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Leo Laporte
Leo Laporte in 2005
Birthdate:	November 29, 1956 (age 50)
Birth location:	New York City, New York
Official Website
Leo Laporte at IMDb

Leo Gordon Laporte (born November 29, 1956 in New York City, New York)^[1] is an American technology broadcaster, and author.

Laporte studied Chinese History at Yale University but did not earn a degree.^[2] Laporte once worked at McDonald's, where he reached the position of 'Night Closer' before being rejected reemployment, because of repeatedly quitting at the end of each summer to attend college.^[3]

Laporte's first home PC was an Atari 400.^[4]

Laporte operated one of the first Macintosh-only bulletin board systems, MacQueue, from 1985 to 1988.^[5]

He currently resides in Petaluma, California, with his wife Jennifer and two children, Henry and Abby.^{[citation needed]} Laporte had a prior marriage. He refers to his first wife as having come from Indiana on Show 328 of The Tech Guy

Laporte is the host of G4techTV Canada's daily television show The Lab With Leo Laporte, formerly known as Call for Help. The series also airs in Australia on the HOW TO Channel, as well as Google Video.

He also hosts a technology-oriented talk radio titled Leo Laporte: The Tech Guy. The show, once an exclusive to KFI AM 640 (Los Angeles), is now syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Laporte appears semi-regularly on Showbiz Tonight,^[6] Live with Regis and Kelly^[7] and 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. In addition, Laporte also 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 Monday through Saturday hour-long newsmagazine he helped create and appeared on 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 ZDTV (later TechTV). Laporte left The Screen Savers in 2004 due to a dispute with TechTV's then-outgoing owner, Vulcan Ventures, over stock ownership. His contract ended on March 31, and his absence from The Screen Savers on April 1 was originally believed to be an April Fool's Day joke.

Laporte has also pursued acting, playing Uncle Charlie in the movie Phoenix Rising.^[8]

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, Leo Laporte's Guide to OS X Tiger and Leo Laporte's PC Help Desk.

Laporte has also published a yearly series of technology almanacs: Leo Laporte's Technology Almanac and Poor Leo's Computer Almanac. Laporte's latest and last book is Leo Laporte's 2006 Technology Almanac, ISBN 0-7897-3397-8 (left).

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

Laporte announced in October, 2006 that he will not renew his contract with Que Publishing and has retired from publishing his long series of books. He said, "Writing books is hard work and, love starved groupies aside, the compensations are scant. I’ll put my energies into something I love to do, talking for a living."^[9]

Laporte currently owns and operates a netcast network named "TWiT.tv." The name is derived from the network's flagship podcast this WEEK in TECH (aka TWiT) which is hosted by Laporte along with a rotating panel of guests usually made up of several other former TechTV employees. 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 and by its over 280,000 weekly downloads. TWiT was given an estimated advertisement value of USD$1,000,000 a year.^{[citation needed]} AOL and CacheFly provide bandwidth for the show.

Laporte prefers to call his shows netcasts, saying "I've never liked the word podcast. It causes confusion... people have told me that they can't listen to my shows because they 'don't own an iPod'... I propose the word 'netcast.' It's a little clearer that these are broadcasts over the Internet. It's catchy and even kind of a pun."^[10]

• August 2005 - Laporte created Security Now!. Laporte and computer enthusiast and software engineer Steve Gibson. Dedicated exclusively to security in technology. (This is the only TWiT podcast that hasn't missed a release date)

• November 2005 - Laporte extended the new TWiT network with a podcast called Inside the Net with Amber MacArthur, dedicated to covering the latest trends on Web 2.0 technologies. (This show has since been renamed net@nite and is recorded live via talkshoe)

• December 2005 - Laporte created Triangulation, a podcast experiment featuring the columnist and broadcaster John C. Dvorak and Lawrence Lessig. The pilot's topic covered Google's attempt to create a search service for books; Google Book Search. Triangulation was never extended past the pilot. Dvorak moved on to host a similar show, CrankyGeeks, for Ziff Davis Media.

• January 2006 - Laporte created MacBreak, a video podcast which explores many interesting topics regarding Apple Inc.'s Macintosh computers. His co-hosts include Kendra Arimoto, Alex Lindsay, Emery Wells, and Merlin Mann.

• February 20, 2006 - Laporte created Daily Giz Wiz, a daily podcast featuring Dick DeBartolo. Laporte was quoted as saying: "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."^{[citation needed]}

• April 2006 - Laporte created the podcast FLOSS Weekly, a weekly podcast about Linux, BSD, and other open source software, with Chris DiBona. Laporte also added This Week in Media to the TWiT.tv lineup, a new podcast dedicated to the production of digital media. The podcast is hosted by Alex Lindsay and others.

• June 2006 - Laporte created a podcast called Futures in Biotech. Co-hosting with Dr. Marc F. Pelletier, they interview prominent figures in biotechnology.

• August 10, 2006 - Laporte created MacBreak Weekly. It was originally an audio version of MacBreak with the same topics and co-hosts as MacBreak. Video normally takes longer to produce, so this audio version offers an alternative for visitors not wishing to wait for the MacBreak releases. It is now a completely separate podcast.

• September 5, 2006 - For the first time in the history of the network, Laporte introduced advertising into the TWiT network. The first sponsors were T-Mobile, Astaro, Visa, and Dell. Each of the ad spots is typically a minute or less, and any combination of ads may appear in any TWiT program. Laporte has stated that the money will be used to pay the podcasting guests for their contributions.^[11]

• September 28, 2006. - Windows Weekly With Paul Thurrott, dedicated entirely to the new version of Microsoft Windows released in January, 2007 (prior to the release, the podcast was titled Countdown to Vista).

• October 23, 2006 - Laporte released This Week in Law (aka TWiL) on the TWiT.tv network, hosted by Denise Howell and dedicated to discussion of issues in technology law.

• November 8, 2006 - Laporte began doing a new show called net@nite with Amber MacArthur which was a replacement/continuation of Inside the Net. The focus of net@nite is still on things happening on the internet, but is hosted live every Sunday night on Talkshoe[1], while the recording of the show is released as a podcast on Tuesday as with the previous show Inside the Net.

• Laporte has been releasing copies of his radio show, now syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks, as a podcast a day or two after their release. He has been involving several of the members of his other podcasts in the show as well. It is called The Tech Guy.

• March 1, 2007- Leo Laporte started a new video podcast called Gear◊Media◊Tech. On Pixelcorps.tv. The show also features Scott Bourne, and Alex Lindsay. Together, they talk and review the greatest equipment and techniques for making great internet content.

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More spoken articles

   

• Leo Laporte's official website
• Leo Laporte's blog
• Leo Laporte's The Tech Guy radio show notes site
• Leo Laporte's message boards
• This Week in Tech Netcast/Podcast Network official website
• KFI AM 640 official website
• Call for Help official website
• The Lab with Leo Laporte official website