Micro Mart Forum / Messages To The Editor / Micro Mart Forums / Im getting seriously bored / Latest Posts

RE: Im getting seriously bored

wyliecoyoteuk — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:42:22 GMT

I use a wintv nova t DVB card with [url=http://www.team-mediaportal.com/]mediaportal[/url], and It works well.

How about an article on Digital photo frames?
There are certainly a lot of them being sold at the moment.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

marc.knuckle — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:33:14 GMT

i agree shorty, i would find that one interesting as i bought a hauppauge win tv nova-t-500 and the software is rubbish. the EPG doesn't work and the guide is no good etc etc. the card is a good one i think but needs the software to go with it

RE: Im getting seriously bored

shorty — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:51:19 GMT

One of the reasons I have subscribed to Micro Mart for some years is for its coverage of unusual subjects, of which I had no prior knowledge, but frequently found interesting.Your coverage of home media issues has been lamentably thin. I am sure a very large number of your readers would be interested in a comprehensive review of TV tuner cards and an equally wide ranging assessment of the many PVR applications, some free, which are currently available. I have personally tried several PVR applications, some free, some paid for, but I have yet to find anything as flexible or user-friendly as Showshifter, an application from a company which went bust some years ago. Some informed advice would be really useful to me.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

compaq — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:00:58 GMT

I miss my copies of micromart and if one of you guys would be willing to post me 4 copies each month to Canada, i will send you cheque to cover copies, postage and your time.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

isdaritden — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:36:39 GMT

maybe you should change the title of the mag to

MICROMOAN

you would fill it with the letters page;)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:25:53 GMT

LOL. That's very true. :)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

DerekMort — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 10:36:48 GMT

[quote][b]Jason (01/12/2007)[/b][hr]Yes, to each his own. But I think you're forgetting that people working at the same place or doing the same job might be earning different amounts. Waving your earnings about on a public forum under those circumstances is not fair on anyone.[/quote]

Very true Jason. My other argument for not broadcasting this sort of thing is that people would then start moaning that writers are paid too much and thats why the magazine price has risen.

Anyone can see you haven't been able to afford a good haircut in years ;)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 10:12:38 GMT

Yes, to each his own. But I think you're forgetting that people working at the same place or doing the same job might be earning different amounts. Waving your earnings about on a public forum under those circumstances is not fair on anyone.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

ldeadhead — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 04:30:55 GMT

Yes, contributions are paid.

Would you expect me to ask you on a public forum to discuss how much you earn?

Are we not just conditioned by the rich / wealthy / 'our betters' to not discuss our earnings for the fear that if everybody did talk about how much or how little they got for their input to society there might just be a repeat of the 'bloody revolution'.

One wife, one daughter still at home (and three left home), disabled house owner incapable of work = <£15K which includeds speacial allowances for disability. It is not enough and I don't care who knows although my wife has pride and refuses school dinners being paid for because of the stigma attached. Personally I was proud to be earning approx £30K p/a,priciple income from being an embalmer / funeral director back in 1998. More than I got as a lowly computer operator in 1978 for Cambridge University who'd rather give additional holiday days than cash when negotiating wage rises.

That said, each to their own :)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

wyliecoyoteuk — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:49:31 GMT

SQL is maybe too deep a subject, but a brave attempt, considering how fundamental it is to database reporting. I found it enlightening, although I have previous exposure. It is often a difficult balance, to feed the appetite of the cognoscenti, and keep the interest of the plebian.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:34:08 GMT

Is this the SQL feature? Programming is a deep subject and I guess if you're going to tackle it at all you've got to tackle it properly. You certainly can't do it in three pages.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

marc.knuckle — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:31:06 GMT

sorry jason, i would agree if we were talking about an artical of maybe 3-4 pages overall but approx 9 pages across 3 weeks worth of magazine just seems to be excessive.

this is of course my opinion as i stated on the first post i made but i am sure this is shared by a fair few.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

wyliecoyoteuk — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:51:38 GMT

Do you have any article templates?
I have just started writing for another magazine (linux based), and they have guidance templates for reviews, roundups, discussion etc. that can be downloaded from the writers website.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:40:18 GMT

But just as many people would complain if an article was too short and didn't cover a subject in sufficient detail.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

marc.knuckle — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:45:03 GMT

without reading through all of the posts i will just add my opinion.

i think overall it is a great mag and agree that it would be impossible to satisfy everyone all the time and also that we all have VERY different tastes with regards to computers and reading.

me personally, i have for the last three weeks flicked straight past the programming part which i would fall asleep reading but realise maybe others like it. i do think those weeks have been a little lighter and quicker to read for me due to longer(3 pages or more???) articles and also every week for at least 3 weeks. a little long for one subject/article don't you think?

