It appears that my article last week on Euro 2004 was a little bit of a jinx on the England squad and although my opinion of Swiss referees and David Beckham has gone down somewhat I suppose we should take defeat gracefully and admit that the better side won at the end of the day. At least now that we´re out of Euro I can once again get back to talking about what this article is supposed to discuss; computers.
I believe that there are two types of computer user in this world; those that just use them and those that not only use them but also have a desire to understand the technology involved. The latter of these two user groups will probably appreciate my website for today which is TomsHardware.com which is a comprehensive database of computer news and articles.
Launched back in 1996 by Dr. Thomas Pabst, Toms Hardware has become one of the best sources for independent news, computer articles and hardware reviews and quite impressively now achieves more than 4.4 million visitors a month. The real appeal to the many computer users that visit the site is the sheer depth of the information available; the reviews area of the site for example will regularly publish 20 pages reviewing a specific product whereas a paper based publication would normally dedicate a page or so to reviewing the same item which makes the difference in detail quite apparent. It is true that for the majority of consumers that such a comprehensive review isn´t necessary when making a purchasing decision but if you are serious about your hardware it could easily prevent you buying a lemon.
The news area of the site provides updates from all areas of the technology and computing market which often makes for quite interesting reading. As it is quite extensive, the news can also be sorted into specific areas; for example you could ask for news just relating to CPU´s or printers.
In addition, if you´re not looking to purchase anything but take a genuine interest in learning about technology you can head to the articles area of the site which discusses specific technologies or specific manufacturers´ business models and successes. As all articles and news are archived on the site it is easy to look back over the years if you require information dating back several years.
All the articles and news features are written by professional journalists and are nicely illustrated with videos and pictures; it isn´t as though the guys doing this site are 14 year old adolescents with no previous writing experience but a passion for technology. As with all the best sites that I review it is supported entirely by non intrusive advertising which makes it completely free of charge and allows the writers to be completely independent which is extremely important when professionally writing; if they don´t like a particular product then they can let you know about it without fear of site funding being removed by the manufacturer. One such example of independence that the site boasts quite proudly occurred several years ago when Intel released a new processor which was slated by Toms Hardware for having several design flaws; it was removed from sale a week later.
Bottom line is even if you take just a passing interest in technology and computing then you should visit TomsHardware.com as there will be at least a few items on there that take your fancy however if you just use your computer and don´t want to know how it works, about the manufacturer or what you can buy to improve it then this probably won´t be your cup of tea.
Computer Articles 2007
