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.

Lenovo ThinkPad S230u Twist review

An ultrabook that can convert to a tablet when the occasion demands, the ThinkPad Twist has a lot going for it. The build quality is very good, and there are enough business-friendly features to make it acceptable as a BYOD system. Battery life may be an issue though.

December 14, 2012 by Charles McLellan

9 Comments 2 Votes

Climbing Trillions Mountain: a field guide to the Internet of Things

A fourth revolution (after the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions) is almost upon us: the age of the 'trillion-node network', also known as The Internet of Things. This absorbing and accessible book offers copious ideas on how we should shape this 'pervasive computing' future.

December 10, 2012 by Charles McLellan

5 Comments Vote

Directory: Big Data vendors in EMEA

ZDNet's EMEA directory of Big Data vendors has market, product and contact information on companies that provide data analytics, data warehousing or other 'big data' products and services.

November 28, 2012 by Charles McLellan

Comments 1 Vote

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