May 2009 Newsletter

Since the monthly newsletter is intended to be something quick to get out the latest hobby news, we've moved away from having both a LITE and PREMIUM edition. We've moved to just a single "Standard" edition that should work on all machines.

Where we used to have the "rich media" buttons to show what news items were which scale - we've replaced that with the simpler method of bolding the scale reference in each news item - as in HO scale - for example. While not as fancy, it does make it so we don't have to do two completely different editions of the news.

We'll save the fancy rich media goodies for the magazine and keep the news as lightweight as possible to produce.

I noticed that Fig 17, presumably the pic of Train Worx N scale gondola was missing..

Chris

Thanks for the sharp eye, Chris. Even our copy editor missed that one.

The download master has been fixed to remove the reference to the missing figure 17 and figure 18 has been renumbered to become figure 17.

Nice to get that fixed before we send out the email blast that the newsletter is available!

I can hardly see the bold lettering of the scales...

Okay, then in the next newsletter we'll make the scale designations a strong blue. Green and red are poor choices because of color blindness, but blue should work.

The May Newsletter is great - a wealth of information in an easy-to-access format.  Congratulations on another winner.

Art Armstrong

I really like your 'newsletters'.  I feel they benefit me more than the magazine. 

On Rapido, I wonder what improvements we'll see now since Bill Schneider of Branchline has changed his employment from one to the other.  Both companies offered very impressive models of passenger cars.  How much better can it get?

Sincerely,

Ed Locklin at mp367.

Hi,  I'd like to make a suggestion.  Can you please change the sponsor links to be able to right-click them and force them to open in a new window?  When I am reading a web page that I plan to return to several times, I always right-click any link I want to check out.  That allows me to explore the site I linked to and be returned automatically to the source page when I close the linked page.  I don't have to find my way back with the Back button or its drop-down list and then wait for the source page to load.

On your newsletter, I was trying to explore the web pages on your list of sponsors.  I found that the right-click access to the sponsor's page was disabled in all cases.  The only way to access them was to left-click and allow the linked page to open in the current window.  Out of habit, I closed the linked page a couple of times, shooting myself in the foot.  Even when I remembered to go back to your newsletter window, I had to wait briefly for the pdf file to reload.

This makes visiting your sponsors' web sites less pleasant, and may discourage some visits that otherwise would happen.  At least with me.

Bill

Bill,

Now that you mention it, I've done the same thing.

MRH:  I'll vote for right-click ability, also.  Thanks.

Glad I'm not the only one.  I just reread my comment and I sound like a whiner.  I really like the magazine and the newsletters.  I intended only to suggest a change I thought would make it better.

I doubt anyone would be interested in every sponsor.  I noticed a lot of them are scale-specific, for instance.  But I like to visit a lot of their sites for ideas anyway.  The list at the end of the newsletter was a welcome source of links to check out.  I placed another order to Micro-Mark. 

Bill

How about letting us scroll using the arrow keys. I fill the screen on my laptop to be able to read the newsletter. it is just about impossible to scroll using the touch screen. Not worth the hassle of reading it.

Ralph Hougesen

Ralph:

What application are you using to view the newsletter?

On both Adobe Reader and Mac Preview, clicking the right arrow key goes to the next page and clicking the left arrow key goes to the previous page. Also on the PC, PgDn goes to the next page and PgUp goes to the previous page.

Also make sure you have num lock turned off, if you're using the arrow keys on the number pad of your keyboard.

If the arrow keys aren't working for you and you have num lock turned off, I'm not sure what's going on. We've tested our PDFs on well over a dozen PCs and Macs, and the arrow keys work fine to change pages.

Anyone have any clues for Ralph as to why his arrow keys aren't working for him?

The right/left, up/down arrow keys are working just fine for me on my Toshiba Qosmio Laptop.  Personally I CAN'T STAND touchpads so I have a wireless optical mouse that works awesome.  I find the on sceen arrow to work to click through the newsletter too.  I am using the latest version of Adobe Reader under Windows Vista.

Really Ralph.  Comments like yours,

How about letting us scroll using the arrow keys. I fill the screen on my laptop to be able to read the newsletter. it is just about impossible to scroll using the touch screen. Not worth the hassle of reading it.

Ralph Hougesen

that provide zero information on the system, operating software and program that you are using to generate this problem that no one else seems to have...well, they aren't really worth reading either.

Hope you can get this resolved so that MRH becomes worth reading for you.

Point well taken, Blue!

In my posts above regarding right-clickable links:  I'm using a Toshiba Satellite laptop with Intel chips, running Vista Ultimate (factory installed) with all updates, and Internet Explorer 7.0.6001.18000.  Have also tried with Firefox 3.0.10 with all updates on the same machine.  With either browser, I'm using the browser to view the pdf, not opening a separate Acrobat Reader window.  I have Adobe Reader 9.0 installed, and I am not sure how that is incorporated into the brwosers for viewing pdfs.  I do have full functionality for all the active content in the MRH full issues. 

Since the active content works so well, it didn't occur to me that my setup might have an effect on whether I could right-click on a link and force a new window.  In case it does, I hope the above information is enough to go on.

As I said, I like the newsletters and the magazine issues.  I like to see the advertisers' web sites as well.  I'd just find it easier if I could leave the newsletter or issue ope while I explore the links in another window.

Keep up the great quality of these web publications.  They're fun.

Bill

Bill,

Unless I am not understanding you, I think the simple work around for your issue is to download the pdf's to your local system before reading them with Adobe Reader.  Then when you click links your browser is free to open and navigate to the linked site.  Just my two cents, hope it helps.