Leo Laporte

Leo Laporte (born November 29, 1956 in New York City, New York) is a technology broadcaster and author. He majored in (but did not complete) a Chinese History degree at Yale University. He currently resides in Sonoma County, California with his wife Jennifer and two children, Henry and Abby. His first home PC was an Atari 400.

Television and Radio

Laporte is the host of G4techTV Canada's daily television show Call for Help, which also airs in Australia on the HowTo channel, and briefly in the USA until it was cancelled in late 2005. Most months, he travels to Toronto for one week to the G4TechTV Canada studios to do the show. In addition, all personnel except Laporte are Canadians. He also hosts a technology-oriented talk radio show on station KFI AM 640 in Southern California, doing most shows from his home studio. He appears semi-regularly on Showbiz Tonight, Live with Regis and Kelly and ABC World News Now.

Laporte has created, hosted, and contributed to a number of technology-related broadcasting projects. He created and co-hosted Dvorak On Computers in January 1991, and hosted Laporte On Computers on KGO Radio and KSFO in San Francisco. Laporte hosted Internet! on PBS, and The Personal Computing Show on CNBC. In 1997, he earned an Emmy Award for his work on MSNBC's The Site, a daily hour-long newsmagazine. He created The Site, to which he also contributed daily in the role of a computer-generated character named Dev Null.

In 1998, he created and co-hosted The Screen Savers and the original version of Call for Help on the cable and satellite network TechTV. Laporte left The Screen Savers due to a dispute with TechTV's then-outgoing owner Vulcan Ventures over stock ownership.

Books

File:Leo Laporte's 2006 Technology Almanac - Book Cover.jpg

Laporte has authored a number of technology oriented books writings such as: 101 Computer Answers You Need to Know, Leo Laporte's 2005 Gadget Guide, Leo Laporte's Guide to TiVo.

Laporte has also published a yearly series of technology almanacs: Leo Laporte's Technology Almanac and Rich Leo's Computer Almanac. Laporte's latest book is Leo Laporte's 2006 Technology Almanac, ISBN 0789733978 (left).

Throughout his career, he has contributed to a number of periodicals such as BYTE, InfoWorld, and MacUser.

Podcasts

Laporte hosts the weekly podcast This Week in Tech (aka TWiT) with several other former co-hosts of The Screen Savers. This show remains one of the most popular podcasts on iTunes and other podcast subscription services, as evidenced by winning an award at the November 2005 Podcasting Expo in California for the year's best podcast.

In August 2005, Leo created the podcast Security Now! with "computer engineer" Steve Gibson, which is dedicated exclusively to security in technology.

In November 2005, Leo created another podcast called Inside the Net with Amber MacArthur, dedicated to covering the latest trends on Web 2.0 technologies.

In December 2005, Leo Laporte also created Triangulation, a podcast featuring renowned columnist and broadcaster John C. Dvorak, in which a panel of three experts discuss a single issue of technological importance.

In January 2006, Leo created "MacBreak", a video podcast which explores many interesting topics regarding Apple Macintosh computers. His co-hosts are Amber MacArthur, Alex Lindsay, and Emery Wells.

Leo refers to these additional podcasts as TWiT extensions.

Moday, February 20, 2006, Leo Laporte created a daily podcast called Daily GizWiz with Dick DeBartolo (or as Apple calls him D**k). "The Daily GizWiz is our first daily podcast. It will be released every weekday morning - high in fiber, low in calories, it's a great way to start your day."

Criticism

Laporte has been criticized on Internet blogs and forums for his heavy focus on Apple Computer products, despite their relatively low market share. He is known to be very enthusiastic about Apple products, such as iPods, and frequently recommends Macs as the answer to Windows users who have problems. In fact, some listeners interpret comments such as "the iPod works better on a Mac" to be "Windows bashing". In response he often states that he recommends the operating system "best for a given purpose", such as recommending podcasters use Windows for Adobe Audition. Conversely, however Leo has been critcized for preference on Windows over Macintosh prior to the Mac OS X era.