Does anyone else get digital versions of railway modelling magazines?
I get the Hornby magazine from Zinio and have just discovered that British Railway Modelling is available from Pocketmags. Pocketmags also have the Hornby magazine a bit cheaper than Zinio so I will be buying both mags from them in future.
I have found downloaded magazines a real boon because I live thousands of miles away, subscriptions cost a lot and postage is slow. It is nice to have a real magazine in your hands but they do take up lots of space.
One real advantage for me is being able to zoom in and enlarge text to make it easier to read.
I wonder if any of the other railway magazines will go digital?
Regards
Veronica.
:NGaugeForum:
Sort of. I will occasionally buy a paper copy of Railway Modeller if there's some interesting N Gauge in it (like I will with the April edition which has an update on Copenhagen Fields), but otherwise I buy the CD-Rom Annual at the end of the year. It has all the articles and layouts from the whole twelve months, plus usually some video features, all for £16.50 with no adverts :thumbsup:
Paul
Quote from: silly moo on February 18, 2012, 11:34:47 AM
I wonder if any of the other railway magazines will go digital?
Regards
Veronica.
:NGaugeForum:
Possibly Model Rail. But I would be very surprised if Railway Modeller did.
At least not in the next few years.
After all, look how long it took them to allow website and email addresses into the magazine!
Quote from: Sprintex on February 18, 2012, 01:27:50 PM
Sort of. I will occasionally buy a paper copy of Railway Modeller if there's some interesting N Gauge in it (like I will with the April edition which has an update on Copenhagen Fields), but otherwise I buy the CD-Rom Annual at the end of the year. It has all the articles and layouts from the whole twelve months, plus usually some video features, all for £16.50 with no adverts :thumbsup:
Paul
Nice tip Paul, never thought about that one. :thumbsup:
Jack
Cool. Hadn't realised BRM had a Newstand edition (£1.99 for the app and £19.99 for the annual subscription). That'll be a lot handier than the stacks of magazines (even more appreciated now I'm packing for a move ;) )
US based freebie http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node (http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node)
Quote from: Lawrence on February 18, 2012, 03:45:13 PM
US based freebie http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node (http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node)
I joined last week, there are loads of great ideas in them :thumbsup:
I almost have all of them downloaded so I can read them at my leisure :computersmile:
Read this, thought what a great idea, saves me the 84km round trip to get mag!
Ordered and paid for mag, got email confirmation, but where's my mag? there was no attachment. Am I missing something? is there something I should do to retrieve mag? any help would be gratefully received.
Thanks
Paul
Quote from: galway on February 18, 2012, 08:11:21 PM
Read this, thought what a great idea, saves me the 84km round trip to get mag!
Ordered and paid for mag, got email confirmation, but where's my mag? there was no attachment. Am I missing something? is there something I should do to retrieve mag? any help would be gratefully received.
Thanks
Paul
Do you not have to go back to the site and download it?
I don't know for sure if this is what you have to do but when I joined the Model Railroad Hobbyist site I had to download the mags from their site.
cheers John.
Thanks John, went back on site as you suggested, there is a section 'my magazines' the mag is there and I can read it, but I was hoping to download the actual mag onto my pc, if I have to go online every time I want to read the mag or refer to it, I dont think I will be going this route again, its back to driving :'(
Quote from: galway on February 18, 2012, 09:56:27 PM
Thanks John, went back on site as you suggested, there is a section 'my magazines' the mag is there and I can read it, but I was hoping to download the actual mag onto my pc, if I have to go online every time I want to read the mag or refer to it, I dont think I will be going this route again, its back to driving :'(
The Newstand app version downloads direct to your iPhone/iPad/iPod so you can read it wherever you want. I'm guessing that if they've also got an online version there's a good chance there's versions of some sort for other devices too.
Quote from: galway on February 18, 2012, 09:56:27 PM
Thanks John, went back on site as you suggested, there is a section 'my magazines' the mag is there and I can read it, but I was hoping to download the actual mag onto my pc, if I have to go online every time I want to read the mag or refer to it, I dont think I will be going this route again, its back to driving :'(
If there is text you click on to read the mag, try right clicking on that text and see if it will let you save it to your computer.
It may come up with a menu where an option is "Save target as...." or something similar.
Hope that works out for you - John.
Quote from: galway on February 18, 2012, 09:56:27 PM
Thanks John, went back on site as you suggested, there is a section 'my magazines' the mag is there and I can read it, but I was hoping to download the actual mag onto my pc, if I have to go online every time I want to read the mag or refer to it, I dont think I will be going this route again, its back to driving :'(
I have the modelrail hobbyists saved on my computer. When you get the mag from the website it should be an Adobe pdf? Go to file and choose save as.
