The terrifying thing is I think I might be becoming a "spokesperson"
It's one of the great contradictions of modern gadgets that we're never really happy with them until they can emulate much older technology. So we're not really ready to adopt new-fangled PDA smart-phones until someone manages to squeeze a QWERTY keyboard onto them, despite the fact that QWERTY keyboards are a technology that would have been familiar to Fred Flintstone (except his one was made probably from the teeth of a live brontosaurus who shat out the hard-copy when you hit the "CTRL" and "P" tooth at the same time... or something).
It's the same with reading things electronically. We pretend to be happy with our web pages and our e-books, but we all secretly wish it was all a bit more flappy and papery, stitched along one end, and had that New Book Smell when you first opened it.
Fact: Computer manuals of the mid-eighties had the best New Book Smell ever. I was addicted to it, and secretly blame it for kick-starting my early obsession with computing.
But I digress.
People have been trying to emulate the feel of books and magazines in an electronic form for ages, with varying degrees of success. Zinio and it's associated reader software is one fairly successful system. It basically sets out to emulate in purely electronic form the whole magazine experience, allowing you to subscribe to magazines a little like you'd subscribe to a podcast, and download them when they become available.
The downloadable magazines are pretty much identical to the kind you'd get off the shelf in the newsagents, and there are in fact quite a few well-known titles available via Zinio, such as MacWorld and HELLO! magazine. The screen reader even gives you a satisfyingly flappy page-turn animation. They've not managed the New Book Smell yet, unfortunately!
Why have I been playing around with it? Well, er, cos I've been quoted in one of the magazines published purely via Zinio: Avantoure. They wrote to let me know, no doubt expecting me to publicise it my blog like the mug I am.
Ah, the blogger's ultimate accolade... to have their words lifted from the electronic page and be published... er... in a different kind of electronic page.
The article is all about drag, and cross-dressing in general. You can download the whole magazine for free here if you want to, it's a bloody good read. And I'm not just saying that as self-aggrandisement, I'm not in it that much. ;-)
In fact if you don't want to go to the bother of signing up for Zinio, and your eyesight isn't good enough to read the text in the above screen-shot, you can read my tiny contribution to the article by Amy Wolf below...
Hang on a second! "Not entirely sound science"?? How dare she! I'll have you know I have a degree in transpalaeontology from the University of Snettisham!
It's the same with reading things electronically. We pretend to be happy with our web pages and our e-books, but we all secretly wish it was all a bit more flappy and papery, stitched along one end, and had that New Book Smell when you first opened it.
Fact: Computer manuals of the mid-eighties had the best New Book Smell ever. I was addicted to it, and secretly blame it for kick-starting my early obsession with computing.
But I digress.
People have been trying to emulate the feel of books and magazines in an electronic form for ages, with varying degrees of success. Zinio and it's associated reader software is one fairly successful system. It basically sets out to emulate in purely electronic form the whole magazine experience, allowing you to subscribe to magazines a little like you'd subscribe to a podcast, and download them when they become available.
The downloadable magazines are pretty much identical to the kind you'd get off the shelf in the newsagents, and there are in fact quite a few well-known titles available via Zinio, such as MacWorld and HELLO! magazine. The screen reader even gives you a satisfyingly flappy page-turn animation. They've not managed the New Book Smell yet, unfortunately!
Why have I been playing around with it? Well, er, cos I've been quoted in one of the magazines published purely via Zinio: Avantoure. They wrote to let me know, no doubt expecting me to publicise it my blog like the mug I am.
Ah, the blogger's ultimate accolade... to have their words lifted from the electronic page and be published... er... in a different kind of electronic page.
The article is all about drag, and cross-dressing in general. You can download the whole magazine for free here if you want to, it's a bloody good read. And I'm not just saying that as self-aggrandisement, I'm not in it that much. ;-)
In fact if you don't want to go to the bother of signing up for Zinio, and your eyesight isn't good enough to read the text in the above screen-shot, you can read my tiny contribution to the article by Amy Wolf below...
Hang on a second! "Not entirely sound science"?? How dare she! I'll have you know I have a degree in transpalaeontology from the University of Snettisham!
Seriously tho, nice to be appreciated eh?
Ummm.. will you still talk to us when you're dead famous N stuff? :)
When I play a DVD I want to pop the disk in and go. I don't want endless start up menus, I don't want to push "OK" 20 times to get the damn thing running and I don't want 1000s of options. I want to just watch the damn movie!
Likewise, when I'm listening to my I-Pod, I want to hear music, not be given multiple options to hear things in reverse order, in random order, in chronological order, in alphabetical order or in order of kudos as determined by Paul Gambachini! I also don't want to go through endless hours of ripping, synching, drag and click and having to do it again and again and again because the stupid software didn't recognise the rip, burn and synch the first 15 times. With walkman compilations, you popped the tape in, the CD, tape or LP of what you wanted in, set the levels and pressed "play" and "record" and you got what you damn well wanted.
Once I challenged a friend of mine to a phone dialling race: He's always bragging about his mobile phone and how he never needs a diary to keep people's phone numbers. A mutual friend shouted out the name of someone we all knew and I could look that person up in my diary and dial the phone quicker than it took my techie friend to look the number up in his phone and dial.
The trouble with the techies who design these things is that they love their features and options but forget the rest of us just want something that operates at the touch of one button when you touch it once.
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