8 Jun
2006
8 Jun
'06
7:16 a.m.
Hello out there,
A few months ago, I posted here that the Computer Collector Newsletter was
being renamed Technology Rewind. That's still the case, but I realized that
much more than a name change was in order. CCN reached about 1,000
subscribers and that made me feel quite proud, but I couldn't keep up with
the scale. It was simply too much effort to keep publishing without any
source of income, and we (I and the contributing editors) were certainly NOT
going to charge money for this. So instead I decided to make a big change:
CCN-turned-TR would "go blog" instead.
We're quite aware that the web log format will turn off some readers. Some
people insisted that CCN be delivered in raw text as no more than 80
columns, as we were happy to oblige. That made sense two years ago. But
now we think it's equally important to help this hobby grow, and the web is
the place to do it. We'll be sorry to see any of our former readers leave,
so we ask that you give the format a try.
The new address is just http://www.technologyrewind.com but for now it's
something of a beta version. There are plenty of links to be fixed, old
articles to be uploaded, email addresses to nowhere, and who knows what
other bugs we might find.
For the new few weeks, our pace of posting new blog entries will be slow.
We'll ramp us gradually, and there may be more contributors than in the
past.
As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions OFF-LIST please. :)
- Evan
8 Jun
8 Jun
3:07 p.m.
Evan Koblentz wrote:
CCN-turned-TR would "go blog" instead.
*runs*
We're quite aware that the web log format will
turn off some readers. Some
people insisted that CCN be delivered in raw text as no more than 80
columns, as we were happy to oblige. That made sense two years ago. But
now we think it's equally important to help this hobby grow, and the web is
the place to do it. We'll be sorry to see any of our former readers leave,
so we ask that you give the format a try.
Other than the inclusion of images (or in the case of the web, links to),
can't you just spit out each blog entry automatically to subscribers who want
plain text rather than a web format? Heck, you could even include links at the
relevant points in the plain text to the images referenced on the website if
you wanted. Do it at say the close of each day and spit out that day's entries
from your database in plain-text form as an email.
Or does the new site have no concept at all of a subscription database and
it's purely casual browsing only?
What 'scale' issues did you have with the email format? Surely 99% of people
can handle subscribing and unsubscribing without intervention of any kind of
admin.
I'm missing something, I know - but I fail to see how writing, collating and
formatting text into a web page is really any different to writing, collating
and forming text into an email; the former's just far more
heavyweight/slower/inconvenient for the user!
cheers
Jules
4:08 p.m.
>> Or does the new site have no concept at all of
a subscription database
That is correct.
>> What 'scale' issues did you have with
the email format? Surely 99% of
people can handle subscribing and unsubscribing
without intervention of any
kind of admin ..... I fail to see how writing, collating and formatting text
into a web page is really any different to writing, collating and forming
text into an email; the former's just far more
heavyweight/slower/inconvenient for the user!
The actual list was the easy part; that was just a hosted service. I meant
scale in terms of the work required on my end to keep producing a quality
newsletter every Monday. The tasks of finding interesting news each week,
thoroughly reporting on it, and doing all the list formatting are a LOT of
work. Frankly, after two years and three months, spanning more than 100
issues, I was starting to feel burned out. I'm busier with (gasp) paying
work now than I was two years ago and I'm trying to write a book manuscript.
So I decided that a blog lends itself to slightly easier and definitely
quicker production. Equally important is the issue of how to introduce more
people to our hobby, and I think "new media" is how to accomplish that.
I would be ** happy ** to publish a no-frills weekly summary of what's in
the new weblog if someone will go off-list and show me an easy way to do it.
Seriously.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jules Richardson [mailto:julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 11:08 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of.
Evan Koblentz wrote:
CCN-turned-TR would "go blog" instead.
*runs*
We're quite aware that the web log format will
turn off some readers.
Some people insisted that CCN be delivered in raw text as no more than
80 columns, as we were happy to oblige. That made sense two years
ago. But now we think it's equally important to help this hobby grow,
and the web is the place to do it. We'll be sorry to see any of our
former readers leave, so we ask that you give the format a try.
Other than the inclusion of images (or in the case of the web, links to),
can't you just spit out each blog entry automatically to subscribers who
want plain text rather than a web format? Heck, you could even include links
at the relevant points in the plain text to the images referenced on the
website if you wanted. Do it at say the close of each day and spit out that
day's entries
from your database in plain-text form as an email.
Or does the new site have no concept at all of a subscription database and
it's purely casual browsing only?
What 'scale' issues did you have with the email format? Surely 99% of people
can handle subscribing and unsubscribing without intervention of any kind of
admin.
I'm missing something, I know - but I fail to see how writing, collating and
formatting text into a web page is really any different to writing,
collating and forming text into an email; the former's just far more
heavyweight/slower/inconvenient for the user!
cheers
Jules
5:22 p.m.
Evan Koblentz wrote:
people can handle subscribing and unsubscribing
without intervention of any
kind of admin ..... I fail to see how writing, collating and formatting text
into a web page is really any different to writing, collating and forming
text into an email; the former's just far more
heavyweight/slower/inconvenient for the user!
The advantage with a news letter is you get it with your email.
I guess now that email is needed only to receive spam. I don't
like blogs because you can never seem to reach the blog website
because a server has changed or the blog is so long you can't
find the text you want -- say blah blah was looking for a QZ3215
computer about 3 years ago and at the flea-market I picked up a
video card for a QZ3215-Z computer would he need this for the year
2K patch? -
5:25 p.m.
The advantage with a news letter is you get it with
your email.
I guess now that email is needed only to receive spam. I don't
like blogs because you can never seem to reach the blog website
because a server has changed or the blog is so long you can't
find the text you want -- say blah blah was looking for a QZ3215
Use the "save as... .MHT" in internet exploder. It saves everything on
the page onto just one .MHT file, excellent for backup purposes. And after
opened, you can save parts, photos or anything just like a web page. I
archive every page I see I'd miss with this method.
10 Jun
10 Jun
8:20 a.m.
New subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of.
On 6/9/06, Alexandre Souza <alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br> wrote:
*IF* you are using Exploder... some of us are in a non-Redmond environment.
Also... if you save a blog page every day as an MHT file, you will end
up with a lot of redundant information to sift through when looking
for a particular item. I prefer information such as this to come via
e-mail as discrete messages so I can stuff them in a mailbox and
search/grep on them.
I have mailboxes going back to the 1980s (VAXmail and saved Usenet
articles). I consult the repository several times a year for ancient
stuff. A lifesaver, sometimes.
-ethan
The advantage
with a news letter is you get it with your email.
I guess now that email is needed only to receive spam...
Use the "save as... .MHT" in internet exploder. It saves everything on
the page onto just one .MHT file, excellent for backup purposes. And after
opened, you can save parts, photos or anything just like a web page. I
archive every page I see I'd miss with this method.
1:38 p.m.
New subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of.
> Use the "save as... .MHT" in
internet exploder. It saves everything
on
> the page onto just one .MHT file, excellent for
backup purposes. And
after
opened, you
can save parts, photos or anything just like a web page. I
archive every page I see I'd miss with this method.
*IF* you are using
Exploder... some of us are in a non-Redmond Also... if you save a blog page every day as an MHT
file, you will end
up with a lot of redundant information to sift through when looking
for a particular item. I prefer information such as this to come via
e-mail as discrete messages so I can stuff them in a mailbox and
search/grep on them.
So do I, but that is not always avaiable. RSS feeds can be used now to
save and index information.
6783
days inactive
6785
days old
6 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
alexandre-listas＠e-secure.com.br -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
evan＠snarc.net -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk