Neowin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neowin.net is a technology news website that actively focuses on Windows, PCs, Mac and Linux. Neowin runs under the slogan, "Where unprofessional journalism looks better."
Neowin was started as a hobby in October 2000 by Marcel Klum and Steven Parker, known within the forums as "Redmak" and "Neobond" respectively.
Neowin has broken several stories, such as the leak of Windows source code onto the internet.
On July 19, 2006 Neowin surpassed the 5 million post mark at or around 6:30am Eastern Time.
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[edit] Versions
The servers hosting Neowin were upgraded during December 2005 and Neowin 3.9s was launched. This upgrade, codename "Swift", is a progression from the version 3 theme and introduces subtle visual differences as well as a major overhaul of the content management system, focusing on semantic XHTML and CSS technologies and replacing the outdated nested table design. The forum system was also upgraded to IPB 2.1.3 as part of this move. Now currently running IPB 2.1.7.
On March 31, the Neowin homepage went down for a few hours, leaving the forum and IRC open. When the site went back up, it seemed to the uneducated like absolutely nothing was new. However, the backend had been updated, and the Neowin staff had secretly uploaded Neowin v4 SHIFT, a new theme which looks very similar to the proposed Neowin 5 design. On April 1 (not as an April Fool's joke, as odd as it may seem), the staff opened SHIFT up to public beta testing. SHIFT is not Neowin 5 "Finity" but rather, a transition version, or a shift, to the new version.
Current Version: Neowin V4.0 Shift PR8
[edit] Audience
Neowin is considered to be one of the great representations of the growth and concentration of enthusiastic users in computing, and of the omnipresent Microsoft Windows Operating System in all its forms. A hot topic of discussion currently is Microsoft's eagerly awaited Windows Vista. The subject of this future Operating System is debated exhaustively on a daily basis, motivating many users to imitate the appearance of this beta OS's GUI.
[edit] Site Structure
The website is composed of several areas which all provide different services:
[edit] News
There are three news sections that involve different areas of technology.
- Main - general news, featuring articles about various tech-related subjects;
- Gamers - news about both PC and console gaming;
- Software - features mostly Windows software, including updates and beta releases.
[edit] Podcasts
The NeowinCast is Neowin's official podcast, where a group made up of staff members discuss current news events and, much of the time, debate over what was good and what was bad, and shows a more editorial point of view from the staff.
The original podcasts were under the name NeoCast, but some issues arose, and the name was changed. The podcasts also originated as gamers podcasts, but no such podcast has been seen in a while, and news podcasts have taken over.
[edit] Articles & Reviews
This part of the site contains content that is original to Neowin and not linked from other sites.
[edit] Forum & Blogs
These parts of the website provide users an area to talk about technology and other topics.
The Neowin forums are Powered by Invision Power Board forum software. Neowin has an active technology forum consisting of 158,676 registered users (November 20, 2006) and over 6,200,000 posts. At its peak (August 5, 2006 at 21:17 GMT), Neowin's forum had as many as 4,997 users online simultaneously. According to Big-boards.com it is the 5th largest forum on the internet that is powered by Invision Power Board.
While the primary topics on Neowin are generally perceived as being Microsoft and Windows-centric, the forums have a large community for other discussions, including, but not limited to:
- Latest electronic technology: devices, gadgets, and other hardware.
- Customization and tweaking of Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.
- Console and PC gaming.
- Discussion of real world issues (politics, religion, philosophy).
- Hardware related topics, such as overclocking.
- Internet and Web Browser discussion, such as Opera, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
- Sports and Automobile discussion.
- Linux and Mac technology discussion
The blog extension of the forum, which allows Neowin users to post things they find interesting in their own personal blog, was only recently introduced with the latest update to the website's forums (3.8).
[edit] Software Contribution
Neowin has also been known for helping people to release new freeware programs to the public. Some examples of programs that started life on Neowin are AutoPatcher, HardDriveIndicator, WeatherAlert, Neowin UXTheme Multi-Patcher, Nexus Messenger, and Neowin Shift Linux
