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This is my 952nd Techlog put. It’s also my hindmost one–because today is my last twenty-four hours as editor in chief of PC World. As I blogged here three weeks ago, I’m stepping from the top to the bottom of from this wonderful job to try my hand at building a tech site from scratch.

I started at PC World in October of 1994. I was thrilled to get the job, but if you’d told me then I’d be in this place because thirteen and a half years and end up as editor in chief, I’d never have believed you.

Actually, I thought there was a strong chance the gig would only last a few months: I joined the staff as associate editor for a special version called PC World Lotus Edition, with extra pages on 1-2-3 and other Lotus products, and the editor who hired me cheerfully informed me that it was likely that Lotus Edition would be discontinued within a few months. But I figured that taking the work at jobs was a good way to get my supply with a foot in the door at PCW, and that even if Lotus Edition were to die, I’d have a chance at sticking around.

So what kept me here so long? Well, as I’ve often told folks, getting to play through technology products and write around them is more pleasure than toil; I might require paid PCW for the privilege. PC World has changed in this way much, and so continuously, that I feel like it’s been more like five or six years, tops–I never once got bored.

Most important, I’ve worked with an extraordinarily smart team of editors, Test Center analysts, designers, and other folks, who taught me far more than I taught them. And I’ve had the honor of doing my darndest to be a slave the millions of smart people who rely on PCW in print and online form every day.

When I started here in 1994, PCW had a thriving online presence–but it was in the form of areas in continuance AOL, CompuServe, and other dial-up services. Our Web site came along a few months later, and was not exactly at the center of our world. After whole, we were busy competing with an arrangement of computer magazines–including titles in the same state as Byte, PC Computing, and Windows Magazine.

It took awhile before it was clear that I’d be here during the most astonishing transformation that ever hit the media business. Most of our print competitors went away; thousands of new competitors sprung up online. We not only covered the Web revolution, but were profoundly impacted it.

And we did just fine. We went from being a dense magazine with a small Web site to a thinner magazine through a site that’s bursting at the seams with ease, features, and community. Today, we serve more people than at any time in our history, and the vast majority of them are PCWorld.com visitors, not storehouse readers. It’s been a thrill to be part of the team that ensured that PCW made that bound.

The best thing about PCW has always been the people I work with; the saddest thing by means of far has been losing some of them, including Rex Farrance and Uli Diehlmann. I have memories I’ll keep with me for the rest of my life–here are a few of them, in not any particular order:

* Getting to tend on foot to Tokyo, Beijing, Athens, Munich, and a host of other take an interest places as part of my work…and hanging to the end with the partisan of local editions of PC World whensoever possible.

* Collaborating with Dateline NBC, in its pre-”To Catch a Predator” days, on a cross-country hidden-camera project in which we investigated the quality of PC repair at major retailers.

* Accepting American Business Media’s Grand Neal award on advantage of my colleagues in 2000 during a particular issue we did on broadband access. (PC World has been honored with editorial awards many times, but that occasion sticks out in my mind as a transporting surprise.)

* Learning from multiple editorial mentors, including Cathy Baskin, Eric Bender, Steve Fox, Phil Lemmons, Kevin McKean, Randy Ross, and Dan Tynan; these are the people who taught me chiefly of what I be aware of about technology journalism.

* Getting to spend time with Pat McGovern, the visionary fall of PC World’s father, IDG; forty-four years into the history of the company, he’s distil the model of an enthusiastic, hard-working, and inventive IDG employee.

* Meeting PC World readers everywhere I go.

* Working on our coverage last year of the hurl of the iPhone; we spent 24 straight hours without ceasing it, generated a ton of content (including an insanely popular video), and pulled audibly all the stops to prove we were every online manipulation rather than a monthly-magazine team.

* The ritual, whenever I happened athwart a newsstand, of stopping to be active sure that it had copies of PC World–and, I concede, sometimes moving the issues to the obverse if they were hidden.

* Working in San Francisco’s South of Market area, where PCW has been for 21 years, and watching the rise and fall of multiple generations of tech companies in the neighborhood (not to mention the construction of one of the country’s best ballparks three blocks from our capacity).

* Surviving the strange events of last year that involved me resigning and returning in the while of a week–then getting to spend undivided finally year doing work I loved.

* Getting to cover the ongoing digital revolution from the thick of things–when I started at PCW, there was no such creature as Google, a PalmPilot or BlackBerry, Wi-Fi, Netscape Navigator, or DVD.

* Oh, and writing this blog.

In short, there’s no place I’d rather have spent the past thirteen and a half years.

I’m delighted that it’s feasible to leave PC World without completely leaving PC World backward: As of tomorrow, I’m a contributing editor, and you’ll see my byline here from time to time when I’m not cranking on my new site. Meanwhile, my talented, passionate colleagues will be working hardto bring you a PCW that’s every bit as useful and trustworthy as ever.

It’ll be odd for me to hit the PCWorld.com home page or see an issue at the newsstand and see content I had nought to do with–but I’ll be proud of PCW and the people behind it forever.

Wanna reach me from here on out? Mail sent to harry_mccracken@pcworld.com will still direct its way to me for at least awhile, but hm@harrymccracken.com will also work.

Thanks for everything, and I’ll see you soon…