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BRM now available online as an e-mag


Dicky W

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Chris

 

I was looking for the files location where the Pocket Mags reader had installed itself along with magazine download files so I could check their size. I did finally find it installed in an unusual location rather then the standard Program files folders.

 

Ken Adams

(By trade I am a web based systems administrator so I like to find things in standard places.)

 

And where might this location be? Just wondered if I cound change it - I have a partition on one of my other hdd's solely for magazine scans. Would be nice to keep everything there.

 

Stewart

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  • 1 month later...
  • RMweb Gold

Hello,

 

I suscribed BRM's digital edition. When I use the Pocketmags offline reader, there are no problems with the September issue, but when I try to open the october issue, I can only browse a few pages than the

reader stalled and I will be asked if I want to search for a sollution online and then close the reader. Can anyone help me with that problem?

 

Markus

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I now have three different reader technologies to deal with on my PC:

  1. Zinio for Hornby Magazine. Slow to download and expensive.
  2. Pocketmags weird microsoft methodology based on Silverlight for BRM
  3. Whatever Exact Editions is using for Railway Modeller with no download capability for a pdf or other locally saved format.

Oh the joy of the bleeding edge....Sometimes I think Wild Swan has the right idea.....

 

It will probably get worse when I finally buy a pad device so I can read them in the bathroom. (Not an iPad, I am of the opinion that Apple is the spawn of the fruit that was delivered by the serpent to Eve. I am even less kind to Microsoft.)

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I must admit I'm not enjoying the experience of using the offline reader, I have a 24 inch screen, but find I still have to zoom in and out to read the text or see the pictures.

I also have a couple of bugs in the software where when first go to the library it only shows one edition until I click on it then it goes off and finds the other editions.

the other bug is once I have downloaded (and also sometimes when I've opened an already downloaded file)the first attempt to read the magazine causes the whole offline reader to crash. and I have to reopen it.

 

The Q

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  • 1 month later...

I got the latest version of the BRM App last night and still no option to turn off the annoying gimicky page turn. When will it be switched off or at least give us the option to do it? It really does spoil reading the digital version of the magazine. As previously stated Hornby Magazine doesn't have it and they use the same distributor.

 

Also the quality of the pages on the new Retina iPad is very poor with very poor rendered fonts compared once again with the Hornby Magazine version which is nice and crisp.

 

Peter

 

Got my first e-copy this month, and I too shared the same issues with the hi-res i-pad.

 

After cleaning my glasses, and the screen I guessed it was the image. On the page, the font is just about the right size for 'page to view', but the fuzziness makes it frustratingly illegible, and zooming is a real faff.

 

If the fonts were sharp, you might forgive the unnecessary processor-sapping page-turn animation.

 

 

I wish I'd bought the paper copy from my local model store and helped their business.

 

 

:sad_mini2:

 

 

N

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  • RMweb Gold

Living outside the UK its probably the only way we might get to read a magazine which has not been deformed in some way. Sometimes the plastic covering is the only reason the magazine arrives in one piece but I do understand your point.

I've lost count of the amount of times in recent months my copy of the Hornby mag has arrived either damaged or just a clear bag with my name on.

 

Andy

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  • 4 weeks later...

This forum has confirmed many if not most of my doubts about eMagazines, and I see they will not be the answer to my particular quest.

To summarise:

 

1 Most of us want to save the mags locally and read them off line without our pads or laptops wanting to chirp to some satellite before we’re allowed to open our goodies (which we’ve already paid for).

 

2 We don’t want the intermediate seller like (Pocketmags or Zinio) to change systems or go bust at a moment’s notice leaving us with a pile of unusable digital data on our hard drives.

 

3 Having established the magazines are >150 mb it’d be good to switch off our data download when on holiday, or that bargain digital subscription may cost us 30 or 40 quid to download in roaming fees.

 

4 Ideally we’d like the magazine in a stable format (like MP3 music files or PDF document files) which are not tied to one reader or one system, so that there’s a good chance our purchases can still be accessed several years down the line.

 

I think that many of the publishing guys pushing the digital versions don’t really understand how we use modelling magazines – we buy, read some, then store, drag them out again for certain projects and at after about 10 years try and find a really useful article we recollect somewhere in the 120 back numbers that we now have stacked in the spare room.

 

So far the only person who seems to be future proofing his archive is the guy photographing his back numbers, but to digitally reference these articles must be neigh on impossible.

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I agree completely with Pugwash. Zinio is an offshoot of Adobe of PDF fame and may be a little more lasting or stable. However the Pocketmags format is based on some concoction by Microsoft that is neither too stable or destined for long life. Tablet formats have yet to sort themselves out but Tablets (IPAD) lack the external storage to store years of back issues.

