Andersen Consulting. In his spare time, Scott dabbles in short fiction, poetry and guitar, but as the saying goes, he doesn't expect to quit his "day job" anytime soon.

SHAUN DALE [Contributing Writer]
Shaun Dale was summarily tossed out of the only journalism class he ever took in 1967, which freed him up to found one of America's first high school underground newspapers. These days, when not busy cranking out anonymous propaganda for leftish politicians or playing with new toys for Street Tech, he is the associate editor of Cosmik Debris Webzine.

TOM MADDOX [Contributing Writer]
Tom Maddox is a science fiction author, essayist, and journalist. He's the author of the underappreciated 1991 novel HALO and co-writer (w/ William Gibson) of the "Kill Switch" episode of The X-Files. Tom lives in Olympia, Washington and teaches writing at Evergreen State College.

KEN REITZ [Contributing Writer]
Ken Reitz is a columnist and feature writer for Monitoring Times, Satellite Times, Satellite Entertainment Guide and Direct Guide.

LEE ANN KINKADE [Contributing Writer]
Lee Ann Kinkade, brilliant therapeutic nanny for severely emotionally disturbed kids and dabbler in retail sales, has no time to trifle with geek trash like you!

RAFE COLBURN [Contributing Writer]
Rafe toils away building corporate websites by day and writing computer books by night. He got his start in the ezine world back in 1991 co-editing the hacker zine Informatik Journal.

ANDREW SASAKI [Contributing Writer]
Andrew Sasaki is a professional geek living and working in New York City. He does not have a fiber optic socket at the base of his skull. Yet.

BILL KOCH [Contributing Writer]
Bill Koch spends his days playing on computers at an unnamed toy company (tough gig!). When not trying to complete one of his thousand nifty tech projects, he can be found slumming in the alterna-geek backwaters of Baltimore, Maryland.

JOEL WESTERBERG [Contributing Writer]
Joel Westerberg (a.k.a. Tux) lives on an island in the Archipelago of Stockholm, Sweden where he creates websites and edits the webzine Unsafe.

PETER COHEN [Contributing Writer]
Peter Cohen is "Lord of the Underworld and ruler of all he surveys." All seriousness aside, he's the founder of MacGaming and a senior editor at MacCentral.

ANDREW RICE [Contributing Writer]
Andrew Rice writes frequently for Outside, Salon, Islands, Aqua, and other magazines. He knows his way around a GPS unit but is still learning how to program his VCR.

MATTHEW HAWN [Contributing Writer]
Matthew Hawn is a wandering writer who wallows in the messy junction of technology and entertainment. He has worked for MSNBC, ZDTV, and Macworld. He is mailto:jukevox@well.com.

MERI BRIN [Contributing Writer]
Meri writes for Bunnyhop, researched Reality Check (HardWired) and Sin and Syntax (Broadway Books). Her photo appeared in Love & Rockets #30, and she raises geckos in her Oakland, CA home.

DONALD MELANSON [Contributing Writer]
Donald Melanson is the editor of Mindjack, an online magazine about tech, culture and the fringes of each. He's also a student at the University of New Brunswick, majoring in Multimedia Studies.

JASON SALISBURY [Contributing Writer]
The repellant and reclusive lead programmer for Argus IG, Jason Salisbury writes games with titles like "Moaning Monica" and "Ebola Monkey Bingo". He's also a CU-SeeMe junkie who still manages to find enough time to cram in sixty hours of TV viewing a week. Did we mention that he's repellant?

JOEL BRAND [Contributing Writer]
Joel Brand lives in Santa Monica and reports from global hot spots. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Details, Newsweek, The Washington Post and The Times of London. His television reports have appeared on CNN, ABC and Channel One News (shown in classrooms nationwide). Nothing makes him happier than writing by candle light and sending his reports via satellite from strife-torn countries.

BRUCE DYKES [Contributing Writer]
Bruce has been a geek since receiving his first electronics kit at a single-digit age. Now entering his third decade, he shows no signs of quitting any time soon. He currently works as a humble network technician in New Jersey.

VIRGINIA VITZTHUM [Contributing Writer]
Virginia Vitzthum writes regularly for Salon, Washington City Paper and now Street Tech. She's actually German royalty, but nobody's supposed to know that.

ERIC DIAMOND [Contributing Writer]
Eric Diamond is a graphic designer, writer, information architect, interstellar combat pilot, deep-sea explorer, international man of mystery and mayor of several successful SimCities. He lives in Chicago and writes for various computer publications. He may be the only technology reviewer who writes with a fountain pen.

ROB GIAKAS [Contributing Writer]
Rob is an honest-to-goodness software development project manager working to make the world a better place through BFS (Bug Free Software). When he's not busy reigning in scope creep, Rob can be found wrestling alligators and memory leaks.

BLAKE BRANWYN MALOOF [Contributing Writer]
Blake is the 14-year old riot nrrrd offspring of Gareth Branwyn. His main interests include pizza, computers and computer animation, role playing, and video games (not neccessarily in that order). He thinks his dad is kind of weird, but he tolerates him as long as the steady stream of techno-toys keeps circulating through the house. He wants everybody to check out his website and buy his T-shirts at his Cafe Press Store.

ALBERTO GAITAN [Contributing Writer]
Alberto Gaitan is a composer/programmer. His writing credits include The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, Wired, the Whole Earth Millennial Catalog and Kunstforum (a tweeky German art rag). He's a core member of public-art collaborative group Art Attack International with whom he has delighted and confused many a Joe Blow around the USA and in Europe. His band selforganizingsystem combines musicians, videographers and other post-media purveyors during multi-hour orgies of media excess.

MARK CRANE [Contributing Writer]
Mark Crane teaches English at the University of Louisville. His passions are rhetoric, composition and hand-held gadgets -- not necessarily in that order.

SACHIN SHAH [Contributing Writer]
Sachin is an unabashed gadget geek who'll beg, borrow, buy and burgle every gadget possible. During the day, he does high-tech PR for a New York-based agency. At night, he can be found wandering the dark alleys of the Internet, looking for the latest cool tech and even cooler ideas.

LARRY SMILG [Contributing Writer]
You know those model rocket geeks who strut around in T-shirts that say: "As a matter of fact, I am a rocket scientist"? Larry Smilg can wear one of those shirts without apology. He *really* is a rocket scientist, have once worked at Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Virginia.

JORDAN RUNNING [Contributing Writer]
Jordan is Street Tech's favorite college student. Actually, we hate him. He's as smart (and cocky) as the rest of us, and he's just a damn teenager. He makes us all look bad and we don't like that!

SCOTT BASS [Contributing Writer]
Scott Bass's radio show "Gift Wrapped Crap" is in it's third year on antennaradio.com, making it one of the longest-running radio shows on the Web. Between freelance writing, playing in a punk band, running a market research business from his home, and handling business affairs for antennaradio, Scott tries to take time out to enjoy the simpler things in life -- like going to the park and waterbombing squirrels.

TIM FORAN [Contributing Writer]
Tim is a 15 year-old who likes sports, tech stuff and hanging out with his friends. Just as tech-savvy as the next propeller head, he likes messing around with computers, as well as playing with any other gadgets he can get his hands on. Right now, his head is shaved, as he was a dedicated swimmer on his high school swim team. He assures us that he is not a skinhead.