My Favorite TechTV On-Air Personalities: Where Are They Now?

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My recent post about TV talk show hosts reminded me just how much I miss the fun folks who used to run a 24-hour cable channel called Tech TV. Yep, it was all computers all the time… for the geek in all of us.

The best part is they covered topics for beginners including new computer users altogether (think: senior citizens, moms, parents, and just plain ‘ol late-bloomers into the computer world) as well as topics for more advanced users of computers (like webmasters and others just starting to dabble into the world of HTML).

They never went too far in either direction, which meant that each show could keep your attention — no matter what your level of expertise with computers was. Plus, they made it FUN. Real-life computer and Internet how-to’s and explanations that were actually fun to learn and try.

Anyway, it’s been 3 years now and I’m (obviously) still having trouble getting past the fact that they changed the focus of the network from computers to gamers. TechTV became G4 on cable. Here’s one of their last shows (Check it out, they talk about DVD vs Blu-Ray when it was introduced in 2004!):

I got to wondering what all of those fun people are up to these days…

First of all, the story about TechTV’s demise is quite interesting. I didn’t realize all of that was going on…

There were over 40 different shows that aired on TechTV’s 24/7 programming. My favorites were The Screen Savers and Call For Help. Therefore, as a result, most of my favorite TechTV personalities were from those shows.

My Favorite TechTV Stars… Where Are They Now?

Leo Laporte — the main figurehead on lots of the show segments. He was the senior member of the crew, and he’s gone on to several successful ventures still in the tech field. I’m constantly spotting Leo on others’ websites and in tech segments on TV (including shows like Good Morning America and Live with Regis & Kelly).

Cat Schwartz — a sweet and cheerful co-host on the show Call For Help. Now she’s married, and she’s a new mom, so she’s taking her tech skills into the realm of parenthood. She’d definitely keepin’ it fun. (I was surprised when I spotted Cat on TLC’s “Bringing Home Baby” — where she shared the first days after her baby’s birth with the world.)

Patrick Norton — as co-host of The ScreenSavers with Leo Laporte, Patrick brought the “dry humor” to the show. He’s still working in the tech field, and is married with a new baby.

Chris Pirillo — he was “the life of the party” in a sea of geeks on TV. Well, at least he tried to be funny. Chris’s humor and simplified how-to’s were fun to watch on “Call For Help”. In our early days of managing websites, Jim and I frequently got tips and advice from Chris Pirillo’s many websites. Check out Chris Pirillo’s interesting and influential life since TechTV.

Kevin Rose — the softspoken one on TechTV’s “The Screen Savers”, you could always tell that this guy had a lot of know-how tucked away in that brain of his. I liked his style. Kevin went on to create Digg. For some reason, this high-tech professional doesn’t have much of a website (or rather, he doesn’t talk much on his site “Kevin Has A Blog“). I guess he’s a humble and modest kind of guy…

Sarah Lane — she brought real-world everyday fun stuff to the show. Technically she was the Senior Segment Producer on ‘The Screen Savers’. And she seemed more like a “fill-in” on those days that she appeared as a co-host on the show, but I liked her practical $.02 that she added. Jim and I recently spotted her online when we happened upon a site called Sara, On The Run. We were surprised to learn that it was “the” Sarah Lane. We enjoyed her travelogue from 2006 when she took a year off to travel the world. She documented her experiences through stories, photos, and videos. Interesting… and fun!

Yes, there were plenty of others who played a key role in TechTV’s success, but those listed above were my favorites.

Computer Programming On TV?

I’m still crossing my fingers for a return of TechTV (or something similar) to cable television. An entire network devoted solely to computers, blogging, Internet, and mobile gadgets… I’d watch! Would you?

Trust me, G4 isn’t it! (Not all computer users are gamers.) The initial concept of TechTV’s replacement (G4 TV) was “to create a service similar to TechTV but geared more toward MTV’s demographics”. In my opinion, it was a huge mistake. It didn’t work. In 2006, G4 ranked 57th out of 64 basic cable TV networks.

I just looked at the G4 lineup for today on TV (Monday):

first, a 7-hour marathon of The Jamie Kennedy Experiment

followed by 2 hours of “Cops” (yep, old re-runs)

two 30-minute shows called “Ninja Warrior”

followed by “Attack of the Show” and then “X-Play” (I think those are somewhat tech or game-related)

then back to shows like “Ninja Warrior”, “Cops”, “Cheaters”

The next day, they have a 4-hour marathon of “Totally Outrageous Behavior” which sounds like Jackass, but rated for TV.

Whatever. I’m just not seeing the programming value here…

We want our TechTV!

I got my first computer in 1986 and immediately started writing, saving documents, and organizing my entire life on it. Thus began my love affair with gadgets and all things tech. I built my first website in 1998 in old-school HTML code — before websites were "a thing". Blogs weren't invented yet. It was the same year that Google was born. My husband and I created in 2004 — before YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Mashable were launched. That was the year Facebook started and 'blog' was the Word of the Year according Merriam-Webster. Ever since then, anytime a new electronic gadget hits the market… I have to have it. (My husband's impulsive nature to try out every new tech gadget invented is even worse than mine!) When I'm not trying out fun new tech gadgets, you'll find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites).

TechTV

These pages are the show notes that I wrote up for each episode.

