Probably the largest influence I had growing up was watching (the now defunct) ZDTV/TechTV back when shows like The ScreenSavers, Call for Help, Silicon Spin, and Gamespot TV/Extended Play were on the air. I started watching around the time Leo Laporte and Kate Botello hosted The ScreenSavers, but I remember watching more shows with Leo Laporte & Patrick Norton. Eventually my cable provider dropped ZDTV shortly after it turned into TechTV.

These shows inspired me to persue a career in information technology. Everything from learning about HTML code to building my first custom PC, I owe to the crew over at ZDTV. There's still plenty of great tips/tricks/information on technology from these shows.

The hosts of the shows eventually moved on to other projects after ZDTV/TechTV got merged/canceled and are still out there today in the world of tech. The channel now exists as G4 but a good chunk of the crew work at Revision3 now.


I huge internet shout-out to the whole crew from ZDTV. I'd like to thank the following in particular for inspiring me the most: Roger Chang, Jessica Corbin, Yoshi DeHerrera, John C. Dvorak, Leo Laporte, Sarah Lane, Jim Louderback, Megan Morrone, Patrick Norton, Chris Prillo, Kevin Rose, Martin Sargent, Catherine Schwartz, Adam Sessler & Morgan Webb.


Leo Laporte has his own site called The TWiT Newscast network, operates a blog and has an archive of podcasts/radio shows @ TechGuyLabs.com:
http://twit.tv
http://techguylabs.com
http://leoville.com
http://www.amazon.com/Leo-Laporte/e/B001K8PZ3I/
http://twitter.com/leolaporte

Kate Botello operates a personal website, owns a theatre production company, a web design company, and runs a children's theater summer camp in Traverse City, Michigan:
http://www.katebotello.com
http://traversecitywebdesign.com/about

Patrick Norton currently hosts shows called HD Nation & Tekzilla on Revision3:
http://revision3.com/tekzilla
http://revision3.com/hdnation
http://www.twitter.com/patricknorton

The coolest nostalgia bomb that was dropped on me recently was when I re-discovered tons of old ZDTV clips online. You can check out a boatload of shows archived via these links or do a search online for more:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ZDTVMultimedia
http://www.livestream.com/desertbunker
http://www.youtube.com/user/zdtvfan

Bonus 1: Internet Archive of The ScreenSavers website:
http://discretionary.org/screensavers/index.php

Bonus 2: TechTV - How to build a website (hosted on archive.org)
http://www.archive.org/details/Daanbrg-TechTVHowToBuildAWebsite459

I found this nifty guide by "Th !e.FaLconO6" on building a nice computer for the right price. At version 0.8, it was last updated June 2nd, 2010.

2-18-2012 - UPDATE!
You can find an updated version of this guide here:
http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af150/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png

More Stuff here too:
http://s1002.photobucket.com/home/The_FalconO6/index

Thanks Internet!

Do you like Do-it-Yourself projects? Ever wanted to know how to make a laptop case out of old floppy disks? How about finding out how to convert your old xbox controller to use it on your computer? You can find these useful guides (and many more) at www.instructables.com

Here's a particularly good one about all the things you can do with an old computer:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Things_to_do_with_a_old_computer/

And here's another one on how to run composite video and network data through an Ethernet cable:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How_to_Run_Composite_Video_Through_an_Ethernet_Jac/

Make sure to browse though your categories of interest, you're sure to find something worth working on!