Publisher’s Page

By Neil Ticktin, Publisher

An update from MacTech

For some time now, we’ve been working on a number of projects at the magazine to allow us to move to the next level. Finally now, after months of effort, we are starting to see the fruits of those efforts, and we wanted to share them with you.

First, there were the mundane things like a corporate reorganization, moving to new offices, and other infrastructure related activities - all of which are aimed at further strengthening the magazine and the services that we provide to you. But, there have been more interesting projects - like bringing MacTech to the web, new Internet support, as well as a major revamping of our editorial process.

MacTech Net Support

Over the last several issues, you’ve heard us talking about how to put yourself on the net, give yourself a web presence, and cool places to check out on the net - but, you’ve not seen as much MacTech Magazine support as you might expect. Why? Well, partly, we’ve been focusing on some of those aforementioned mundane issues. And partly, we wanted to have the “right” type of net presence - including finding the right vendor to partner with.

As of this writing, we’ve come to an agreement with an Internet provider to give you access to our servers at rates up to 384k. We’ve finally locked in the mactech.com domain name, and we’re bringing our servers up in the weeks to come. By the time that you read this, we should have up and running:

http://www.mactech.com

So, grab your browser or ftp client and take a look - you should be in for a pleasant surprise.

What’s going to be there? Well, the obvious stuff - the latest URLs relevant to Macintosh developers, source code files, utilities, header files, Sprocket, information sheets on the magazine, tools, books, utilities, etc But, we’re also going to experiment with putting much of the magazine’s history (many of the articles from the first 10 years) on the web - if it works well for all of us, we’ll make it a permanent feature. This is similar to the MacTech CD - but even though we have some solid bandwidth to the net, the CD will continue to be much faster. Take a look at the site, and let us know what you think. Our web and ftp sites are meant to be living breathing beasts that are there to serve the developer community. We’ll be making regular changes to it. And, if you want something that you don’t see, let us know. If it makes sense, we’ll do it!

And, for those of you who have suffered from Netcom’s horrible service (MacTech’s provider for a long time now), you’ll be glad to know that we are dumping their service as fast as we can. You’ll be able to get into our servers - and with solid bandwidth. Of course, feel free to prove me wrong by accessing us regularly! :)

Our New Editorial Approach

For the past 11 years, MacTech Magazine has always taken an individual and sometimes laid back approach to editorial. In more recent years, the editorial process was focused around a single editor at the magazine. This editor would either review articles randomly submitted by those in the developer community or go out into developer community to get an individual article written. In some cases, there were regular columnists who wrote articles on a monthly basis in a specific area.

Over the past several years, a couple of things have happened. First, the Macintosh has a lot more technology in it - far more than any one editor can fully grasp (and still have time to sleep <g>). Second, the magazine has grown to a point that it’s time, once again, to revise our editorial approach. To that end, we’re creating an Editorial Board for the magazine. This board will have a long list of “Contributing Editors”. Each will focus on a niche in the Macintosh developer world.

The magazine is still brought to you by all of the individuals that have been bringing it to you for a long while now. But today, we’ve got a broader and deeper array of resources to help educate all of us about Macintosh development.

Who are these contributors? They are the movers and shakers in the industry. They are the folks who know a lot about certain niches within the Macintosh community. For starters, the new MacTech Editorial Board includes such experts as:

Name Topic

Steve Kiene, Mindvision Copland

Liam Breck Databases

Hazem Sayed, Digitool Dynamic Languages

Jon Wiederspan Internet

Richard Clark, General Magic MagicCap/Telescript

Eric Gundrum Misc. Topics

Steve Sisak Tips and Tidbits,

Technical Editor

and we are talking to others to cover the following areas:

Component Technologies (e.g., OpenDoc)

FrameWorks (e.g., PowerPlant, Sprocket, TCL, MacApp)

Multimedia Technologies (graphics, sound, etc )

Newton Programming

Performance Programming

Product Reviews

Scripting/HyperCard

Visual Programming

We’ve got several leads for these areas, and you’ll see these slots filled soon. And remember, these are in addition to our regular columns

Getting Started by Dave Mark

Programmer’s Challenge by Bob Boonstra

Inside Info by Chris Espinosa

Viewpoint

Dialog Box

Symantec Top 10

Uniform Resource Locators by Jim Straus

And, to coordinate these Contributing Editors, we’re creating a Managing Editor position at the magazine. This new position is in addition to myself as Editor-in-Chief and Scott T Boyd as Editor-at-Large. As of this writing, this new position has not been filled - but look for announcements in issues to come. Interested parties should contact me at publisher@xplain.com.

You should expect the Editorial Board for MacTech Magazine to change - with additions and deletions happening as the industry changes and people’s lives change. If you think there’s a topic that warrants a Contributing Editor we don’t already have, let us know. If you think that we should make changes to the Editorial Board, let us know that too.

As our Internet presence comes online, we’ll be adding a whole list of new addresses to contact us at MacTech - both individual editorial departments, and probably the entire Editorial Board. You’ll be able to write to directly to those working on the magazine and let your thoughts be known. See page two of the magazine in future issues for these addresses.

Our New Digs

For those of you who don’t already know, MacTech has grown so much in the last few years, that we had to move to new offices. The contact info for our new Westlake Village office is:

Mailing:
PO Box 5200
Westlake Village, CA 91359-5200

Shipping:
850-P Hampshire Road
Westlake Village, CA 91361

Voice: 805/494-9797
Fax: 805/494-9798

and of course, our e-mails remain the same.

Moving Forward

As you can see, we’ve had a few things going on in MacTechLand™ - all of which are for the better. With our new corporate structure, our new offices, our new Editorial Board and staff, our new Internet presence and more - we’re here for you, now more than ever. As just one example, the issue that you are now reading has the largest page count in the history of the magazine.

The question now becomes: what would you like to see next? We’re just an e-mail away - so let us know. You can send mail directly to me at publisher@xplain.com. In the mean time, enjoy the web site, and the magazine.