Philip Wand known to his readership as Wandy, is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 computer hardware

Computer hardware

Personal computer hardware are component devices which are typically installed into or peripheral to a computer case to create a personal computer upon which system software is installed including a firmware interface such as a BIOS and an operating system which supports application software that...

 journalist and technical advice columnist.

Wand was originally a developer of IP networking tools for Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

. In 1999 he created one of the then more widely-used IPTV

IPTV

Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...

 software products in the UK corporate sector, BT-Enfocast, and is now Founding Partner and COO

Chief operating officer

A Chief Operating Officer or Director of Operations can be one of the highest-ranking executives in an organization and comprises part of the "C-Suite"...

 of an Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

-based video streaming company.

In his spare time he is a technology columnist for a number of consumer IT publications. He has written for titles including Cre@te, Official Dreamcast Magazine

Official Dreamcast Magazine (UK)

The Official Dreamcast Magazine was a video game magazine published by Dennis Publishing in the United Kingdom between 1999 and 2001. The magazine featured news, reviews, previews and features on Dreamcast games. The magazine held the official magazine license for the Dreamcast in the UK and...

, FHM

FHM

FHM, originally published as For Him Magazine, is an international monthly men's lifestyle magazine.- History :The magazine began publication in 1985 in the United Kingdom under the name For Him and changed its title to FHM in 1994 when Emap Consumer Media bought the magazine, although the full For...

 and Computer Shopper

Computer Shopper

Computer Shopper could refer to the following publications:* Computer Shopper - a home computer magazine published in the United Kingdom* Computer Shopper - a home computer magazine published in the United States...

, but is most often associated with PC Zone

PC Zone

PC Zone was the first magazine dedicated to games for IBM-compatible personal computers to be published in the United Kingdom. Earlier PC magazines such as PC Leisure, PC Format and PC Plus had covered games but only as part of a wider remit. PC Zone was founded in 1993.The magazine was published...

 where he was the title's longest serving contributor.

Dear Wandy

Wand was responsible for PC Zones self-help column, Dear Wandy, and used each issue's hardware news and reviews as an outlet for his trademark cynicism. In the past he campaigned against case modding

Case modding

Case modification is the modification of a computer chassis , or a video game console chassis. Modifying a computer case in any non-standard way is considered a case mod...

 and overclocking

Overclocking

Overclocking is the process of operating a computer component at a higher clock rate than it was designed for or was specified by the manufacturer, but some manufacturers purposely underclock their components to improve battery life. Many people just overclock or 'rightclock' their hardware to...

, saying he would "rather have a stable and quiet machine than a slightly faster, stupid-looking one with epilepsy", and once claimed the last computer game worth buying was Chaos

Chaos (video game)

Chaos: The Battle of Wizards is a turn-based tactics computer game which was released on the ZX Spectrum in 1985. It was written by Julian Gollop and originally published by Games Workshop.-History:...

 for the ZX Spectrum

ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...

.

The DearWandy fourms were hacked at the beginning of August 2011, given PC Zone magazine had stopped publication the previous year it seems Mr Wand decided to let the forums die at this point. However alternative forums have been set-up by the community with many of the regular posters now moving to the new home, this can be found at:

Dear Opti

Trivia

• Wrote the Seek and Ye Shall Find advice column in Amstrad Computer User
  Amstrad Computer User
  Amstrad Computer User was the official magazine for the Amstrad CPC series of 8-bit home computers. This monthly publication, usually referred to as ACU by its readers, concentrated more on the hardware and technical side of the Amstrad range, although it had a small dedicated games section as...
  
  aged 15.

External links

• Dear Wandy Official Homepage
• PC Zone
• Dear Opti