What do you think of our monthly newsletter?

We've decided to start a new monthly newsletter, to have some industry news, and a few official tidbits about what's up with MRH.

What do you think?

Hi Joe and ... welcome to

Hi Joe and ... welcome to this newsletter! It's a nice idea, delicious graphic but...

personally I've preferred som kind of "organization" ( I mean different sections for each scale for example).

And, what I feel is missing from MR, MRC news for example, is a little picture of products ( a thumb will be enough I think), but again, my personal view.

Keep the good job on!

Enzo Fortuna (Italy)

Newsletter

This is a great idea and it looks great too.

I would offer a suggestion though. Putting all the items that pertain to one scale together in separate sections would increase its value to me. I might look at the HO stuff just to see what's happening int he hobby, but I am more interested in what's new in N-Scale. Photos of the new products would also go a long way towards peaking my interest.

Irv

Newsletter

I must be doing something wrong.  I just downloaded Adobe Flash Player the other day to watch the Bear Creek layout video and it worked fine, but the newsletter gives me an error everytime I open it.

I'm using Windows XP w/service packs on a P4 3.06 GHZ with 512MB RAM, if that matters.

Any idea what I could be doing wrong?

Which link did you use to download?

Are you opening the PDF straight from the link, downloading it first, or downloading and opening the Zip file?

Which link...

I downloaded the PDF first and then tried the zipped PDF when the first one gave me an error.  I did not try to open the PDF online but I'll try that as well.

I get the same error in all instances.  It is the media clip that gives me the Adobe Flash Player error, otherwise I can read the newsletter...which is a great idea by the way!

BTW I am using Firefox 3.03

Kevin, make sure you're on the latest Adobe reader

Kevin:

Make sure to update your Adobe Reader .... and to update your Adobe Flash Player. Since we're pushing the envelope somewhat with our online publication approach, it's best to keep these products updated on your machine. We're holding the line on what versions you need, so if you've updated everything above since July, you should be able to read our PDFs just fine, play all the Flash content, and so on. But it never hurts to get the latest and greatest.

Once in a while, we've found people who have incompatibilities on their computer. In plain English this means you have something installed that's interferring with the Adobe products.

One other option is to boot into safe mode and try reading the PDF. Safe mode turns off most of the other junk on your PC and if it works under safe mode, but not normally, that's a sure sign you've got something installed that's conflicting. To boot to safe mode, press down and hold F8 while your system is first booting and you should get a menu letting you select safe mode.

Nice idea.. needs more cowbell

I like it.. but with just the hobby news it feels a little lean.

It would be nice if in addition to hobby news you included a page with a quick tip or howto. Thats more interesting to me than news, while nice, about things I can't afford!

It might be kind of cool to include a couple of "trackside photos" that may have come along in the month.

Just my two cents worth!

Chris

Using the latest versions...

There was a language update available for the Reader but as I just installed the Adobe Media Player a day or two ago to watch the Bear Creek video it is already up to date.  In any event installing the Reader update did not help.

I re-booted to safe mode and received the same error.

Oh well.  This system is overdue to be formatted and reloaded...sigh...another day spent installing software...maybe this weekend. :o(

I can't say I am overly impressed with the Adobe media palyer anyway.  I hate software that starts everytime I boot or log in and it's GUI is goofy, IMO.  I may not want to re-install it anyway.

Thanks for trying to help guys. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come with the rich media parts of the mediazine.  Hopefully all goes well after a complete reload here.

More Cowbell...

Aside from my systems issues with playing the media clip I really do like the newsletter idea.  I agree with Chris though.  While hobby news is interesting I will get a lot more out of some modeling information, tips, how-to's etc.  Just adding my 2 cents to make four. :o)

grouped by category

I would agree.  Group by scale, then multiscale or electronics/whatever.  A quick tip or two or even a silly comic might be good.  Even a "Don't do this" would be fine.

-

S

Category and content

"Even a "Don't do this" would be fine."

YES!  One of the reasons I continue to subscribe to the Walthers newsletter is the tips section at the end.  Sometimes it's nothing new but often enough it's a gem that I copy and paste into a tips file I have on the go.

I guess we can't expect too much from the newsletter though, or before long it will be a monthly "magazine". :o)

Keep up the good work Joe, etal.

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Joe,

Like the news letter.  Just a quick overview if fine by me as the meat will probably be included in mag at a later date.

1 bug.  Once the IE online PDF version has been openned once to read, you can not open it again from my end. I wanted to try the feedback featuree but IE can no longer open the PDF.

