Career
He was best known as a personal computing pundit, starting with Personal Computer World (PCW), writing a monthly column for the magazine from its launch in 1978 until its closure in June 2009. At the peak of the fame and influence of PCW, Kewney was widely regarded as one of the United Kingdom"s most influential writers and broadcasters on microcomputing technology, founding and editing trade publications Microscope and Personal Computer Dealer, co-presenting Computer Trade Video and working as a television presenter for five years on Thames television"s Database and Channel 4"s 4 Computer Buffs before helping launch Ziff-Davis in Britain as the star columnist of Personal Computer Magazine (United Kingdom), Personal Computer Direct, Computer Life, Information Technology Week, and ZDNet United Kingdom. Kewney"s original goal was to become a civil engineer, but he did not complete that university course of study. In 1965, he dropped out to work for English Electric Leo Marconi Computers.
On 8 May 2006, British Broadcasting Corporation News 24 journalist Karen Bowerman interviewed Congolese job applicant Guy Goma live on air, mistakenly believing him to be Kewney and asking him questions about the Apple Corps v.
Apple Computer court case. Kewney did not take the mix-up well and wrote an angry response on his blog, "NewsWireless" in which he commented "nd the fact that a few hundred thousand people in the world are now under the impression that I"m an ignoramus who knows nothing about technology or Apple or iPods, and has a very poor command of English? – well, that"s not the Beeb"s problem, is it? After all, is a journalist going to sue the British Broadcasting Corporation and get blacklisted? Of course not!" However, according to a blog post by Kewney, the two had since met and seemed to have reconciled.
Kewney was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2009, which was found to have spread to the liver, and wrote about it in his blog, The Hunky Mousehole. He died in the early hours of 8 April 2010.
