Leo Laporte: Tech Guru or Poser?
August 5, 2008
I’ve recently watched a tv show called The Lab with Leo Laporte on G4 Tech TV (I don’t have this channel at home just so you know) and after watching the show it made me wonder the title of this post. At first glance, this guy, Leo Laporte (apparently a pretty well-known tech personality), seemed to be a generic tech guru who happens to have his own tv show; the show I watched was about backing up data. It was filmed in a studio on a counter where there were four different external hard drives and some other guy was explaining to him the features of each hard drive. The guy basically explained storage capacities and the different ports available – while Laporte just stood there nodding and occasionally adding ambiguous remarks like, “that’s interesting” and others. But if this self-proclaimed techie really is a tech guru, why doesn’t he present the hardware himself? This question answered itself the moment I heard him say something along the lines of, “…I have one of these with my Mac at home and it just works”. Not only that, he just plain doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about – near the end of the show, a girl in their studio demonstrated a backup (on a Mac, of course) at which point this Laporte guy kept talking about how backups are important and that if you get a virus you could lose your data – all those obvious facts that anyone with at least some computing history would know. If you’ve noticed, the show has been cancelled as stated on their website. I don’t know if you consider him a tech personality, but from what I’ve seen on his “tech” show, he’s about as techie as my mom (who is often troubled by the simplest of problems, on a MAC)
wait y am i getting apple hating undertones in your story? In fact I just realized a whole lot of articles on the blog hate on apple! When did we turn into a Steve Jobs Troll blog lol?!
macs blow. end of story.
LOL coming from the guy who likes AMD. At least macs had the sense to use intel processors now.
I don’t actually hate apple or macs that much…it’s only when they boast that Macs “just work” and compare them to crap PCs whilst making PC users look like retards.
hope that guys reads this blog
someone should email it to him
apologies to anyone offended but I’ve just never heard of him before – nor have I ever watched his shows.
90 % of the people out there aren’t Techies and you need a figure head or TV savvy person such as Leo to explain in simple terms on technical subjects be it Backup systems to Malware or how to set up parental controls on a computer. He may not be a expert or specialist by any means but what he does bring to the table is a friendly understanding demeanor to explain what the heck 1080p TV means to the average joe. Analogy to the medical field he’s the understand general practitioner that explains in come language to you vice the heart specialist that you can’t understand a word he says.
I won’t ever comment about the Mac vs PC as he uses both including Linux.
I understand what you’re saying and that’s true but to be honest, becoming a doctor/general practitioner takes a LOT more effort and time. There are more and more tech savvy people then ever before (even the supposed gadget geek Jimmy Fallon… XD) – tech will be just another part of growing up in this generation. People who like tech will love what the future has in store, and people who don’t like tech… well, they’re gonna have to deal with it. Perhaps I’m being self-centered, but the word ‘geek’ is becoming more common than celebrity fads.