RE: Im getting seriously bored

KILLFC — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:41:13 GMT

Hi all,

Just another thought this may have already been covered in the mag but what about a article about changing capacitors on a motherboard. I do this regularly at work to save certain old black and gray cased pc's from the scrap heap, its doesnt require a vast amount of knowledge on electronics just an eye for spotting the signs and a couple of gold coins worth of parts could save £40 plus pounds. on a new mobo.

I unfortunately also find the magazine a bit stale but to be fair in the early years of my interest in pc's (we are talking about 10 years ago now) it was an invaluable resource for information which was easily digestible. I still buy the magazine on the odd occasion but its mostly to keep a tab on prices of hardware these days.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

gully666uk — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:27:38 GMT

I think a case modding article would be good, you also include console mods as you done a xbox360 article recently.i find sites like hack a day very interesting and would like to see somthing of that ilk in mm.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

alex3410 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:38:05 GMT

[quote][b]Jason (20/11/2007)[/b][hr][quote]complete guide to slipstreaming into 20 100-word steps was anything but the easy way out. Neither was explaining binary and hexadecimal in 4 pages. .[/quote]

i have to say these where some of the best articles in recent weeks

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:14:25 GMT

[quote]you are all taking the easy way out from a journalistic point of view[/quote]

For my own part, I can tell you that getting a complete guide to slipstreaming into 20 100-word steps was anything but the easy way out. Neither was explaining binary and hexadecimal in 4 pages. If you could see the work that went into such articles, "lazy" is not a word that would spring to mind. You might want to be a little more conservative in your use of "all".

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Tippon — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:49:19 GMT

[quote][b]windy (20/11/2007)[/b][hr]My suggestion is that you run a weekly 'spot' for readers contributions on the thing that we're all most interested in (even if we won`t admit it) .. ie making a bit of money. I`m not thinking of people who use their PC's in their everyday paid work environment, but rather things that people do "on the side" ... The scope would surely be unlimited..... online poker to creating knitting patterns... writing software to writing articles....[/quote]

I like that idea! It also wouldn't need to take up much room in the mag, and could introduce lots of topics that many of us had never thought of. :)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

alex3410 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:34:39 GMT

chucking an idea out and then quickly hiding :P
how about a poll to help decide content? say for example there is an option of 4 topics and we get to vote on the one we want?
:P

and how about nominating every month the best forum member and they get a mug? :P (you would have to limit it to like 1 win a year or certain very helpful people will end up with rooms full of them lol)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

windy — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:27:44 GMT

Given the challenge of producing a weekly for a diverse audience I think by and large you're doing a pretty good job with content and diversity - Overalll I`m a happy subscriber, and recommend the magazine to others... I do however very much agree with terminator123 about the graphic design overload though... it's like tackling the Ishihara colour blindness test over and over again...

As a bit of food for though I`d make the point that once we switch on our PC's either for work or leisure we all tend to disappear into our own world and many may make the assumption that just because we see things a certain way it follows that others do as well.

My suggestion is that you run a weekly 'spot' for readers contributions on the thing that we're all most interested in (even if we won`t admit it) .. ie making a bit of money. I`m not thinking of people who use their PC's in their everyday paid work environment, but rather things that people do "on the side" ... The scope would surely be unlimited..... online poker to creating knitting patterns... writing software to writing articles....

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Wurz — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:11:41 GMT

I think that some more competitions and brain teasers for the readers would go down well plus the chance for the readers to win a few prizes IE: the good old MM Mug what happened to that?

I am still owed one from the last time that MM were giving them away as prizes for the Caption competition!!!

I must admit i enjoy the chance to submit a caption and it was even better when you had the chance to win a prize.

You can test all sorts of levels of knowledge the readers have from basic for the less knowlegable to the more advanced in the form of a competition with a prize to aim for, i also enjoy reading the articles but i must admit i do agree with a lot of what has been said in this thread and in my opinion the mag could do with some more intresting content to keep the old brain cells going this could also encourage a broader understanding of IT in all aspects to the readers and would make the mag more exiting to read

As to the mag itself religously i would look forward to the release of the next issue and i would rush out to buy it

Well what do you think?

