ItsGeekToMe.co
The official home of It's Geek to Me on the web!
About “It’s Geek to Me”
Greetings, and welcome to It’s Geek to Me! This site is primarily a permanent archive of past columns of the It’s Geek to Me newspaper column, but I hope to add other content over time. It all depends on how many people use the site, and what kind of feedback I get from my readers.
The column originated in 2007, when the author of the syndicated computers and technology column that was then being published in the Northwest Florida Daily News unexpectedly (for me anyway) announced his retirement. I’ve always had a more-than-passing interest in writing, and have spent most of my adult life around computers in one way or another (see I.G.T.M. Issue #1 for details). Seeing a possible opportunity, I contacted the paper to see what they were going to do about a replacement, and whether they would be interested in featuring some local talent. After exchanging a few e-mails with Del Stone (in which he made it clear they couldn’t pay me anything) and after he read a few samples of my writing, he agreed to give me a try, and It’s Geek to Me was born. When it first started, it was printed in an insert magazine called Next that ran in the Thursday edition. During a format change, Next was dropped, and it almost looked like the column would die out completely. Instead, it was moved to Sundays, and inserted into the Lifestyle section. That actually increased readership, along with the column’s popularity.
After publishing in the Daily News for a while, Del offered to put the column on the internal corporate network of the Daily News’ parent company, Freedom Communications (since changed to Halifax Media Group, then again changed to Gatehouse Media). It wasn’t too long before it was picked up by other papers on the news wire and internal distribution networks. Over time, It’s Geek to Me has published in, or on the website of:
- The Northwest Florida Daily News
- The Panama City News Herald (Florida)
- The South Padre Island Breeze (Texas)
- The Odessa American (Texas)
- The Colusa County Sun-Herald (California)
- The Gaston Gazette (North Carolina)
- The Valley Morning Star (Texas)
- The Yuma Sun (Arizona)
- The Star (Florida)
- The Crestview News Bulletin (Florida)
- Santa Rosa’s Press Gazette (Florida)
- The Walton Sun (Florida)
- The Destin Log (Florida)
- The Gadsden Times (Alabama)
- The Washington County News / The Holmes County Times Advertiser (Florida)
- Emerald Coast Community Broadcasters (Florida)
- The Tuscaloosa News (Alabama)
- Houma Today (Louisiana)
- The Daily Comet (Louisiana)
- The Apalachicola & Carrabelle Times (Florida)
- Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
- Mid Bay News (Florida)
That is probably not a complete list, as the column is constantly shared on various news wires. The column has also been picked up on RSS feeds, Twitter, and other Internet cross-links, and has appeared in plagiarized form on countless websites around the globe. You think imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Well it doesn’t hold a candle to plagiarism in a world filled with countless billions of other documents on the Internet that they could be stealing…
– Geek