Every afternoon, you could tune in to watch Leo Laporte give computer advice on a great show: Call for Help. If you are familiar with Car Talk on NPR, this was similar; Excel Leo was on TV, not radio, and he was broadcasting five days a week instead of just Saturdays. Between the calls, Leo would have two guests per episode. I was the Excel guy on Call for Help, making 86 appearances. Leo would give me six minutes to demo something cool in Excel. At the end of my segment, he would hold up my book for the camera.

Excel Pie Chart Secrets » 05/01/2008 Way too many charts rely on the pie chart. In this segment, we will take a look at when you should use a pie chart and when you should not. Also, some cool tricks for sweeter pie charts.

Finding Fraud with Excel » 05/01/2008 Forensic auditors can use Excel to quickly wade through hundreds of thousands of records to find suspicious transactions. In this segment, we will take a look at some of those methods.

Excel in the Classroom » 05/01/2008 There are a variety of uses for Excel in the classroom. In this segment, we’ll show how teachers can use Excel for classroom management and as a tool for their students to use.

Printing in Excel 2007 » 05/01/2008 Excel 2007 introduces a new way to visualize your worksheet before you print it. See the actual white space, margins, headers, and footers right in the worksheet.

Using Filter to Find Records in Excel 2007 » 03/19/2008 Excel 2007 provides dramatic improvements to the Filter function in Excel. You can quickly filter a list to find a specific customer, records from a certain month, or records highlighted in a certain color.

Illustrate Business Processes with SmartArt in Office 2007 » 03/07/2008 Office 2007 offers 84 new types of business diagrams. It is easy to build and customize the diagram with the SmartArt feature.

Removing Duplicates in Excel II » 02/22/2008 One of the annoying tasks in previous versions of Excel was finding a unique list of invoices, customers, or products in a data set. Today, we’ll look at the various methods, including a new method in Excel 2007.

Data Visualizations in Excel 2007 » 11/01/2007 Excel 2007 offers amazing new data visualization tools such as icon sets, data bars, and color scales. These are great for the manager who's eyes glaze over when presented with a table of numbers.

Add Excel Menus to Word » 10/29/2007 Sometimes you are working in a Word document and it would be much easier to use Excel for the next section of the document. Perhaps you need a table, a chart, or some quick formulas. Without leaving Word, you can easily replace the Word menus with Excel and use Excel for the next section of the document.

Track Your Next Loan in Excel » 10/22/2007 Creating an amortization table.

Combining Chart Types in Excel » 10/16/2007 The key to making a number of innovative charts in Excel is to change the chart type of one or more of the chart series.

Add the Classic Excel 2003 Menu to Excel 2007! » 07/04/2007 The chief complaint about Office 2007 is that Microsoft replaced the menu and toolbars with a new user interface called the Ribbon. In their arrogance, Microsoft refused to provide a classic mode. In this segment, we’ll review two products that bring back the classic menu

Tracking Formulas in Microsoft Excel » 06/22/2007 Say that you've inherited this workbook from a co-worker. You want to learn about formulas in the workbook.

Charting Improvements in Excel 2007 » 06/12/2007 Excel 2007 offers a new charting engine. This article introduces this new engine.

Pivot Tables in Excel 2007 » 02/25/2007 Pivot tables improve in Excel 2007. On today's episode of Call For Help, I will show off the differences, plus some improvements that are only available in Excel 2007.

Excel Chart Lies » 02/25/2007 I am certainly not suggesting that you use charts to lie! The charts shown on this episode will help you to spot when someone is not telling the truth with a chart.

Tables in Excel 2007 » 02/23/2007 In Excel 2003, Microsoft introduced List functionality (Ctrl+L). They've improved and replaced this in Excel 2007 with table functionality. Most spreadsheets contain data in a tabular format - headings across the top and each row containing a new record.

Everything2.com

TechTV was formerly ZDTV , owned by the publishing conglomerate, Ziff-Davis . In January, 2000, ZDTV was sold to Vulcan Ventures , based out of Bellevue, Washington Vulcan Ventures is run by the Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen

Supposedly, TechTV is pledged to "help viewers improve their computer knowledge and participate more fully in the digital age". Whether it does this or not depends on what knowledge you're looking for... most of the stuff could be found on the internet in 1/10th of the time, but then again, this is in tasty TV format. All of the shows have their own corresponding website under TechTV's homepage some of which are updated DURING the show. That's cool!

Here's the list of TechTV's current shows:

Tech Live - (Daily x 9.5 hours/News and Information)

AudioFile - (Weekly x 30 minutes/News & Information)

Big Thinkers - (Weekly x 30 minutes/Information)

Call For Help - (Daily x 60 minutes/Information)

CyberCrime - (Weekly x 30 minutes/News & Information)

Extended Play - (Weekly x 30 minutes/News & Information)

Fresh Gear - (Weekly x 30 minutes/News & Information)

Internet Tonight - (Daily x 30 minutes/News & Information)

The Screen Savers - (Daily x 90 minutes/Information)

Silicon Spin - (Daily x 30 minutes/Information)

TechTV News - (Daily x 30 minutes/News & Information)

The inherent problems with only having this many shows are as follows. All Weekly shows are repeated at the same time every day, I am pretty sure. Sometimes they run out of the dailies and repeat those too. The Screen Savers is worth watching sometimes, it's kinda fun and interesting.