Wurz :D

RE: Im getting seriously bored

terminator123 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:27:48 GMT

I think a lot of the problem that I at least was referring to is that basically you are all taking the easy way out from a journalistic point of view and its getting very stale now.

Now I do not mean anything personal by that but to my eyes at least MM are now adopting a [b]" formula "[/b] style of journalism. You are coming up with themes and sticking to them for weeks at a time. Now that may be fine for the occasional casual purchaser but when you are like me it basically starts to drive you nuts when you are reading it week in week out.

Take this weeks issue for instance. It takes 12 pages of editorial simply to cover upgrading a Case or PSU. However within those 12 pages you are basically describing in that article how to build a complete computer system which could be covered in 12 pages anyway. After all to swap a case I need to strip down my machine completely anyway so with all instructions already in there you have basically repeated exactly the same article you did with say a motherboard swap with only slight change in the format or wording. I am sorry but I have to say it in my view that is seriously lazy journalism and if everyone else is like me then we are all getting seriously bored with the repetitivness of it all.

I appreciate you all have a difficult job to keep a weekly magazine seem so fresh every time but you used to do the job admirably. I cannot always say that now though. It is getting so bad now that I honestly recently thought the newsagent had accidently delivered me an out of date copy as I was convinced I had read what I was reading before. I actually had to check the date and when it gets to that stage for a reader then things are getting bad.

P.S. Seeing as I have already ruined your day I am as well getting it all off my chest rather than moan at a later date lmao. For god sakes stop merging faded images behind the text on your pages. I have great reading vision but even I struggle sometimes. I hate to think how colour blind people are getting on with MM. There is far to much colour used for text backgrounds. Coloured borders are fine but someone at MM has a colour fetish. Im convinced of it.

Okay Im done now.

:Whistling: ;)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

alex3410 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:43:56 GMT

fair point :P
i did not mean to offend and was only curious,
my apologies for such a personal question

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:39:36 GMT

Yes, contributions are paid.

Would you expect me to ask you on a public forum to discuss how much you earn?

RE: Im getting seriously bored

alex3410 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:29:14 GMT

computer active is something i would use to line my rabbits cage :P well is i had one:P

out of curiosity because i am a nosy git:P and because my uni tutors are always telling us that if i am thinking of a question at least 1 other is as well but is to shy to ask:D so blame the uni lol

1) if a reader submits an article and it is published do they get paid?
2) if so how much
3) how much do the regulars get payed?

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:31:14 GMT

It's certainly not aimed at the same market as Computeractive.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

spike09 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:13:35 GMT

[quote][b]MartenReed (19/11/2007)[/b][hr]Well, like I said, Micro Mart is more of a PCs for Beginners magazine, and it goes hand in hand with CustomPC perfectly.
MM's problem is it has to compete with magazines such as ComputerActive!, which works out a lot cheaper per month (£2.80 vs £8 I believe), as well as other computer magazines (Computer Shopper etc are all around £5 a month, CustomPC being £4.25). So it's the pricing of MM that might be a bit of an issue I guess, also the fact it's weekly might be one reason the articles are rather "dry" as late.

Only my thoughts :)[/quote] got to disagree MM is trying to do a tightrope walk between being an advanced users mag and helping new users a very hard place to be.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

-Wiz!- — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:40:26 GMT

Good idea...PC in oil gets my vote. :hehe:

RE: Im getting seriously bored

02 KirPar — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:55:58 GMT

howabout some articles on ridiculous crazy things people do to computers, like extreme case modding, or putting a computer in a fridge to help cool it. MM should do articles about what people have done, and even try some stuff themselves and do articles on it. ok people may not want to try them out themselves, but it would be more interesting and funny. itll stop us flicking through!

some suggestions-

-case modding
-stupid cooling attempts (a bath and a 9.5ghz attempt anyone?) :P
-making computers out of stupid things (i liked the pumpkin one), howabout a sofa or integrated under a bed?
-maxing out the capabilites of a motherboard (max ram, max cpu speed, using all the connectors, as many hard drives and optical drives as you can fit, etc...)
-just stupid stuff and seeing if it works

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Tippon — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:14:50 GMT

Slippy - PLEASE write the articles!