I get mine on my iPad and buy them one issue at a time, I have bought almost a years worth of Hornby magazine but have just started with BRM, it's only just become available. I've found BRM doesn't always interest me so I might not buy every issue.
Although it costs a bit more I like having the option of buying single issues just like you would with a 'real' magazine.
Regards
Veronica.
:Class89:
While on the subject of downloading magazines how about this lot fro Model Railroader, every addition from 75 years ago to the present day and all for $199us, crikey I think I would go bonkers sorting through that lot.
http://www.kalmbachstore.com/15120.html (http://www.kalmbachstore.com/15120.html)
The Link
I have a subscription to Rail Express on Zinio but won't be renewing it, as I have their reader. Much perfer to have a PDF to scan through at leisure. I'll stick to printed paper when it runs out.
Railway Herald has gone subscription only (£18.00 a year) and has enlarged it's content considerably. They have listened to comments and will be offering it as PDF or Zinio to suit everyone.
Quote from: silly moo on February 19, 2012, 04:18:09 AM
I get mine on my iPad and buy them one issue at a time, I have bought almost a years worth of Hornby magazine but have just started with BRM, it's only just become available. I've found BRM doesn't always interest me so I might not buy every issue.
Veronica, How do you get BRM onyour ipad? I looked on Newsstand and search came up empty. Maybe it's not available inthe US?
Have emailed BRM about not being able to download magazine (it says on their website and in mag, 'read anytime no need for wifi or 3G etc').
Went back onto pocket mags, have eventually found a part of FAQ that says -
'Online reader: Digital issues are viewed in-browser using the Microsoft Silverlight plugin. This plugin is freely available for most web browsers on both PC and Mac. An active internet connection is required while reading an issue. The online reader includes many new features, including on page videos, image galleries, hyperlinks and page jumps. Pages can be printed using the print menu on the reader (printing can take up to 1 minute, in this time your browser may become unresponsive).'
Also tried save as in tools, this doesn't work either.
Dissapointed with the technology £2.49 wasted.
But we learn by our mistakes.
Paul
That is disappointing Paul. I would want to have them saved too. You never know when they would decide to make them unavailable, and part of wanting a mag is to read when you have no connection!
I've just read one of the BRMs with my iPad offline, so I have issues saved on my device. Perhaps you only need the Internet running for website links to work?
BRM comes from Pocketmags and appears on Newsstand on my iPad . Suggest you try their website and register there.
I'm in South Africa so it should work in America too. The advert in BRM suggests that the digital version of the magazine will be more convenient for overseas readers.
Regards
Veronica.
I have sent a question to the Pocketmags helpline about whether issues are saved on your device, so we should get an answer soon.
But looking at it logically, most people wouldn't want to buy a digital magazine if they had to download it each time they wanted to read it. You would need to be connected to the Internet for the web links to work though.
One thing I do know is that if you have more than one device each issue has to be downloaded on to each device.
I must have been lucky with Pocketmags and got it working without any problems, which is quite unusual as I'm a real Luddite.
Regards,
Veronica.
Quote from: galway on February 19, 2012, 01:15:56 PM
'Online reader: Digital issues are viewed in-browser using the Microsoft Silverlight plugin. This plugin is freely available for most web browsers on both PC and Mac.
And is widely considered 'dead', as it's a poor man's Flash ...
I think this is the first site (apart from MS, of course) I've heard of using it !!
Mike
Mike, there are a number of American and Japanese railcams that use silverlight
I have had a reply from Pocketmags about having to download the BRM issue each time you read it on your PC or Mac desktop or laptop. I'm afraid that that is the case but they say they are working on a programme to allow PC users to read with downloading each time.
I'm not sure whether this is the case with Zinio as well. I hardly use my PC now that I have a iPad and can confirm that I have two copies of BRM that I can read offline.
So perhaps it's best to check before shelling out.
Regards
Veronica.
Quote from: MikeDunn on February 19, 2012, 04:39:09 PM
Quote from: galway on February 19, 2012, 01:15:56 PM
'Online reader: Digital issues are viewed in-browser using the Microsoft Silverlight plugin. This plugin is freely available for most web browsers on both PC and Mac.
And is widely considered 'dead', as it's a poor man's Flash ...
I think this is the first site (apart from MS, of course) I've heard of using it !!
Mike
Microsoft's not actually killed off Silverlight yet, but it looks on the cards.