About Joe On Tech

Thanks for checking out Joe On Tech. I’m glad you stopped by. For a detailed introduction to this site, see The Joe On Tech Manifesto. I’ll summarize it in these five handy bullet points:

• Technology exists to make people’s lives better, but there’s often a gap between what people need and what technology offers.

• Closing that gap may involve changing the way you think, adapting technology to suit your needs, creating new technology from scratch, or any combination of these things.

• You don’t have to be a geek to be friends with technology. All you need is logic, creativity, a little direction, and a willingness to have fun with it.

• Technology is about all the ways humans interact with the world. It’s a broad topic that goes way beyond computers and other electronic gadgets—and any aspect of technology is fair game for this site.

• This isn’t a site for tech news, rumors, speculation, or gadget worship—there are plenty of those already. It’s a resource for smart people who don’t happen to be tech experts but would like to learn more.

The site’s name started out as “The Joe of Tech,” inspired by the wonderful web comic The Joy of Tech by Nitrozac and Snaggy, but after further discussion, we decided that it would be better if the two sites’ names were less similar.

Welcome!

About Joe Kissell

I’ve been writing about technology—and helping to create it—for over 20 years. One of my favorite things about my job is taking a complicated or even scary technical topic and figuring out how to explain it to a nontechnical audience in a way that makes sense and reduces stress.

I’ve written more than 50 books on tech topics, including best-selling titles about Mac backups and iCloud. I am a contributing editor to TidBITS (the second-longest-running publication on the Internet), a senior contributor to Macworld, the most prolific author in the Take Control ebook series, and the only author in the Joe On Tech series of books. I frequently speak about technology at conferences, user group meetings, and other events.

My family and I live in the San Diego neighborhood of Normal Heights, which is appropriate because we’re not unusually tall or short. My wife, Morgen Jahnke, writes fiction and shares with me the duties of running our little business, alt concepts inc. Our sons, Soren and Devin, are too young to go work in the mines, but they support the family with giggles and hugs. Our cat, Zora, is the least productive member of the household; she likes to make friends with bugs and mice.

With two small kids and writing deadlines up to here, I barely know the meaning of the word sleep, and free time is an unfamiliar concept. However, I do make time to walk in my neighborhood, study t’ai chi, eat ice cream, and work off the ice cream at the gym. If you see me hanging out at Starbucks, Lestat’s, Pappalecco, the Y, or whatever, stop by and say hello.

A word about advertising

You didn’t come here to look at ads, so I’m trying to keep the focus where it belongs: on useful information. Because I earn my income selling products and services (such as ebooks, webinars, and live presentations), the only advertising you’ll see on this site is for things I create myself—and I try to keep that stuff both tasteful and reasonably unobtrusive. I wouldn’t rule out offering memberships or accepting sponsors at some point, but if I sell enough books (hint, hint) I won’t have to.

Whenever I link to a product that I think you might find useful, the link includes an affiliate code (if available). That way, if you end up buying the item, I get a small percentage of the sale price as a referral fee. But I never include affiliate links for products I wouldn’t use myself, nor do I mention products solely for the purpose of generating affiliate revenue.

Speaking of affiliate links:

• I’m required by a bizarre California law to inform you that with respect to ThinkGeek, Joe On Tech (like all California affiliates) is prohibited from engaging in any solicitation activities that specifically seek to target or refer potential customers who are California residents to THINKGEEK, INC. (or its affiliates or subsidiaries) including, but not limited to: distributing flyers, coupons, newsletters and other printed promotional materials, or electronic equivalents; verbal solicitation (e.g., in-person referrals); initiating telephone calls; and sending e-mails. All of which is perfectly fine by me, because we serve the same information to everyone without respect to their location; we don’t specifically target California residents in any way. It’s all good.

• Amazon requires that I include the following disclosure: Joe On Tech is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

I want you to be confident that everything you read here is my honest and unbiased opinion. As a result, I disallow “advertorials” (advertising for third-party products dressed up as editorial articles) and schemes where advertisers pay a publisher to work key words, phrases, and links into their text. Ick.

If you like my attitude toward advertising, you can thank me by buying a copy of, say, Backing Up Your Mac. Or any of my books. Or all of them. Copies for your friends, too.

Comments

This site does not include comments, because seriously, life is too short. If you have feedback or questions for me, you can contact me by email. (In some cases, and only with your prior permission, I may post your message and my response on the site.) If you have something to say to the rest of the world about something I’ve written, I invite you to do so on your own site or via social media.