Charles McLellan

Professional biography

Hello, I'm the Reviews Editor at ZDNet UK. My experience with computers started at London's Imperial College, where I studied Zoology and then Environmental Technology. This was sufficiently long ago (mid-1970s) that Fortran, IBM punched-card machines and mainframes were involved, followed by green-screen terminals and eventually the personal computers we know and (mostly) love.

After doing post-grad research at Imperial for a while, I got involved in helping to produce a weekly news magazine based in Amsterdam. This was in the mid-1980s, and one of my duties was to set up data communications links with technologically-challenged national newspaper journalists in a number of European cities via a 300-baud modem and an acoustic coupler. Tech support people have my sympathy!

I've been in computer publishing since the late 1980s, starting with Reed Business Publishing's Practical Computing, then joining Ziff Davis in 1991 to help launch PC Magazine UK as Production Editor. After a couple of years I switched to commissioning, editing and writing, becoming a Technical Editor and then First Looks Editor.

When ZDNet came looking for a Reviews Editor in 2000, I was ready to make the move from print to online — just in time for the dot-com crash! It's been a long road from punched cards to the Cloud, but it'll still be fun seeing where we go from here.

Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1 review

The chunky Toughpad FZ-G1 has a high-resolution outdoor-visible screen, is moderately rugged, and delivers decent performance and middling battery life with the standard battery. The biggest drawback, however, is the price.

May 3, 2013 by Charles McLellan

1 Comment Vote

The Evolution of Enterprise Software: An overview

Enterprise software is evolving under selection pressure from challenging economic conditions and the adaptive possibilities afforded by cloud computing, mobility, big data analytics and social engagement.

May 1, 2013 by Charles McLellan

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Roadmap: processors

What's coming up in desktop, server and mobile processors? Bookmark our regularly updated Dipity-hosted timeline to stay in the loop.

April 24, 2013 by Charles McLellan and Nick Heath

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