 

The best deal used to be the Railway Modeller annual additions unfortunately now discontinued that stored the years articles in PDF without the advertising. These were unfortunately on a CD with some proprietary navigation software. But the whole CD could be copied to a file system and with cheap terabytes of storage available these days would remain useful. You might have to update to new external storage drive systems every once in a while as that technology is also always evolving but the media could be copied. The problem is the volume of available published information is increasing (a subset of "Big Data"?) while our homes are shrinking.

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The best deal used to be the Railway Modeller annual additions unfortunately now discontinued that stored the years articles in PDF without the advertising.

 

Thanks for pointing that out Autocoach, I'd forgotten that there was a near acceptable solution that has been done away with. OK it was a summary after the event and meant paying twice, but it worked.

 

I wonder if the Annuals work on Windows 7 or Windows 8 though, as I know I've suddenly had to keep my old laptop running XP to retrieve Autosketch and other non-compatible program's.

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I think that many of the publishing guys pushing the digital versions don’t really understand how we use modelling magazines – we buy, read some, then store, drag them out again for certain projects and at after about 10 years try and find a really useful article we recollect somewhere in the 120 back numbers that we now have stacked in the spare room.

Have to agree with a lot of what pugwash says. The e-mag is undoubtedly the long term future, but the current delivery systems are tuned to a distinctly different usage model where generally the material is read once and disposed, of such as your daily newspaper and the various 'gossip' rags. Typically the model railway mag user retains material (either individual articles or full issues) for future reference building up a personal 'library' over time. It would be a retrograde step if that material becomes inaccessible through hardware/connectivity failure, software obsolescence or commercial failure of an intermediary.

 

We are heading in the right direction but were not there yet for our particular market...

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Having now read modelling inpirations, I've come to the conclusion that part of the reason for not enjoying EBRM is the layout, if EBRM were landscape it would fit onto the display much better and stop my needing to zoom in and out all the time, So if they wished to have EBRM and BRM in the same layout they would have to alway split the text and pictures halfway down BRM's pages which I think would be possible.

The Q

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price seems high to me 3.49 ?pounds ?. 99 p would be better for 2 points . the first point its 1.6x more expensive for me ( $5.60 canadian ) . The second point they have the articles prepared for printing so its not like they have to redo it . 13.60 (12 % gst included )plus a month late other wise .

 

another thing the ability to store on external hard drives and later acessing it while downloading the next years subscripions worth once you paid for it . another thing how would they know if your subcripitions up ? . would there be ways of not getting offers by said company or intrested third parties when signing up ?

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest Linthorpe

I bought last month's EBRM through Pocketmags for viewing on my Macbook. I thought that I would now get this month's, but PM have now changed their online reader and I can only access things if I install Microsoft Silverlight.

 

I have no intention of installing MS on my Mac so it looks like no more BRM for me :umbrage:

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Guest Linthorpe

Today there is the choice of the new 'beta' reader or the old reader, obviously at some point in the near future the beta will become the only one available and I will lose any 'stored' copies. Until I can physically download to my Mac there is no point in buying any more copies.

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  • RMweb Gold

I've just downloaded the latest edition via pocket mags, and currently trying to view on the offline reader.

 

Is there any way to get rid of the pointless 30mm at the top of the screen which says Pocketmags, then below it has "Back BRM, | Jan 13" in large letters, likewise there is another pointless 20mm below the mag of wasted space.

 

Having a widescreen monitor on the laptop, the actual mag looks a bit small in the centre, with lots of wasted space around the edge (naturally I would rather see the magazine rather than pocketmag's interface...) The annoying thing is that if the wasted 50mm of space had been filled with magazine, I wouldnt need to Zoom!

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There was quite a bit of traffic from the epub guys earlier in this thread...now they are remarkably quiet.

 

I wonder if they've all scuttled off to redesign or renegotiate based on some pretty good reasons given in this thread for not subscribing to epubs.

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Is there any way to get rid of the pointless 30mm at the top of the screen which says Pocketmags, then below it has "Back BRM, | Jan 13" in large letters, likewise there is another pointless 20mm below the mag of wasted space.

 

Having a widescreen monitor on the laptop, the actual mag looks a bit small in the centre, with lots of wasted space around the edge (naturally I would rather see the magazine rather than pocketmag's interface...) The annoying thing is that if the wasted 50mm of space had been filled with magazine, I wouldnt need to Zoom!

I 100% Agree

The Q

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