I say this after receiving a few letters asking just that. One reader, Alex Heller, wrote a long letter saying how every electronic magazine he has ever liked is now gone, radically changed, or is so infrequently issued that he loses track of when he last read it.

It got me to thinking that Alex is right. The Mac electronic publication list has got much smaller, I'm sorry to say. There are a few new ones coming out, but most don't seem to stay around long enough to really catch on, which is a shame. Some of the new stuff is really good! The new magazines are not coming out as fast as the older ones go away or change. What was once a plethora of writers with opinions, critique, and a sense of humor has largely disappeared, leaving only a few independent collections of software reviews.

I'm not saying that reviewing a piece of shareware or software is bad, and in fact we do much of that here, but enough is enough! I want to read some opinionated columnists with a sense of humor! I want to read a comical view by a Mac user on why Bill Gates is trying to rule the world. Anything, really, rather than the constant bombardment of reviews, or Web pages with a million links to other Web sites with a million links.

News. If it's not a review of something, it's someone reporting the news. Yes, we do that occasionally here, but we try to only report on something WE find interesting and want to share with others.

I like Mac-related Web sites. MacInTouch is a daily hit for me that I often find invaluable. However, 95% of all the other Mac-news Web sites do nothing but repeat what OTHER Web sites are saying, sometimes word for word. Ho-hum...

Which brings me to the reason I'm writing this piece. MacSense, the father of the Macintosh electronic publication world, is changing. MacSense, started by Chris McVeigh, a very talented writer and creator, set the standard for all others to follow, including this magazine. But now Chris McVeigh is leaving MacSense. And like many other magazines, MacSense is changing radically with his departure. Taking his place as Editor-In-Chief is Aaron Lyon, who is relaunching the site as MacSense Reviews.

I was a MacSense reader. I enjoyed it very much, and felt it was a staple of the Macintosh publishing industry. But now that it's going to reviews, I'm a little disappointed. Not that I think MacSense Reviews will not be worth reading; I'm sure Aaron Lyon and company will do an exceptional job! It's just that MacSense has always been more than just reviews, which for me was simply a little flavor added to the mix.

I will, of course, continue to check out MacSense Reviews, just as I did before. And I urge all you who have never looked in on MacSense to do the same (http://www.macsense.com). It's just that I'm a little sad to see this happen. I felt much the same when Danny Novo left About This Particular Mac. Change is sometimes a good thing; it just seems to me that all the stuff that I used to read is going away, without anything of substance to take its place.

Reviews and news are all fine and dandy, but I also want entertainment, something that traditionally is not found in news and reviews. Of course, I'm the Editor-In-Chief/Publisher of My Mac Magazine, which has some of the best writers in the business, in my humble opinion. So I do get to read some entertaining writing every month (No one beats Pete Miner for entertainment!). But I'm also a reader, like you all are, and would like to read something outside the My Mac universe. Is anything out there now similar to MacSense or About This Particular Mac? If you think you've found some new and interesting Macintosh magazines, please write in and let me know.
Tim

(In lieu of my monthly My Turn column, I decided to take a little extra space on this page this month to say what I wanted to say. Sorry, Russ! You can have the rest of the page now! (smile!) -Tim)

Gee, Tim, thanks a lot!
Russ

Tex-Edit Plus 2.0.1 is Out For those of you looking for a simply great text editor to replace SimpleText, check out Tom Bender's latest update to his shareware classic. You'll find his work at http://members.aol.com/tombb and ftp://members.aol.com/tombb, as well as Info-Mac mirror sites and BBSs. You'll also find it in the My Mac Software Library at http://www.mymac.com/software.
Russ

Apple and the Press Why is it that when Apple does something to restructure its operation that causes it to take a loss, the media is all over the place picking on the bones and fighting over every little scrap? Yet when the restructuring works or Apple does things that make financial sense and things begin to gel and come together, the media is nowhere to be found to report on what has been done right.
Russ

The Trouble with Rebates
You would think that software and hardware companies would have watched, listened and learned from the Iomega Zip Drive Rebate debacle. Customers waiting for 6 to 9 months for $50 rebates on their purchase of the Zip Drive, resulting in bad feelings, loss of confidence and tons of bad press.

Apparently Symantec was one of the companies that didn't pay attention as it announced the latest version of Norton Utilities 3.5 for the Mac. Suggested Retail Price of $94.99, but $44.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate for owners of previous versions of Norton Utilities or Mac Tools. Wouldn't it be more cost effective (read: cheaper) to have previous owners send in their proof of ownership as they have done in the past and get the latest version of the product at the reduced price of $44.99? The current procedure requires an additional process of issuing rebate checks after the customer sends in their proof of ownership, and that requires a lot of extra paperwork that apparently can get lost for months in the shuffle.

And Symantec isn't the only company going the rebate route. Why do I have to provide any company with additional cash so that they can get interest on it in their bank account when I could be getting interest on that money in my bank account?
Russ