computer science

Tweakers

Tweakers is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tweakers rather than just read about it. In short: Tweakers (formerly called Tweakers.net) is a Dutch technology website featuring news and information about hardware, software, games and the Internet. The name is derived from the verb "tweaking", which is a word used to refer to optimisation of hardware.

Key takeaways

Tweakers belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tweakers to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tweakers from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tweakers (formerly called Tweakers.net) is a Dutch technology website featuring news and information about hardware, software, games and the Internet. The name is derived from the verb "tweaking", which is a word used to refer to optimisation of hardware. Tweakers has grown substantially since its founding in 1998. As of 2023, it publishes news, reviews, features and video reports about technology subjects, with a strong focus on the Netherlands and Belgium. Tweakers has more features for computer enthusiasts, such as reviews, bi-monthly Best Buy guides, a classifieds section for jobs and used hardware, the Pricewatch and the Shop Survey, among others. While the majority of the reviews are written in Dutch, several articles covering non-standard topics are translated into English. Tweakers has more than 1.000.000 members and its forum has over 29 million posts. It has won several awards, including "(Dutch) website of the year" in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

History The website was founded in 1998 by Femme Taken, a computer enthusiast, under the name World of Tweaking as a student's hobby project to offer a Dutch alternative to hardware review sites such as Tom's Hardware Guide. As of March 2006, Tweakers was taken over by the Dutch media conglomerate VNU, now known as The Nielsen Company. After The Nielsen Company sold its Business Media division to private equity firm 3i, VNU Media became owner of the Tweakers website . In October 2012, Tweakers launched a new design, designed by Femme Taken, the founder; the community was critical of this change. A couple of days later, Tweakers launched a new feature that enabled the community to change the appearance of the website. A number of changes and improvements were made in 2014. The current responsive design was introduced on 6 January that year. The Android and iOS apps were removed from their respective stores on 7 October 2014. In February 2014 Tweakers significantly improved the price comparison tool for sim only contracts. In June 2014 Tweakers added prices of Belgian webshops to the Pricewatch, which now shows prices from Dutch and Belgian webshops. Changes continue. In April 2015 Tweakers launched a completely new logo to be uniformly used throughout the website.

Gathering of Tweakers An important area of the site is the forum. Tweakers's forum is known as the Gathering of Tweakers (often abbreviated as GoT). The forum is focused mainly on technical subjects and tries to maintain a relatively high standard of posting. It has a fairly strong moderation policy, especially when compared to other online discussion forums. Users of the forum are strongly urged to read the FAQ and to have invested a fair amount of his/her own time into finding an answer, either on GoT using the search tools, or anywhere else on the Internet, before asking a question.

Tweakers Awards Tweakers Awards (formerly known as "Tweakers Gouden Steeksleutel Awards" 2007 to 2011) is a contest in which members can choose the best products from different technology categories.

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tweakers

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tweakers claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tweakers before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tweakers ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tweakers

In research: Tweakers appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tweakers in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tweakers is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1998 establishments in the Netherlands, 3i companies, Computing websites, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tweakers outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tweakers in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tweakers means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tweakers out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tweakers in simple terms?

Why does Tweakers matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tweakers?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tweakers.