About Andrew Miller / Spode

The Present

I'm a technology journalist, PHP developer and mountain bike stunt rider. I write for several technology publications including The Register, Trusted Reviews and Custom PC. I have a weekly blog on The Telegraph and a personal blog on Spode's Abode. You will also find me on ThinkAboutTech, The BBC, Wired, Channel Flip, IT Pro or Know Your Mobile.

My by-line is usually Andrew Spode Miller, to avoid confusion with other writers. I have had content reproduced in several languages, countries and mediums.

Entrepreneurial by nature, I am the man behind JournoTwit, ThinkAboutTech and Think Bikes. I am working closely with Dan MonsieurLe on future ventures.

I am known for my Linux/FOSS advocacy, spontaneous creativity and “just do it” attitude. My ability to turn my hand to most things makes me a “one size fits all” resource. Despite living in Kent, you will find me in and around the London journalist, start-up and twitter scenes, usually with a glass of red wine in one hand and a Netbook in the other. During the weekends, you will find me performing at events around the country with Think Bikes.

The Past

"Spode" originates from a PG Wodehouse novel, and I have been using it as my real and online name since the age of 13. I had my name officially changed to Andrew Spode Alexander Miller in 2003.

My writing life started aged 15, running spodesabode.com - then a hardware reviews site. I soon found myself flung into the fast paced life of journalism at aged 16, thanks to Jeremy Spencer of Computer Shopper Magazine. I contributed to the “Shopper Labs” section of the magazine for many years.

I continued my schooling whilst freelancing, but prematurely left my degree in Multimedia Design & Technology at the University of Kent at Canterbury to persue my career. I very quickly found myself freelancing for many technology publications, including Custom PC, PC Extreme and The Inquirer. I also contributed to the launch issue of GigaHz Magazine before becoming a retained freelancer for Custom PC during 2005.

During 2006, I dropped my freelance status to be technical editor of Trusted Reviews, where amongst writing, I also developed a benchmark suite that was also used by sister site Bit-Tech for evaluating both 2D and 3D performance. Upon leaving, I quickly found myself developing the benchmark suite for Custom PC, which is freely available on SpodeMark.com.

During 2007, I took a break from journalism to start Think Bikes with David Lowe, a fellow bike rider. During this break I also spent a lot of time developing open source projects and working closely with Linux. Think Bikes then established, I returned to journalism in 2008 when the Asus EeePC piqued my interest. The break allowed my focus to move away from PC components and towards mobility, open source, internet technology and general consumer technology.

My Sites

About Spode's Abode

Spode's Abode was originally a hardware modification website, founded in 2000. It soon converted to a hardware review site and reached its peak in 2004. However, despite selling our content to PC Extreme magazine, I could not invest the time or money to get the site profitable. I instead turned my focus to writing for other publications. Most of the old content has been archived off, but a lot has been removed over the years as it became stale.

Instead of writing the new site from scratch, I opted to use Lussumo's Vanilla. I felt that if I was going to spend anytime developing, it may as well be as an add-on that will benefit the open source community. Out of the box, this is very simple forum, which I installed and modifed add-ons to get the desired functionality, before changing the design to suit. The logo was created by Doug Kennedy of Undabo.com.

Spode's Abode is now the home to any articles and opinions that I don't deem fit for any other publication. Being a forum, it's also home to a number of the people I have met over the years.

 
Copyright Andrew Miller (Spode), 2008