Thanks - Rich
Just a comment. When I'm buying hardware or software, I look for
the publications with the most ads so I can get the best price.
So advertising isn't always a drawback. For better or worse,
the advertisers go to the pubs people seem to read the most.
The ads are also a way to track new products and send for
information. (I should point out, though, that on the job I'm only
allowed to buy Apple Products from Apple through the university
even if I can get a cheaper price elsewhere.)
Don't read this as an endorsement of MacWorld,
though. My boss gets it so I read it. I've never seen Macazine.
Could you post their address so I can send for a sample. Thanks.
Steve Goldfield
I subscribe to all three, although I just started Macazine. Someone posted
a comparison of all three using (I believe) percent of the magazine devoted
to articles versus advertisements. Macazine won.
However, I don't understand all the complaints against the ads. That's one
of my major reasons for reading the magazines. Many people ask questions on
the net about what's available and guess where the answers are?
Who cares if one is thicker because of ads. They all cost about the same.
Shirley Kehr
Well, now that I'm not writing for Mac Horizons any more (may it rest in
peace...) there isn't any problem with conflicts of interest, so what the
heck...
I've grown to really like Macazine. It is really the only Mac magazine that
puts its users up front. Their columnists know what they're talking about
and they aren't afraid to pull punches (the flap over Clapp's 'Shareware is
Dead' column is still going down in some places.....).
Their reviews are more rigorous than anyone. I can't remember a time when I
saw a review I thought was fluff. I've talked to Levitus (the editor) a
couple of times on possible articles, and the future directions he wants to
take the magazine make it look better and better to me. They are *very*
aware of the potential problems that hit MacWorld and MacUser (the glossy
can't-upset-the-big-busness-and-advertisers-syndrome) and try to avoid it.
They do believe that they are the ombudsman for the users, rather than
shills for the advertisers.
Macazine was the first major Mac publication to put its money where its
mouth was and put the magazine together with DTP. They are the only magazine
with a policy to not review programs until they show up in shrink-wrap [this
isn't strictly true: MacUser has such a policy, but they do it anyway by
calling them 'previews' instead of reviews. If it smells like a duck...]
Macazine: good stuff. It's the only one I'd write for these days, because
it's the only one I wouldn't mind being associated with.
Macworld/MacUser: You flip a coin, you take your choice. Both are
big-glossies, advertiser/big business/hype-fluff oriented Byte-clones. The
only *real* difference is that Macworld makes no pretensions towards being
anything else, while MacUser still wants you to believe it's in it for
*you*. hah.
MacUser no longer has Doug Clapp, which was its savings grace. He's writing
for Macazine now. MacUser also no longer has Steve Bobker, which can only
help the magazine. Unfortunately, MacUser *still* has John Dvorak, which
really shows the real disdain MacUser management has for its readers.
As a complete aside, Dvorak was bitching in his Sunday Examiner column that
Apple's stopped inviting him to parties and press events, along with another
un-named person that, from what I can tell, is Denise Caruso (ex-Macintosh
Today person and technology columnist for the Examiner). He seems to think
this is an affront against God or something. Me, I think it shows there *is*
hope, since Dvorak's been an idiot since day one and I'm glad someone at
Apple is finally tired of listening to him bash anything that isn't an IBM
machine. Way to go, Apple.
My personal preference is MacWorld. I think having a Byte-clone around is
useful, since it's the place where all the mail-order ads and hype shows up.
And Macworld does reasonable articles for its orientation. The MacUser stuff
is generally light on content and fluffy. When both magazines cover the same
topic at the same time (Word processing) MacWorld beats MacUser to a pulp.
If you only want one magazine, take macazine. If you want two, add Macworld.
Beyond that? It's up to you. I'll probably drop MacUser *again* when my
subscription is up.
Other Zines: Not a whole lot these days. MacWeek, if you can qualify,
does a good job of keeping up with Mac market. If you need a weekly
update, that is. Personally, I've decided I don't, especially with the
nets around. With the death of Macintosh Today (not surprisingly,
considering the magazine always had an ego the size of Montana) it's
the only weekly, and by the time M-T died, MacWeek was beating it into
a pulp -- by remembering it was in the Macintosh news market and not in
the "We're such a great magazine" ego-trip market.
Mactutor: I dropped my subscription, and never noticed. What more can I say?
As far as I know, that's about it in Macland these days.... We really need a
good technical magazine (like what Dr. Dobb's *used* to be). I know of one
magazine that's starting up in January, but I'm not convinced it will be
what we're looking for here.
Then, of course, there are the HyperCArd magazines. The less said about
them, the better, at least until they decide to publish regularly, and until
we find out of there *is* a market for them.
Chuq Von Rospach ch...@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ
Editor/Publisher, OtherRealms
I would just like to add that I'm killing my subscription to MacUser.
