chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (12/18/87)
Not to dig up a dead subject again, but there are a few comments that I felt obligated to pass along, then I'll (hopefully) shut up about Mac magazines for a while... First, about MacUser: my mea culpa. I turned in a subscription renewal to them. After all that screaming and yelling and posturing. why? two reasons: One is that they publicly announced a new policy of only reviewing things once they get it in shrink-wrap. That's a Good Thing, and removes (at least until proven guilty again) my contentions with them about pre-reviewing software, especially their Word 3.0 and PageMaker 2.0 abominations. Second, they've started up hypercard coverage, and the first column (kids, build your OWN minifinder!) was pretty good. For me, having some decent hypercard coverage and Neil Shapiro was enough to make me re-up. Neil on his own wasn't. And the latest issue seemed better than the last six months or so -- perhaps with the move to the Bay area done and things settling down, they can better focus on the magazine again. We'll see. Regardless, since I was loudly decrying them, I thought I'd also almost as loudly recant some of it. It's only fair (but wait! This is USENET! You can't be fair on USENET! Um....) Also, I actually got a rejection letter from them. That's the good news. The bad news is that it was a xeroxed form letter that doesn't give any indication of what they were rejecting: "you're query doesn't fit....". Since it came from Bobker's desk, I still don't know if he's rejecting the query I sent in last March to him, or if he's rejecting the query I sent in to one of the other editor's 8 weeks ago that got passed along to him. This is better than total silence, of course, but at eight weeks (giving them the benefit of the doubt and expecting them to reject the most recent query, expecting the rest to be totally missing in action) it's STILL too long for a form letter reply to a one page query. But they're improving on that front, too, it seems. Speaking of missing queries, I'll point out that Macintosh Today ALSO had a query that was still missing in action after eight weeks. And they're in theory a weekly, which implies their material needs to be MORE responsive and timely than a monthly. I'm not amused.... Second, MacWeek: I got, um, disagreed with by one of the MacWeek writers on Delphi. It turned out, among other things, that I hadn't seen any recent copies -- I was dropped off the subscription list silently and hadn't realized. So, I went and tracked down a bunch of issues I missed. And read them. And yes, MacWeek has gotten better over time. But, and I expect to be, um, disagreed with again, I still think Macintosh Today is the more professional of the two "trade news" rags. Even though it doesn't answer queries. I found a few articles in MacWeek with significant factual errors, and one case where I had to wonder if the reviewer really used the silly program (the review was of Ready, Set, Go! 4.0, which I'm rather familiar with, and the review simply blew it) If you can qualify for a free subscription to either, I think either will do the job. Given a choice, however, I'd choose Macintosh Today. And I'm not sure that it is worth it at this time to get subscriptions to both. Next, Desktop Publishing: A few people asked me what I thought about the magazines in the DTP world, since I do a fair amount of work with it. Frankly, I'm not impressed with any of them. I subscribe to "Publish!" because, if nothing else, the page makeovers are interesting. Otherwise, it's generally high gloss, low content. Since MacWorld has turned around from the same problems, maybe they'll fix Publish!, too. But I'm not holding my breath. (for those that don't know, Publish! is pubbed by the same folks that do MacWorld). The other one, Personal Publishing, is sadly and blatantly IBM PC oriented. Proud of using a hacked up machine to try to simulate what comes naturally to the mac. I read it when I find an issue on the newstand that isn't actively anti-mac, but they're material is worse than Publish!'s. Hint: if you want to start a magazine, and have a spare million, there's lots of DTP folks dying for a decent publication. Just don't hire Dvorak as a columnist. Please. Finally, a plug: I just got my first copy of "Macintosh Horizons," which is the new name for Mac-A.P.P.L.E. The publication (which started out at the Puget Sound Users Group Mac Newsletter and grew...) has a new editor, a new focus, and among other things, Jeff (fluke!moriarity) Meyer as a columnist. And, if things go right, me, so this isn't a disinterested comment. Needless, Macintosh Horizons is trying to combine the openness of a User's Group newsletter with the exposure of a real magazine. They're also trying to cover some of the things that other Mac magazines seem to shine on. I'm impressed with the folks working with it, and I like the first issue underr the new regime -- it shows a lot of potential. And you ought to keep an eye on it and see if you like it. If what they have planned works, I think MH will be the alternative magazine for The Rest of Us, as MacTutor is the alternative magazine for the Hackers. I'm encouraged enough to pitch in and see what happens. chuq