Marc F

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You left the View/Edit turned on I think...

Marc F

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Texte is not resizeable. Trouble reading the small blurry print.  The size magnifier in IE is not visible in lower right. No option to change texte size.

Marc F

You left the View/Edit

+++

Yes. Now the feedback feature in the News letter brings me to here.  

Marc F

I've gotta agree with the

To explain the rationale a bit more ...

Our writer who puts this news together follows a useful rationale when writing his content - and it's an approach he's typically used in the past when he did similar such newsy content. Also keep in mind this is intended to be less of a comprehensive product announcement section like in MR or RMC, and more of a collection of "industry gossip tidbits". 

We want it to read as somewhat less structured and more chatty, kind of like the old bull session column in MR. To add a lot of structure to it starts to defeat the whole conversational approach and turns it into something you could just about present with a spreadsheet. It kind of kills the whole spirit of the idea.

There's also an editor's device going on with how the "rumors" are presented. The author puts the most significant "scuttlebutt" first, and then tapers off through the piece to less significant rumors. For me as an editor, this is excellent, since it means we can chop the piece most anywhere and make it fit, knowing when we trim the piece, all we may be losing are the less notable items of announcements/gossip at the end of the piece.

Now I also hear your request to have the items categorized, but remember this is interactive media we're talking about! How about a button that says "N scale" and when you press it, all the N scale items/rumors are highlighted for you? 

This way we could have our cake and eat it too. We get a format that stays bull session conversational, remains super easy to edit to fit, and you get something that makes it easy to find the items/rumors of interest quickly.

What do you think?

Depends on length..

Sounds like a cool idea although I never felt it needed to be more organized. Its not like there was a ton of stuff to read and my personal bias is I like all different kinds of railroad news, not just "my" scale. If you had a much longer newsletter then maybe a feature like that would be helpful but as presented I can't see myself bothering to do that when a quick skim with my eyes will work. Perhaps a little "scale" symbol at the start of each rumor for those who are very scale-centric?

I think part of the issue (no pun intended) is that the wide format of the online newsletter/magazine can appear to be a bit busy with lots of columns visible at once. I think that is exacerbated when you have images floating here and there. Its not a bad thing.. but I did find myself thinking I would like to have the presentation be less horizontal, something I did not get when I read the sample PDF for whatever reason.

Maybe you just need to beak up the "flow" a little so that the section can be gulped in more manageable pieces. Not so much in categorizing (I agree with you there..) but in presentation. A little line between rumors, or maybe a little "end of rumor" symbol.

Regards,

Chris

Edit - I went back and looked at it again.. it seemed less of an issue now. Perhaps there was just something about how I hit it at work that made it seem busy.

Newsletter Still A No-Go

Thanks for the great forum for model railroaders. It seems such a long time since I signed up until the 1st edition in Jan. I have been able to watch all the videos to datem but the Newsletter still will not load.

Each time I try to open it or down load either version I get an "incomplete file or corrupt file" message from both Zip & Adobe latest upgrades.

Thanks again for all the stuff that does work.

James Alexander

System specifics, please?

James,

Can we get your system specifics - what OS, method of connecting to the internet, and the versions of the programs you are using to try and open/view the files?

Thanks!

Corrupt file message

James:

When you download a zip file of a PDF, on a windows system, you can double click the zip file and it will open up a folder showing the pdf. If you then double click the pdf inside the zip file, Adobe reader will try to open the file and give you a "damaged file" message, like this:

The problem is you must FIRST extract the pdf from the zip file onto your desktop.

If you don't know how to do that, go download the free zip utility Zipcreator and use it to extract the pdf from the zip.

Once you do that, the pdf should display fine.

Or you can try download option 2, the pdf, and that should also work for you. With option 2 you have to be patient, because it can take 60 seconds or more for the PDF to cache into your browser and finally display. Once the PDF displays, the PDF link tells you what command to use to save the PDF to your local computer so you can browse it offline.

Some zip utilities (if you have them installed on your system) make your system smart enough to automatically unzip files inside a zip, so this problem may not exist for everyone. But for most people who do get this message, it's because you're trying to read the pdf while it's still inside the zip file, and that's a No-No.

Gotta love windows ... NOT!

buttons

Joe,

Excellent point.  It's interactive so maybe buttons/links/tabs would be fine.  They could be scale, importance, most reliable rumors first, whatever.  Whichever button you click puts those first and the rest are just sort of listed after.  How you do the rest is up for grabs I guess.
-

S