MHN RIP!

There goes the neighbourhood, welcome back to the jungle.

Get It Try It

SILICON VALLEY, MINNESOTA (Rixstep) — MacSurfer is no more. The same goes for the Technology News Network. After winning awards for their excellent news aggregation over the past two decades, they're finally closing their doors.

And that's a crying shame.

News and Only News

Sparse on adverts, high on straight textual news aggregation, MacSurfer and TechNN represented the 'goto' places for all things related to IT, Apple (MacSurfer) or otherwise (TechNN).

There was no nonsense to these sites, and to their hard-working caretakers, Darren Mahaffy, Scott Siegling, and their editor-in-chief Phil Pearson. Plus their impressive support staff (see below).

Things are being consolidated all across the terrain, and the good people are being pushed out by the big fish. It's no fun.

If your online business was to click on colourful adverts, you might go somewhere else (but MacSurfer and TechNN would have had those links anyway). If you wanted to get down to business, MacSurfer and TechNN would have been your first stop every day.

And you didn't have to hurry if you couldn't: they kept meticulous archives of their aggregations per day, per month, and a year back in time (or perhaps more).

Following is a list of the sites they regularly aggregated on the 'Mac' side.

Apple, Apple Service & Support, Apple Newsroom, Apple Downloads, Apple Stock, AppAdvice, AppleInsider, Apple Must, App Sliced, AppleToolbox, Apple World Today, Architosh, Ars Technica, As the Apple Turns, ATPM, Automation Orchard, Bare Feats, Betalogue, BGR, Creative Mac, Cult of Mac, Daring Fireball, Digital Arts, dpmac, Engadget, Envato Tuts+, fcp.co, gameDB, Gigaom, Gizmodo, iDevGames, iDownload Blog, iDrop News, iFixit, iLounge, iMore, Insanely Great Mac, Inside Mac Games, iPhone Hacks, The Joy of Tech, Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro, LACPUG, Layers Magazine, The Loop, Mac360, MacDailyNews, MacDirectory, MacGameFiles, Mac Gamer HQ, Mac Kung Fu, Macintosh Resource Page, MacMost, The Mac Observer, Mac OS X Hints, MacPrices, MacReviewZone, MacRumors, MacScripter, Macs in Chemistry, MacSlash, MacSpeedZone, MacStories, MacSurfer, MacTech, Mactrast, Macuarium, MacUpdate, Macworld, Macworld UK, Mashable, Microsoft Office:mac, ModMy, The Mothership, The MUG Center, MyAppleMenu, MyMac, Patently Apple, The PC Weenies, prMac, ramseeker, Recode, Slashdot, Six Colors, TechCrunch, Tech Night Owl, TechRadar, The Apple Post, The Next Web, The Verge, TidBITS, Touch Arcade, Two Guys and a Podcast, VentureBeat, VR on Mac, Yahoo! Tech, 148Apps, 9to5Mac.

You can't have it better than that.

Of course they also accepted submissions. This site had been sending links for over ten years.

But, alas, they are no more. The world of IT again becomes a jungle.

One can only wish Darren, Scott, and Phil all the best. And a big 'thank you' for all the fish.

Support Staff

Following is the (somewhat) complete MacSurfer/TechNN staff roster as found at MacSurfer. They too should be given credit and thanks for their contributions over the years. Good on you guys!

About Rixstep

Stockholm/London-based Rixstep are a constellation of programmers and support staff from Radsoft Laboratories who tired of Windows vulnerabilities, Linux driver issues, and cursing x86 hardware all day long. Rixstep have many years of experience behind their efforts, with teaching and consulting credentials from the likes of British Aerospace, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Lloyds TSB, SAAB Defence Systems, British Broadcasting Corporation, Barclays Bank, IBM, Microsoft, and Sony/Ericsson.

Rixstep and Radsoft products are or have been in use by Sweden's Royal Mail, Sony/Ericsson, the US Department of Defense, the offices of the US Supreme Court, the Government of Western Australia, the German Federal Police, Verizon Wireless, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Microsoft Corporation, the New York Times, Apple Inc, Oxford University, and hundreds of research institutes around the globe. See here.

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