Pocketmags

I'm perfectly sure that they do know how to answer a forum post but it became apparent several years ago that the magazine management chooses not to discuss service problems and other issues in the forums (or, in fact, to actively participate in any way).... other than the magazine editor(s) who are active here and will usually try to help if they can - but they have no actual control over subscriptions and can only act as intermediaries.

Recently the editors have reduced their participation in these forums (to give more attention to editing) and handed off their moderation tasks to volunteers from the membership (such as JasonB). These are even further removed from the MTM management, they have day-jobs (plus they like to do a little model-engineering from time to time) so that any representations they make on your behalf are necessarily limited and done very much on a favour basis. Ranting at them is probably counter-productive and ranting at the MTM management here is pretty much a wasted effort.

Have you considered actually talking (and venting if you want) to the subscription department directly?

Edited By OMG on 25/12/2013 17:00:34

Haven't talked to them directly since there is really no point. Once the subscription is purchased from pocket mags you are pretty much in for the duration of it. I just really think the hobby and the magazine are in big trouble unless we can attract some younger blood and online is where they will be found. I myself was not an iPad fan until we bought a Bridgeport with cnc that had an iPad control panel. The iPad turned out to be real useful in the shop since it is so light and portable. As far as MTM not participating on the forums, that is too bad since the title of this area is digital magazines you would think they might be interested. I am glad they concentrate on editing but I am quite certain their main concern would be selling the product.

Not really venting since the money is not a concern, just thought they might like to make their digital product better. I can well afford the back issues I need so not a big deal. I think the content is great but their distribution of it is not so great to reach a wider audience. Like many of you I am really concerned that younger people are learning very little science and engineering these days. As a tech guy and an experienced professional machinist I would like to help with that.

One thing younger people seem to have little of is patience so another thing MTM might want to look into is the many part articles spread over months. I think that might be a turnoff as well. I am still thinking about how that might be avoided but no great solution comes to mind immediately.

To the gentleman having the problem seeing the content, he might want to try some other browsers since it is hard to get media content to behave the same on all of them. It sucks but that is the state of browsers today. Most developers will test on IE and call it a day. We try to test for IE, chrome, and safari but not a lot of developers spend that kind of time.

For the magazine to step away from their forums lie a mistake. One major advantage of the online world is the ability to more directly contact your customers. They may not like what they hear but It is usually unvarnished truth. People tend to speak more bluntly online. This is a double edged sword of course but It does give a more accurate indication of what the customers are feeling. The forums are a great way to measure interest in certain subjects. For example, if lots of people are talking about a technique or machine, that may be an indication to explore that subject in an article. They could also find out who many be knowledge enough to create some content for them. They have a good opportunity to collect knowledge globally here.

Just think about the fact that a guy on his couch Christmas day in Chicao is talking with guys in the UK about this stuff. Powerful communication when you think about it.

BTW Happy Holidays to you all.

I will post elsewhere in the forum about the cnc Bridgeport with the iPad controller. It is very cool stuff. It uses wifi and cameras so you can use an iPad to see what is going on and control the machine remotely. You can watch a job run and stop it in an instant if something is going wrong. It combine the machining and computer technologies I love to great effect.

I was just thinking of how cool it would be for a guy that does not have access to such nice machinery to be able to contract time remotely and see his job run. All you would need is for someone to load the right tooling and materials for you.

Steven

I'm just recovering from a superb Christmas lunch and chanced on your thread. First then - a Happy Christmas to you!

This problem with MTM is obviously bugging you but I think you are posting your discontent in the wrong place - you should direct it to the management as only they can answer your points and effect any changes. There is no guarantee that the folk you need to contact will read this thread.

The readers of this forum are a wide variety of engineers, model and otherwise, who exchange ideas and provide queries, suggestions and solutions to problems of an engineering nature posted. They cannot answer your points. I suggest you look up contact details for MTM and voice your problems directly.

In the meantime please tell us of your interests and involvement with the hobby - you are pretty sure to receive useful, friendly, comment and advice from the vast pool of experience who view here.

Regards

Norman

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Looking forward to that one, Steven !!

MichaelG.

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P.S. ... at least for today; my only comment on the other issue is that, although MTM management seems to ignore this forum; this is where they have chosen to post the [definitive] Terms and Conditions. [Strange, isn't it?]

P.P.S. ... sorry, one more: I should also mention that those T's & C's are modified from time to time [apparently without notice, and with no revision history].

It's getting more so actually. Three or four years ago MEW rarely, if ever, had a multi-part article - they managed quite well without. Now, there's hardly an article that isn't multi-part. I don't think MTM are going to "look into it" (presumably meaning in an attempt to avoid it) any time soon.

I find it a turn-off too. I can see the necessity to some extent with ME but it's much less clear to me with MEW. Much of the stuff there comes across to me as highly padded to stretch it over as many issues as possible. Perhaps the philosophy is that it keeps people renewing - which may be true - but likewise it is a deterrent to taking out a subscription in the first place if you have to wait many issues before you get to a newly-starting article that you can follow to completion (or it may not be of much interest anyway and you need to wait even longer).

