Erez Ben-Ari

Erez Ben-Ari (born September 13, 1973) is an Israeli Journalist and computer Engineer.

Biography

Early life

Erez Ben-Ari was born in Tivon as Erez Yariv to Tzipora and Miki Yariv. Later on, Erez and his family moved to Haifa where he took to computers at the age of 12 during a class in BASIC in the 7th grade. Erez's fascination with computers pushed him to delve deeper into computer programming and computer hardware, starting with the then-popular Commodore 64 computer, followed by the Amiga computer. After finishing his military service in 1995, Erez started working as a computer technician, making quick ProgresS in the field.

Career in computers

After finishing his military career, which included 3 years of service plus an additional 6 months in the Ordinance Core, Erez started working as a computer technician in a small computer-service provider in Haifa, quickly becoming the head of customer service. Later on, Erez worked at Intel's development center in Haifa. With time, his skills as a network engineer have improved, landing him a job at Microsoft's R&D Center in Haifa, where he served in IT, Operations and software QA roles. In July 2007, Erez was appointed VP & Senior Analyst for Networking & Security Strategies at STKI, a leading research and market analysis company in Israel.

Career in Journalism

During the summer of 1998, with the rapid expansion of private internet use and the growing demand for computers, Erez came up with the idea of erecting a website dedicated to helping home users with daily computer problems. He created a large dictionary of computing terms, as well as a small collection of articles and on November 1998 the site came up under the name "RTFM". RTFM is a common phrase used in support forums, as a wise-crack reply to someone asking a stupid question. The acronym is "Read the Fu**ing Manual", signifying that the answer is very simple, and had the user read the user manual, he would have found his answer and needn't bother the wise forum admins.

The website was hosted voluntarily on a webserver belonging to Netvision, a major Israeli Internet Service Provider with the help of Berber, a longtime friend of Erezs. Traffic on the website grew rapidly and it was advertised in several local newspapers, attracting even more visitors. Pretty soon, several major web portal owners were interested in hosting the site and integrating it into their web portals. The winner was Internet-Zahav, also a major ISP and web portal owner in Israel. The site was relocated to their server under the accurate, though somewhat difficult to remember URL http://hardware.zahav.net.il

During that time, Erez started appearing in a daily-tip bit on Radio Haifa, an Israeli local radio station. For a period of several weeks, daily tips were broadcast, but received little attention from the listeners.

Shortly after, the cooperation with Internet Zahav was ended, mostly because the lengthy URL on one hand, and lack of promotion by the company on the other hand. The site was transferred to a webserver owned by Plonter, a successful online hardware store. The store's manager, Yariv Nachshon, had high hopes for the site, as well as several other websites. This time, the site was also given a major facelift by Paula Ben-Ari, a graphic designer and Erezs wife. The site's name was changed to "PCPhobia".

During the next two years, PCphobia grew, both in size and in popularity, reaching over 1,000 visitors a day, and Erezs reputation gained public knowledge. Towards the end of 2000, Erez has been approached by several newspapers and started publishing articles on various subjects. During that period, Erez published in magazines such as "Cooli", "Hi-Technion", "Internet Now" and "Sinergy".

Towards the end of 2002, Marriv, Israel's 2nd largest daily newspaper, was looking for someone to write a column with guides on buying various computer hardware on the monthly hi-tech section titled "Asakim@Machshevim". This column ran for several months until the editor, Arik, was replaced by Danny Fishel. Fishel liked Erezs work and asked him to start writing for the weekly hi-tech section titled "Asakim Online". Erez worked for Maariv Continuously for several years, publishing several hundred articles. In the middle of 2005, Danny Fishel ended his employment at Maariv and moved to the U.S.A. to continue his studies in Journalism. Dror Globerman, one of the resident journalists of Asakim-Online was promoted to serve as editor in his place. Erez continued to write regularly under Globerman, but found it difficult to match The New editor's style and decided to leave at the end of 2006.

During his tenure at Maariv, Erez published a few dozen articles in other sections of The Newspaper, such as the Business section ("Asakim"), the daily magazine and the weekend culture magazine. These articles were mainly about the American culture and it's reflection in the show-business.

