You know Adam as the publisher of TidBITS, the Internet magazine and the Take Control series of ebooks. You may not know Adam as Internet innovator, and as someone who enjoys understanding and explaining technology to others.
Adam grew up in Richford, New York, a small community southeast of Ithaca, and attended Newark Valley High School, where he was a varsity cross country runner and class valedictorian.
Adam reports he has always been interested in writing and publishing, starting with a short-lived pet newsletter he published when he was 12. When he gained access to computers, Adam developed an interest in understanding technology, and helping others by explaining technology using his writing skills.
Adam attended Cornell University, graduating Magna Cum Laude. Adam designed his own major in Hypertextual Fiction, while double-majoring in Classics.
Adam met his wife Tonya during their freshman semester at Cornell at a mixer. It wasn't long after they were inseparable. Adam and Tonya, a Communications major were the editors of a campus literary magazine called the Risley Revue.
Adam and Tonya graduated from Cornell in 1989, and started TidBITS in April of 1990 at Tonya's suggestion. In fact, Adam is celebrating the coming-of-age anniversary with MacinTech!
In 1991, Adam and Tonya got married, and shortly thereafter moved to the Seattle area, so Tonya could work at Microsoft providing support for Word 5.1. While they lived in Redmond, Renton and Issaquah, Adam focused on the business side of TidBITS. In 1992, he created the first advertising program on the Internet, predating Google and the many other companies that are making billions with Internet advertising. This effect allowed TidBITS to become a full-time effort for Adam.
Adam also wrote many print magazine articles and books in addition to publishing TidBITS. These efforts developed into Contributing Editor positions at MacUser, MacWEEK, and Macworld magazines. In 1993, Adam released the "Internet Starter Kit", which sold over 600,000 copies in multiple versions between 1993 and 1996, and has helped countless people to figure out this "Internet thing." Adam wrote many other books for O'Reilly Media and Peachpit Press.
Tonya left Microsoft in 1994, becoming more heavily involved with the day-to-day publishing of TidBITS, and became a published author with the release of the "Word 6 Starter Kit." TidBITS continued to grow, drawing thousands of readers.
In 1999, Adam and Tonya welcomed a son named Tristan. In 2001, they decided to move back to upstate New York, closer to family.
Continuing to publish TidBITS and books such as "iPhoto for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide", Adam and Tonya started the Take Control series of ebooks in 2003. They envisioned this series would cover many aspects of computers and the Internet, readable on computers and the growing category of mobile electronic devices. The Take Control books are a big part of Adam's business with Tonya serving as Editor-In-Chief. They now have 87 book titles, available at
Adam has always been a big supporter of the Macintosh community, visiting user groups, and contributing many free copies of the Take Control books to MacinTech for our meeting give aways.
Adam has also supported the entire computer industry, serving for six years as President of the Info-Mac Network which publishes the Info-Mac Digest, and the Info-Mac Archive, which was for many years the pre-eminent site for freely distributable Macintosh software.
He used his hypertext background serving for three years as Chairman of XNSORG, a non-profit aimed at promoting the XNS (eXtensible Name System) technology, renamed XRI. XRI is a protocol compatible with URLs and other standards for identifying information not a part of those standards, such as the ISBN of a publication or a person's name, phone number or location.
Since high school, Adam has continued to run, training 25 to 40 miles per week with the High Noon Athletic Club at Cornell. He also races year-round in road and trail races, track events, and cross country. He maintains good times at in the masters category with a mile personal record of 4:47, two mile PR of 10:20, and a 5K PR of 16:36.
Adam has developed TidBITS into the largest email based Macintosh magazine with over 30,000 readers, translated into Japanese and Dutch each week. In the annual MDJ Power 25 survey of industry insiders, Adam has ranked among the top five most influential people in the Mac industry year after year. He has also been included on the MacTech 25 list of influential people in the Macintosh technical community for 2006, 2007, and 2010 and he was named one of MacDirectory's top ten visionaries.
Adam, Tonya and TidBITs have garnered many other awards and lists. For several years, the Best of the Mac Web Survey run by Low End Mac has included TidBITS for its importance in in the Macintosh community. Seattle Magazine has named Adam as one of its 25 Cyberstars, and WorldHot.com included TidBITS among their list of the World Hottest 100 Mac Web Sites.
Many other awards and lists for adam, Tonya and TidBITS can be found at
If you haven't subscribed to the TidBITS e-magazine, you should. Go to
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