It does sadden me to see the rush by companies to go 'digital', soon we will see the demise of paper magazines and that will for future generations be a disaster, how many people check their images that they saved a few years back onto CD's? I would because the CD's do degrade over time and recovering the images can be nigh on impossible or very costly.

Pocketmags can be a quick way to get hold of a copy of the magazine but that is really all, once you start down the road of being completely digital the costs and availability of past editions is completely out of your hands, they've gotcha and that's the name of the game, maximising the take from the punter because at the end of the day its the shareholders pockets that really count.

I get what you are saying about management not reading the forums but since this area is specifically dedicated to digital magazine this seemed like the place for that subject. If they choose not to monitor this, they are probably beyond hope. I think if most of us owned a business, we would monitor a forum that discusses their business. I admit I was a little aggravated and I did actually send an email to the subscription people directly, which they have failed so far to answer. Par for the course. I guess more than anything I feel bad that westerners in general are loosing engineering skills at a huge rate and with the advent of cnc a lot of machinists have lost the twiddling knobs skills that I was able to learn and have helped a lot with other skills in my life. I am hoping that a resource such as this can make a smooth transition to the digital environment but it does not look good so far.

I like cnc and there are some things that are very difficult without it but I feel that we learn more starting out with manual techniques that seem nigh impossible to learn today.

As far.as the permanency of digital archives, that is a tough one but on the bright side we are getting lots of access to old out of print books that will probably never be reprinted because they are not in wide enough demand. We need to try to insure that as companies come and go they don't take accumulated knowledge with them. There probably needs to be a rewriting of intellectual property law so that these things are not lost. Something like a national or international library that archives data. I hate government involvement in general but I see no other way to insure data is not lost. One challenge for us is to decide today what will be relevant in the future since it is physically impossible to store everything we create today. I just read that since the Apollo moon landing we have recorded more information in print and electronically than the entire rest of history. Amazing stuff.

I don't know exactly why I feel this way but this magazine and the hobby in general give me the feeling they are teetering on the brink of extinction. It might be that I am seeing the average age of the readership rising. Same thing is going on in other hobbies like model ship building. Kids now seem not to be interested in physically making stuff. That scares me because the skills of making stuff helps you in life in unanticipated ways.

This might get me in hot water somehow but I will tell you guys this.

ANY application that displays data on your screen will be unable to completely protect that data from being saved because in order to display that data it must be presented to your hardware in a clear format. They can make it very inconvenient and painful to do it. It is also probably a violation of their terms. In most countries the right of fair use would allow you to archive it for your own use but I am not a lawyer.

There are lots of utilities that can capture video or images from your screen. I am not advocating their use to steal things that are not yours or violate any agreement but I am pointing out the futility of copy protection in general. It has never ever been successful. It has been tried with VHS, DVD, blu ray and digital books and it has always been defeated.for better or worse. In the US we are seeing new laws regarding escrow of digital content to ensure that if a company that publishes secure ebook goes under, the copy protections can be disabled by a court order. This is usually done by forcing disclosure of encryption keys.

I cannot be responsible if you were to go out on your own and look for screen capture utilities. Your pc might even have that capability already built in. Maybe even with something as simple as a print screen key on your keyboard.

I don't mind the multi part articles.if the subject is complex like an engine or locomotive but something like a tool holder for the lathe is more like a weekend project for me. This also brings up the back issue problem. If you subscribed today about 50 percent of the current issue will be useless to you without the back issues where the articles and projects start. This is a bad first impression like walking into a movie an hour into it. The key is that you have to give enough of a project so the user can be busy until the next issue.

I am a member of the woodwhispererguild and they do wood working videos. There they show you a project you can choose to subscribe to and then they release weekly videos until the project is complete. You only pay for what you are interested in or you can optionally subscriber for an entire year at a discount. Project price varies with the amount of complexity. It is paced so the average guy would have to work pretty hard to stay up with the pace. You also have access for life to the content you paid for and you can go back a buy access to any past project you like. This magazine could sell back issues on a project by project basis where you could buy a complete start to finish project you want to build without all the other ongoing stuff in between. Happier customer gets exactly what they are interested in and magazine potentially makes more money since I might be paying a little more to get only what I want to build. Buying individual complete back issues means I get the project I want but a much larger percentage of other mid project noise that feels like lost value. Digital will be more focused and successful if they break the cover to cover print model.

On behalf of all MTM staff I apologise for the failure to respond immediately. It is a Bank Holiday here and for some of us, the 25th and 26th December have been our first days off (yes, including weekends!) for many, many weeks. Please respect the fact that whilst for you this is a hobby, for us this is our work. The office is reopens on 2nd January.

Diane

Hi reading through this link, don't see the fuss, if you subscribe for a period you will always have digital access to these mags, the back copies viewed through the site, as long as you are subscribed.

i also subscribe to a garden mag and get no access to back copies, so this is a bonus here.

comments about paper copies, I bought the very first MEW, long gone now, however re-read it a couple of nights ago via the site for me digitalis is the way forward, no book, mag paper laying about taking up space

jim

digitalis? .... be still my heart