Does everybody else get tired of the same review section each menth and
the self-serving editorial bias? I know I can't take another issue.
R. Scott V. Paterson
Kiewit Computation Center Systems Operator
Dartmouth Class of 1990
rs...@eleazar.dartmouth.edu
rs...@dartcms1.bitnet
> If you only want one magazine, take macazine. If you want two, add Macworld.
> Beyond that? It's up to you. I'll probably drop MacUser *again* when my
> subscription is up.
You just described my actions of the last couple of months.
> Mactutor: I dropped my subscription, and never noticed. What more can I say?
I have to disagree here, but then, I write a lot of Mac code. MacTutor is
Macintosh Tech Notes for The Rest of Us. There was a funny incident at
the '88 Apple Spring Developer conference: when Dave Smith (MacTutor's
founder and editor) tried to ask a question in one session, the moderator
(who shall remain nameless) said "no questions from the press." The rowdy
reaction from the floor was "that's not press, that's MacTutor!"
Dave's question was allowed...
=Ned Horvath=
My advice: If you are new to Macs, subscribe to MacWorld for a year and
move to Macazine. If you are familure with Macs, try Macazine. If you specify
Mac hardware and/or software subscribe to MacWorld to see what is coming
on the market soon, and to Macazine to read the reviews to see how good it
really is when it is on the market.
Me, I am still looking for a magazine aimed midway between Macazine and
Mactutor.
TeriAnn
Can anyone direct me towards software that prevents copying files from
a hard disk - I will have a lab with 25 macs with hd20's and need to
stop piracy...
thanks ...
Bill Bauldry
Dept of Math
Appalachian State U
In the past 6 months, both MacWorld and MacUser have added a considerable
number of advertising pages. They are both are now about 400 pages. Up to
Byte size. They take up a lot of space on my bookshelf and take longer to
read because there are more pages to turn. There is still some useful
information, however.
Macazine continues to be fairly thin and mostly articles as opposed to ads.
I tend to find that there is less useful information in Macazine than the
other two.
If I could only subscribe to one, it would be MacUser. But this is not
a strong endorsement of the magazine.
--
Lon Hildreth ...!{decvax,ima,ism780c,ulowell}!cg-atla!hildreth
Compugraphic Corp "You can't beat fun at the old ball park."
Wilmington, MA - Harry Caray
Has editorial content (as measured by column inches or pages)
decreased? If not, and the price has not increased (which it does not
at least until you must renew), the information content per dollar
does not decrease either, and you are only complaining about the
number of ads you have to wade through. Of course this assumes the
quality of this content is constant.
If MacUser or MacWorld had a KILL file, this wouldn't matter, either. :-)
/JBL
UUCP: {backbone}!bbn!levin POTS: (617) 873-3463
INTERNET: le...@bbn.com
jack decker
Macazine is also rather scattered in its information, though it doesn't have
the offensive air of MacUser; I'm just tired of the "homey happy bunch o'
folk" atmosphere. It does a very good job on technical reviews, though.
"Guess what I'm in for."
"Uhh..."
"Wait! I'll give you a
hint..."
---
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET: mori...@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, microsoft}!fluke!moriarty
CREDO: You gotta be Cruel to be Kind...
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>
You'll tire of McUser soon enough. The same product reviews every month
and they've even lost Shapiro. I'm letting mu subsciption lapse
Well, that's because they won't publish anything until after they see what
we say about it on the net....
Seriously, production on a magazine like MacUser will run about three months
or so. There are major delays in things like printing, distribution,
mailing, etc, etc. Mac Horizons had much better than average publishing
schedules, and I still couldn't see the stuff I wrote for 60-90 days. We
were smaller and therefore a lot more flexible.
Until you get into publishing this stuff, the delays seem unreal. Once
you've done it, the delays are never enough to get the last parts of the job
done.... MacWeek gets around the delays in a number of ways:
o not all their stuff is timely -- they have a lot of material pre-written
and likely pre-printed. Then the new material is printed and the two parts
collated together for mailing.
o paying for priority access to the presses. Or perhaps buying exclusive
access and leasing out dead time.
o paying the more expensive newspaper or first class rates for mail.
It's expensive to publish something like that -- a lot more expensive per
copy than MacUser would be in the same format to the same reader population.
But advertisers will pay a premium in per-reader ad rates to get in a
publication like MacWeek (for good reason. The population that *reads*
MacWeek is the one they really want. That wasn't really true of the late,
unlamented Macintosh Today....)
Alright, I've have yet to find out exactly what the protection bit
does for a file. Anybody out there know what it does and how this
relates to the locked bit?
--
Randy Buckland (919)-541-7103
Research Triangle Institute
r...@rti.rti.org [128.109.139.2]
...!decvax!mcnc!rti!rcb