I've only just caught up with the rest of the known universe and got a PC that's under five years old. It can now quite happily do video post-processing and my ATI X800 GT AIW could definitely benefit from being tweaked to the point just before destruction, especially when it's going to be powering a 1680 x 1050 display in just over a months time :D

If you want to throw in some how-to's about setting up a projector and media sofa system, please feel free :)
(Things like where do the cables go to get to the projector, how long do they need to be etc.)

Like Jason said, there are those of us who really appreciate your expertise, but don't have anything to contribute to some of the threads :)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

alex3410 — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:15:00 GMT

one of the main reasons i went for MM in the first place was because it was weekly :P

RE: Im getting seriously bored

MartenReed — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:24:27 GMT

Well, like I said, Micro Mart is more of a PCs for Beginners magazine, and it goes hand in hand with CustomPC perfectly.
MM's problem is it has to compete with magazines such as ComputerActive!, which works out a lot cheaper per month (£2.80 vs £8 I believe), as well as other computer magazines (Computer Shopper etc are all around £5 a month, CustomPC being £4.25). So it's the pricing of MM that might be a bit of an issue I guess, also the fact it's weekly might be one reason the articles are rather "dry" as late.

Only my thoughts :)

RE: Im getting seriously bored

04jmorri — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:34:44 GMT

Hi people, I occasionally also feel sometimes bored and rapidly flicking through pages in MM, mainly because they are things I already know, but the good articles I have seen are great because they go into in depth detail on an advanced subject.
It would be cool for the mag just to check out a computer science syllabus and write about a given subject, this would be really interesting.

Thanks,
Jack

P.S: It is a great mag though, it's just the mag can get a bit samey:doze:

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Dwynnehugh — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:39:20 GMT

I don't think that you can equate the popularity of a "forum posting" to an article in MM - MM caters for a much wider audience than the MM Forum (although it is up to individual readers to visit the Forum as and when), but the percentage of MM readers utilising the Forum is quite small in relation to the total readership I would imagine.

There are opportunities to utilise the larger readership of MM to cover certain niche markets/topics and very often it is easier to tear a page out of MM as opposed to printing off a Forum Posting.

I believe that well written articles even if of a "niche market" subject can bring interest to readers if well written and presented - and this can be totally different to posting on any forum. I agree that writing for a publication is a combination of skill, artistic ability, full knowledge of your subject and the need to make your subject interesting. Not everyone has those talents and I admire those that do.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:39:02 GMT

Hehe! Excellent!

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Slipstreem — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:33:45 GMT

Thanks, Jason. :D

Your binary article may have had much wider appeal than you think. I learned everything that was in it quite some years ago, but I was still glued to it as you managed to explain the theory behind hexadecimal in four paragraphs whereas my TEC tutor took three entire lessons and still had half of the class totally baffled. :P

This goes to prove that informative writing is an art as well as a skill, and maybe I should consider the process of assembling an article as a definite benefit to myself as well as a possible benefit for others.

You've changed my mind. I'll make a start this evening and see what grows over the next week or so. Even if the article isn't accepted for the magazine, at least I'll have provided myself with a handy reference document.

Thanks for the invaluable advice! :D

Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Jason — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:22:33 GMT

But the magazine needs niche articles. That's how readers/users become informed about things they never knew before, perhaps leading them down uncharted paths. A lack of replies to a forum thread means almost nothing. Perhaps hundreds of people read the threads but simply don't have anything to add. And only a very small fraction of readers actually use the forum. Recently I wrote an introduction to binary. Realistically, how many readers were truly interested in that subject? Not many, I wager. But it went down very well indeed. It was one of the best pieces I've written.

If you have a good subject that you can write about enthusiastically and authoritatively, there's a good chance Simon will be interested and that it'll get published. The fence many folks fall at, though, is being unable to actually write. Everyone thinks it's easy; not many can actually do it (to a publishable standard). I would guess that you, Slippy, wouldn't have any trouble.

RE: Im getting seriously bored

Slipstreem — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:11:13 GMT

I've submitted lengthy and informative posts on this subject on the forum before. Once again, the level of interest was close to zero. I guess that my personal interests would only interest a niche market of readers and, therefore, wouldn't necessarily be of benefit to the magazine itself.

I do tend to make posts on specific specialist subjects when the fancy takes me, partly in the hope that enough interest might be generated to make it worth throwing an article together to help the wider community. Unfortunately, the fishies don't bite. ;)

Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool: