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As long-time readers know, I’m a huge fan of Wired Magazine. I’ve dealt with the frustration of waiting a month to receive an outdated issue of the American magazine by subscribing. At least now I’m no longer at the mercy of the local EB or CNA, but rather the South African Post Office. Wonderful…

Quietly, it seems, Conde Nast, publisher of Wired has started up some additional franchises to counter the global slowdown in magazine sales. The launch issue of the UK version of Wired Magazine is in-store now and is certainly worth a look if you’ve never bought Wired or balked at the rather high cost of each issue: the launch issue runs almost 200 pages in length and is full of what Wired readers enjoy: popular culture, technology, toys and gadgets.

At ZAR 50, this is a worthwhile purchase – I doubt follow-on issues will be selling at the same price.

It is the May 2009 issue – seems we are destined to always receive overseas publications more than a month later that their actual release date…

I responded to a recent Q&A sent to me by the guys and gals behind the informative TechSmart publication. Always a source of very useful information, I tended to miss out on many issues because I simply couldn’t get to one of the distributors of the free printed edition often enough. Of course, TechSmart has now made a rather successful transition to the web. Read it here.

So the Q&A has been published. Thanks to TechSmart for the exposure! You can read the Q&A online.

It’s also the first time I’ve been photoshopped

I’m no fan of the Incredible Connection, considering them a last resort only in cases where I can’t order online or where a nearby dealer is unable to provide what I need. But I was intrigued by @Brettski‘s tireless self-promotion on a recent episode of The ZA Tech Show of a new publication he had launched.

Connect is a magazine that is produced in conjunction with Incredible Connection. For that reason, I assume, the magazine title is what it is and copies are on sale only in Incredible Connection stores.

But for all my aversion to Incredible Connection, I was very impressed when I picked up a copy of Connect today. It’s a glossy, high-production value publication that delivers some salient advice and good content. The cover price of ZAR 15 is very reasonable. Within the covers, readers will find reviews of hardware and software together with a few how-to guides. Aimed more at the technophobe than at the technophile, concepts and terminology are explained in basic terms. I like the fact that prices are provided for all reviewed products and also the Perfect Companion section accompanying the reviews.

If Connect is just a marketing paper for Incredible Connection, it’s very well disguised. For a locally-produced magazine, Connect is of a high quality. Check it out.

South Africans pay through the nose for printed materials at the newsstand. A current edition of any imported magazine costs at least ZAR 100 and is generally a month or more out of date. That makes the Interwebs an attractive source of information. A second alternative is the online magazine, something I’m not all that keen on because I can’t easily take it with me or read it without sitting in front of a monitor. At least online magazine distribution makes for timely receipt of the latest news. When such content is available in a localized version and better yet, free of charge, there’s no reason not to have a peek. Mac Action is an online magazine chock full of Mac-related content.

The first edition runs to 61 pages and contains a review of the latest MacBook, a brief history of Apple and even a section on gaming and hints and tips. Overall, I’m quite impressed.

Browse around the VirtualMags site for some other online titles.

Photographers can generally still be classified into two distinct camps: those loyal to Canon and those loyal to Nikon. Since I’m firmly in the Canon camp, this publication came to my attention and I decided to subscribe.

I’ve been quite impressed with the content and the information provided. EOS Magazine is published by Robert Scott Publishing Limited and includes a fair bit of product placement. It is a Canon-themed publication after all. The advice regarding photography and equipment is certainly valuable.

A single subscription costs GBP 31.95 for overseas delivery and consists of four issues. If you’re a Canon shooter, you may want to check this publication out.

…though more than very likely illegal. Mygazines hosts a collection of digital magazine copies with the tagline Upload. Share. Archive. It is the kind of collection a magazine junky like me is unable to withstand. As long as they’re online, the service should be taken advantage of, methinks.

The magazine collection is in the process of being bulked up. A quick scan in the bicycle category revealed nothing there yet. The computer section is pretty reasonably stocked, though. Most recent issues of popular titles are available. Free sign-up is required prior to accessing the content. The interface is easy to work with and resembles iTunes.

Select a title and click read. The interface there resembles that of Zinio – click on either side of the page to flip over. It has some nifty graphics effects and permits searching through the text.

It is not possible to download the magazine in its entirety, so one is restricted to paging through it whilst connected to the Internet. Response times are reasonable and the paging effect pleasing to the eye. There’s a filter for objectionable material, though this is easy to toggle – any savvy youngster will have little trouble getting at anything available…

How publishers feel about having their work available without them receiving any cash for it is one question I have. It is likely that certain legal proceedings will take place against Mygazines before too long.

In the meantime, you may want to browse and read what you can.

Stumbling around the magazine section in the local CNA recently I came across a reasonable selection of Marvel PocketBooks. These are printed by Panini Comics and are pretty good value. Each PocketBook contains a reprint of a number of comic books in a handy format – the books measure about 20cm high. The stories are taken from popular titles such as The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and The X-Men and are a great way to catch up on some older storylines.

For example, The Amazing Spider-Man: The Spider Slayer collects the stories found in The Amazing Spider-Man issues 103 all the way through 111.

The selection available at the CNA is limited, though there is a decent spread of popular Marvel fare. From webhead

to Prof. Xavier‘s team

The PocketBooks are priced at a reasonable ZAR 69 each and their form factor makes them easy to stuff into a bag for a quick read during a trip.

I’ve drastically cut my monthly magazine purchases over the past year. First to go was SACM, primarily due to the fact that I have more information on most of their content before the latest issue hits the shelves. The Internet is to blame, of course. Time and Fortune arrive in the post box. Those subscriptions are really cheap enough not to bother cancelling them. Wired is a must-have. I enjoy Linux Magazine, but I consider the per issue price of ZAR 149 a bit extreme. A digital subscription to that publication is available, however. Considering twelve issues in PDF format costs only ZAR 275, and those issues are available on time and online, there’s no reason not to try.

The issues are available in PDF format. It’s the identical content, including ads.

As with any PDF, it’s easy to read. What more can I say?

Regarding the monthly DVD included with the hardcopy, that’s not that big a deal. Generally, I have the ISO‘s for those installations I want to play with or use. Getting them off a local mirror is generally no big deal. The price is right, downloads are quick and this means not having to waiting on local bookstores getting copies on their shelves, generally a month or so behind schedule.

Ordinarily, I’m an ardent reader of Linux Format, but with the current issue not yet available and me wanting to get my hands on Sabayon 4.3, I grabbed a copy of Linux User and Developer off the CNA shelf.

The Sabayon DVD is great, as is the distro.

The magazine sucks! Big time. This is a typical example of a publication that is riding on the popularity of a product wave, but is unable to provide a useful contribution. I should have taken heed once I flipped the cover open to reveal an advert for Microsoft Visual Studio. Nothing against Microsoft Visual Studio. But taking money from the primary opponent of Linux is a bit rich for an open source friendly publication. It doesn’t exactly indicate a lot of journalistic, or any other form of integrity. The saving grace could have been the interview with Mr. Penguin himself, Linus Torvalds. But like the other content in the magazine, it’s overly short and adds little we don’t already know. If you occasionally swoop onto the magazine stands like I do, make sure you give this one a miss.

TechSmart is a monthly advertisement-driven magazine, available for free at many computer stores. There’s always something interesting in there, and now it’s even easier to get hold of. Issues may be downloaded directly from the site in PDF format.

More convenient than trying to remember to pick it up every month, you’ll now need only to remember to download it…