Keith Shaw
The first gadget Keith Shaw ever wanted was the Merlin, a red plastic toy that beeped and played Tic-Tac-Toe and other various games. Since then, his obsession with technology, both small and large, has grown into the multimedia empire that is Cool Tools. A child of the '70s and teen-ager of the '80s, Shaw has been a fan of computers, technology and video games right from the start. He won an award in 8th grade for programming a game on the school's only computer, and saved his allowance to buy an Atari 2600. He took a side trip in the '90s to the world of newspaper journalism, and has worked at a variety of newspapers in New York, Florida and Massachusetts. In 1997, he combined his love of technology with his journalism skills, working at Computerworld for a few years before joining Network World in 1999 as the company's product reviews editor. In 2000, Shaw took over the Cool Tools column, which continues to appear in the print version of Network World weekly. Shaw started the Cool Tools video show in 2005, and in 2006 teamed up with Multimedia Editor Jason Meserve to create the company's weekly Twisted Pair podcast, which occassionally covers gadgets and other technology news.
Shaw has a bachelor's degree in newspaper journalism from Syracuse University, and he's extremely disappointed with the football team as of late. As product reviews editor, Shaw won an award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for a 2003 article on anti-spam testing. Shaw is also the co-creator of http://www.taquitos.net, the crunchiest site on the InterWeb, which has taste tested and reviewed more than 4,000 varieties of snack foods.
- Keith on
The Leader in Network Knowledge