Most of Erezs articles are technical how-to guides, and some of them are news items. Most successful is his weekly column "How IT Works", which details the inner workings of various technical and scientific equipment and phenomena.

At the beginning of 2007, Erez left Maariv and started writing for Walla!, Israel's leading web portal. Erez's work for Walla focuses on How-to guides and articles, as well as hardware reviews.

Social Contributions

Erez is a strong believer in helping the community, and has been involved in voluntary activities throughout his life. As early as high-school, he volunteered to teach computer skills to his schoolmates on a regular basis. He also volunteered to the civil-guard unit in Haifa, performing many tasks for several years.

After his army service, Erez has been involved in a large number of projects. Here are a few:

  • Erez has been a key member in establishing the Israeli chapter of Mensa, the high-IQ organization. This was the 3rd incarnation of the organization and Erez performed many of the main roles incl. creating Mensa's website, producing the monthly journal, managing the membership roster, organizing regional testing and much more.
  • Erez worked with ELEM, an organization that helps youth in distress and helped them establish their branch in Nazareth. Erez assisted in setting up an internet station in the branch and organized several hardware and software donations.
  • Erez was the PR administrator for Icon 2005, the 9th annual Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention held during the Succot holiday. Erez also organized a donation of computers to the convention in the years 2005 and 2006.
  • Erez provides PR consulting to Starbase 972, a Sci-Fi fan club in Israel, and also to the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy, both on a regular basis.
  • Erez has translated several applications to Hebrew, most notably the SNITZ web forum.
  • Erez provided technical assistance to the GIL school for special education, helping the school in maintaining its computer-lab.
  • Erez volunteered in Ort Hanah-Senesh, giving guest-lectures on information security and database development for several classes.
  • Through PCPhobia, Erez has provided personal answers to over 50,000 questions from website visitors. From 1998 to 2005, this was done personally through his personal Email, and from 2005 and onward via an online forum on the site.
  • From 2003-2005, Erez managed a public forum on NRG, Maariv's internet portal. On the forum, Erez provided personal answers to any question posted. The forum was devoted to computer-related problems.
  • Erez participated in several support-marathons hosted on YNET, the internet portal of Yedioth Aharonot, Israel's largest daily newspapers. On these marathons, Erez tried to answer as many technical questions he could during a 2 hour run. The average output was around 50 Q/A per hour.
  • Erez volunteers with the Haifa History Society, Providing computer-related consulting and support. Erez has built the society's website, as well as organizing several hardware and software donations for the society.
  • Erez assisted Omri Lavie in starting the Israeli eBay community, a group of around 2000 Israelis who are interested in eBay. Erez also participated in organizing the 1st and 2nd annual Israelis@eBay conventions, which are the community's main annual gathering.
  • Erez co-worked with Omri Lavie in setting up iBay, an Israeli website dedicated to helping Hebrew-speakers in getting into the e-commerce field as smoothly and easily as possible.

Photography

In addition to his other work, Erez is also an aspiring Photographer. He has been photographing since the age of 13, starting with Film SLR photography and moving on to Digital later. Erezs photographs have been published in several newspapers incl. Maariv and Zman-Haifa, and also included in the book "Cities500" by Guy Woodland and Lew Baxter. Erezs photographs have also been circulated via Email as part of power-point presentations dedicated to the cityscapes of Haifa, Erezs home town. One presentation is titled "Then and Now", and includes a set of 20 photograph pairs showing sections of the city as they are today, compared to the past. The 2nd presentation is a collection of modern-day photographs of Haifa, some of which are Erezs. Currently, Erez takes most of pictures using a Casio Exilim ultra compact, and others using a Nikon D70 DSLR.

Education

A significant part of Erezs career has been in education. Erez got his 1st teaching job in the Haifa branch of the computer college "Sivan" almost by chance. A friend recommended he applies for a job as a way of making some extra income. Erez quickly discovered that teaching suits him very well and since then he was involved in education almost continuously. Erez taught PC-Repair classes in Sivan and then moved on to teach Networking classes in the computer-college giant "John Bryce". After the crumble of the high-tech bubble in 2001, Erez quit teaching on a regular basis, but continued to give guest lectures and courses on occasion, such as an introduction to personal computers in the Haifa University or e-commerce lectures in the Israeli@eBay conventions.

See Also

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