Time for a new adventure: PCMag!

Plus some things I really want to share.

This week, I have some news: I’ve accepted a full-time job with PCMag, and you’ll find me bringing my voice to Windows coverage there going forward. I’m excited to be part of such an awesome team.

PCMag has bet on expertise, quality, and reader trust, and I believe there’s still a hunger for human-created writing made with care. That’s what The Windows ReadMe — and all my writing, going back to the early days of How-To Geek — has always been about.

As part of this, I’ll have to hit the pause button on The Windows ReadMe. But first, I have a few more things I really want to say:

👋 If you are a paying subscriber, first: Thank you so much! This newsletter has zero ads, so you’ve made it possible for me to spend time on this project. I’ve always thought of paid subscriptions more as tips given to support my work, and they’ve meant a lot to me. If you’d like a refund anyway, just reply to this email and I’ll take care of it.

Where to find me going forward

📩 PCMag’s Windows Guide newsletter will be a good place to hear from me in the future!

📝 My PCMag author page shows my recent work, too — I’ve had the pleasure of freelancing for them for a while!

🔔 I have LinkedIn and X accounts — and I’ve just created a Bluesky account, too, in case you’re interested. Maybe I’ll use them more in the future.

Support Thurrott.com with 50% off!

I have to take this moment to thank Paul Thurrott for partnering with me on this newsletter. I remain a huge fan of his work, and we’re already talking about ways we might work together in the future.

Paul Thurrott’s work is worth supporting, and I really enjoy reading his writing at Thurrott.com. I wanted to do something special for our readers and encourage you to check out his work, so here’s a code for 50% off on a Thurrott Premium subscription: WINDOWSREADME

To redeem it:

1. Head to Thurrott.com and create an account if you don’t already have one.

2. Head to the Thurrott Premium page.

3. Click “Purchase membership.”

4. Click “Add promotion code” and enter: WINDOWSREADME

Paul says this should be valid for the next two weeks.

(Bonus: Thurrott Premium members now get all his books for free!)

💸 Full disclosure: I’m receiving no compensation from Paul or Thurrott.com for sharing this. I just want to support his work and encourage you to check it out.

A thanks to my clients

I’ve been freelancing for awesome clients while writing The Windows ReadMe, and I wanted to highlight a few of them:

• PCWorld is an incredible publication full of people who really care. I had the pleasure of spending time with them at CES a few months ago, and I’ve had the pleasure of writing lots of laptop reviews and editorials about PC hardware and Windows there over the past few years. I wish the PCWorld team nothing but the best, and I will truly miss working with them.

• Micro Center News, run by the awesome Dan Ackerman, is incredible. I’m impressed by what Dan and his team have been able to accomplish. Micro Center News gave me the ability to stretch my wings and try my hand at topics I wouldn’t normally cover, too, like explaining LLM quantization in plain English. (I firmly believe there’s not enough coverage of LLM topics from this sort of geeky technical perspective, and that local AI will be big in the future. But that’s another topic.)

• AskWoody, as a long-term publication founded on direct relationships with paying readers, has been an inspiration. It was an honor to be part of it. I wish there were more publications like AskWoody left on the web — the web would be a much better place.

This isn’t an exhaustive list — just the ones I most wanted to share.

Oh, more newsletters!

I also want to thank JR Raphael of Android Intelligence and Jared Newman of Advisorator and Cord Cutter Weekly. I worked with JR for two years, and he made The Windows ReadMe possible. And Jared has been a great guy.

They’re both excellent individuals, and their independent newsletters are worth checking out. They inspired by efforts here with The Windows ReadMe.

Also: Dan’s Tech Support with Dan Ackerman newsletter is excellent, too!

Most importantly: A thank you to you

Thanks for being one of the readers who’ve made my career possible. Being a journalist means change, and this is another one of those moments of change. I’ve gone through so many different platforms and worked with so many different people in my career, but what persists is my voice — and the fact that people want to read it.

Now, my voice will be at PCMag, and The Windows ReadMe will go quiet. It’s the way of things.

But I’m still proud of what I built here — a place where I could write whatever I wanted, even if it was too personal for most publications or not the kind of thing that would get viral traffic. It was a lot of fun.

👀 Here’s a meditative piece I wrote about how my writing is just like my performing Shakespeare on stage. I originally sent it just to my paying subscribers, but I just made it available to everyone. It’s a statement of what I was trying to do here. And it’s probably the most personal thing I’ve ever written and published. Consider it an Easter egg for reading this far!

I took this photo during my CES trip this year.

👋 So thank you for everything! The Windows ReadMe will still exist, but it’ll be on pause while I focus my energies on PCMag. Catch me there!