I was thumbing through back issues of Micromart and noticed that certain articles types keep appearing - No bad thing given its a weekly magazine and new readers come on board or are attracted by key issues all the time.

But a thought crossed my mind that some were merely skating over the surface and could have been improved by a little more depth. I know its important to strike a balance between newbies and the more experienced.

Take graphic cards last week for example, the article itself was well written and gave the basics of what's available but didn't really say anything that the average reader wouldn't already be familiar with.

I'm all for rebuild or upgrade articles, the more people who do it the better and the effort will pay huge dividends in quality and performance. Mike Pickavance's guides are exceptional, but perhaps he could be persuaded to spend a litte longer on the finer details. For a newcomer its all the little questions, like fitting the I/O shield (what to do with the metal bits covering the interface - how to do a proper grounding job.)  Connecting all the auxillary connectors to the front panel. Setting up the BIOS, what to look out for. Easy Peasy when you have done it a few times but fear invoking when its the first time and no immediate help at hand.

The Start/Run feature was great full of little wrinkles and shortcuts to make life easier.

Please don't take this as criticism, just an observation as I think that the majority of Micromart readers know their stuff and could easily handle more technical detail and would appreciate it.

PS An Index of articles in back issues would be greatly received, cut out the time of physically looking things up.

Regards Spritestomper     

Nil desperandum

Don't be so pedantic Tippon, you're getting picky in your old age.   Here's the missing 'l'. Must have drunk too much coffee or the peepers playing up.

Sorry Mark, humble apologies.

Keep on starting an Index but get distracted and don't get any further. We are spoiled with the speed and convenience of having electronic data, so when it comes to traditional archiving it becomes too much of an administrative chore but it would make keeping track of all the articles in the back issues much easier and the collection would be 100% more useful.

Regards Spritestomper

Nil desperandum

SpriteStomper & Me = 59yrs - what does that make us and others on the Forum then? (Dinosorusesusus?).

Must go, the nurse wants me to go for a nap before my Ovaltine!

Dave H

What is the difference between genius and stupidity?

Genius has limits.   - Albert Einstein

You may be talking about 'Are All Graphics Adaptors Created Equal?'. If so, thanks for the feedback. Like the rest of the series, it was intended as an independent but brief market survey - presumably some readers will be picking up a copy of MM to catch up with what's around right now - it wasn't ever going to surprise or inform a regular forumite.

Effectively, it was just saying 'If you're thinking about buying a graphics card soon, here are some sensible (sensible to me, anyway) options for different budgets, with value guide prices, and these are the general features you should expect to be paying for.'

There were some technical details about the implications of new SLI and Crossfire chipsets, but it was never aimed at people who are already up to speed, and I admit that technicalities were deliberately skipped or simplified, except where they seemed unavoidable. I can happily go on and on for hours about graphics cards, but that's likely to try the patience of many, if not all, readers along the way. Articles need a focus, or they become shapeless monsters.

The previous week Mark P did a technical piece about the limitations of current graphics cards and raytracing, which was probably more up your street. Writing a single article for 'the average reader' is harder than it seems, due to the difficulty of defining that person.

I hope that more techy readers will suggest articles or subjects that they want to see, as that's the best way to get content that's appropriate for them.

Thanks again.

Edit: I personally like the idea of an indexed DVD of say, last year's back issues, maybe available with annual subscriptions or something, but that's easy for me to say.