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Stephen Manes (born January 8, 1949) wrote the "Digital Tools" column that appeared in every issue of Forbes until recently when he left the publication. He was also co-host and co-executive editor of the public television series "PC World's Digital Duo," a program he helped create. It ended in 2008 when PC World stopped running his column.

Manes was previously the Personal Computers columnist for the Science Times section of The New York Times and a regular columnist for InformationWeek. He has been on the technology beat since 1982 as a columnist and contributing editor for PC Magazine, PC/Computing, PC Sources, PCjr, and Netguide. The now defunct Marketing Computers named him one of the four most influential writers about the computer industry and called him "a strong critical voice."

From April 1995 to December 2008, he also wrote the "Full Disclosure" column, anchoring the back page of PC World.

Manes is coauthor of the best-selling and definitive biography Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry...and Made Himself the Richest Man in America. He also wrote The Complete MCI Mail Handbook and programmed much of the Starfixer and UnderGround WordStar software packages.

Manes, who ironically has no children, is also the author of more than 30 books for children and young adults, including the Publishers Weekly bestseller Make Four Million Dollars by Next Thursday! and the award-winning Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days!, which was adapted for the public television series Wonderworks. His books include the cult favorites Chicken Trek and The Obnoxious Jerks and have won a commendation from the National Science Foundation, International Reading Association Children's Choice awards, and kid-voted awards in five states. His writing credits also include television programs produced by ABC Television and KCET/Los Angeles and the 70s classic 20th Century-Fox movie Mother, Jugs & Speed.

Manes is currently serving his fourth term as an elected member of the National Council of the Authors Guild, the country's oldest organization of book authors. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, he now lives in Seattle.

Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig strongly criticized Manes in 2004 for a review published in Forbes. Lessig was critical of the "review (which was unthinking and ill-informed) and [of] its tone (which was rude and abusive)," and added that "both seemed to me to be beneath the quality of the publication."

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Stephen Manes", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0