I just finished perusing (I'm sure I spelled that wrong but my spell check isn't working) the new PL and a few things hit me whilst I was reading it.
It's gonna be a lot easier to reference comments by others. Now, instead of griping because my lazy ass doesn't like retyping others words, I can just copy and paste. Expect more "conversations" between Marlan and I.
Double columns bite. I'm guilty of this one too so I have to kick myself in the ass, but it's a bit of a pain to read down through a column and then scroll back up (especially when it's something that goes on for days...no dis to people who go on for days).
The old format never gave me a "encountered an error and has to close" message while I was on the shitter. It only happened once, but it's still annoying.
I talked to Seth about this one, but I encountered a potential problem the other day. I was loaning the last issue (the digital version) to a friend when he asked, "This doesn't have any viruses, does it?" I laughed it off but then thought about recruitment (that's what I try to do in my spare time) and whether or not I can convince someone that the disc we're sending them to look at won't eat their hard drive. I haven't come up with a good solution.
With the sweet bookmarking, it's much easier to skip exactly to where I wanna go. But that doesn't mean I skip over your cra---er, I mean, well written and insightful anecdotes.
I'm really liking the videos...a lot. A hella lot.
I know that some of this seems like nitpicking, but the conversation needs to start somewhere. So what does everyone else think about the new issue?
P.S., Big time kudos to Copy J and the crew for putting this together. The took an undesirable situation (from my standpoint anyway) and made some pretty sweet lemonade (y'know, that old "life hands you lemons" saw...)
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12 comments:
You already got the new issue? Awesome!!!
First thought: How's that for a turn-around time? We haven't been that quick with a turn-around time in a long long time... you know? A benefit of the new format. (btw, Lawrence was hammered with a snow storm AGAIN right in the middle of APA assembly. But it didn't matter this time, because there was no need for me, Copy J and three other guys to meet and swap printed copies).
Thumb's up: Color photos. Love 'em.
Live links. Very cool.
The tabs. Perfect. I look forward to having more zines in an issue, and this will be even handier.
The voice quality of Jason Arnett. Dude, you sound like a professional on this audio. Well done.
The icon. It's my Spidey. That's really, really cool.
Thumb's down: The APA roster takes too long to load. Copy J already explained that this is because all those emails are live. Still, it pisses me off to get the "wait, hold on" sign from my computer when I'm ready to turn the freakin page.
My cover sucks. But I had almost no head's up, and it's not bad for one evening's work, for a poor artist like myself. Still, it sucks.
Travis mentions copy and paste... but I think he's full of shit. That really isn't possible, is it? You can't pull copy from a PDF, can you?
OK, i stand corrected... I just grabbed some copy... I guess you can grab copy from this PDF... this will change the way I do MCs. Very nice!
Yeah, I experienced the wait thing, too, and I agree with Travis about the double columns. New format for delivery means new format for the 'zine.
Thanks for the kudos on the audio quality. It'll get better with the next story, Wait for the Light, which is already in the works.
More to come on this issue first, though.
To paraphrase Jim Croce, Don't mess around with Travis...Why couldn't you copy and paste from a PDF? When I say your ass is on fire, you better be grabbing a bucket of water.
Oh, you might have some formatting issues, but thats workable.
Ok State Rules!
I'm glad to hear that you like what we've done Travis. As for the roster page: may be we should make it mandatory for everyone to put a "publisher's statement" (for lack of a better phrase) on the front page of their 'zine. We could make the live e-mail link to each contributor there instead of loading up the roster page with hyperlinks. I'm the first to scream about anything being mandatory, but in this case it would make a bunch of sense.
I have me an idear. Since we're all digital now, could we have something that each of us could insert (I don't know what else to call it...I'm only a techno-geek when it comes to gaming) in our 'zine that would include any personal information that we wanted others to have? That way we can update information as necessary, like phone numbers and such.
Just a thought: what about a separate file for that, like a digital rolodex, that would be burned on the disc each issue? This would make a relatively small document and the hyperlinks would load tons faster.
You're the expert here. Whatever you think works best.
I agree with CJ on seperating the contacts from the zine.
I tried reading the zine three times and my Reader crashed each time it got to the contacts.
On the fourth time I just scrolled to the end and scrolled back up to the first zine to eand that nonsense.
But still- awesome.
Turn around time wasn't anything- I actually got my zine in a relatively fast time considering when you guys assembled it.
Color photos, videos, all the good stuff everyone else has mentioned is just a wholly improvement to the operation
Obviously we can't plan for every possible problem, but we can "troubleshoot" and tweak stuff
I've been testing everything as we go on both Mac and PC platforms, also on various different computers running different versions of Acrobat (both full versions and reader only)and different operating systems. There could be certain functions that just won't work on someone's computer set-up, but I am working at getting all the bugs I can out.
The Roster page will always be there, I'll just have to deactivate the hyperlinks on that page to keep it from being the drag-down that it is.
Travis makes a great point, and after some thought, I think I have a multi-pronged solution that would put the contact info into the front page of each 'zine, a PDF rolodex that's a stand-alone document that you could copy to all your computers for handy reference and a more-detailed info page that's built into the digital issue of PL, but will be relatively hidden until you want to see it. I'll need to do some research for the last part, the first 2 will just require some copy/paste skills. If everyone would check their info in the current roster page and let me know if anything needs changed I can proceed with the Rolodex file.
I guess what I'm thinking here is: with 3 contact info options, you can pick whichever suits you and we'll keep the load speed up on the PDF. Sound like a plan?
I was good with the loading from the bottom option, but that sounds good too.
Yeah, Copy/ Paste is definitely awesome....I really dig the new format
I will break your legs, B-Rad.
Sorry... I'm a bit hammered.
I really meant, that's AWESOME, B-Rad!!!
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