Oliver Rist

My Experience

I've covered business technology for more than 25 years, and in that time I've reviewed hundreds of products and services and written a similar number of trend and analysis stories. My first job in journalism was with PC Magazine in the 1990s, but I've also written for other enterprise technology publications, including Computer Shopper, InformationWeek, InfoWorld, and InternetWeek.

Between stints as a journalist, I've worked as an IT consultant, software development manager, and marketing executive for several companies, including Microsoft, where I was a senior technical product manager for Windows Server. My focus is on business tech reviews at PCMag, but you can also find me co-hosting This Week in Enterprise Tech on the TWiT.tv network.

My Areas of Expertise

• Business-grade Voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing
• Customer relationship management (CRM) systems
• Digital marketing platforms
• Cryptocurrency, digital payment, and point of sale (POS) systems
• IT management and security tools
• Backup, data protection, and disaster recovery

The Technology I Use

My daily workhorse baby is a sleek Dell XPS 13 9310 ultraportable running Windows 11, a recent purchase that still gives me goosebumps when I look at it. When I'm at my desk, I connect it to two honking HP U28 4K displays using Dell's fancy WD19 docking station. When I'm doing personal work or something that's graphics intensive, those 4K displays get shared with my desktop machine, an iBuyPower Pro Gaming PC that uses Windows 10. And when I'm testing a network product, I use a slightly older Dell Precision Mobile Workstation that dual boots between Windows 10 and Ubuntu.

Being a business tech reviewer, my home network is a little more involved than most. It's based on a business-class Verizon FiOS internet connection, but between that and the rest of the network sits a Ubiquiti UniFi Security Gateway (USG). My wired connections, including my wife's and my PCs, our smart TVs, and printers run off two UniFi Switch 8 boxes, while the Wi-Fi gets handled using three UniFi AP AC Pro access points. Data protection is a combination of my 32TB Western Digital My Cloud Pro P4100 home NAS, a 2TB Dropbox business account, and BackBlaze's backup software.

The network is managed with UniFi's Cloud Key and Controller software, because I'm a sucker for colorful dashboards and heat maps. I sometimes back that up using a Wireshark instance I've got running on the Ubuntu machine. For work, I'm a Microsoft Office guy. I live in Outlook and use OneNote for practically everything aside from final draft writing. My days at Microsoft also made me Excel and PowerPoint proficient. The latter is where I do most of the work-related graphics chores, though for personal projects I like Adobe Photoshop and Wonderdraft.

My Wi-Fi network handles all our tablets and phones, as well as all the home automation devices in our ADT Pulse home security system. That said, I've backed that up with a couple of Wyze Cams. My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S10, and my tablet library includes three Apple iPads, an Amazon Fire HD 10, and a Samsung Galaxy Book 13.

In the misty days of yore, my first PC was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 4, and my first mobile phone was a Nokia 8210.