Recently, my wife has given me the “eye” [B)] to reduce some of my train related clutter in the family computer/office area. I love my CTT magazines, but she’d like me to clean up the area and basically get my piles of older CTT magazines out of there. [:(]
Would any other CTT subscribers out there be interested in an Annual DVD which contains PDF images of the entire years monthly CTT magazines? Maybe a nice search capability … and I’d like to see Bob’s videos from the website put on there too.
I know that I’d be willing to purchase an annual CTT DVD with the full year of CTT magazines on it … heck, I’d even purchase the earlier years when I wasn’t a subscriber.
This would then give me the choice of either relocating my stacks of CTT magazines or parting with them at our annual garage sale … which may spark the inner dormant hobbyist within the buyer.
Would you purchase an annual CTT DVD, if it was available from Kalmbach? … and then what would be the best way to present the idea to Kalmbach?
… is there a way to attach my resume to this post? [swg]
It is a great idea, however I am a hands on person and I NEED to have a hard copy in front of me. We cut little post it notes and “tab” articles that we like and use. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to back issues and looked for something and found it. Yes, they do take up room and we are OK with that, eventually it will be our kid’s problem but until then they will always have a prominent place in the train room. Plus, I spend WAY to much time on this computer!
Idea is ok I guess, but I want my paperback. What if it has a boring speaker or a gravel voice, or has god awful music attached. yuck. please DON"T add a music background if you even consider this idea.
Why can’t past issues be done? Is this a Copyright issue? Would be nice just to scan in all of mine and have for personal use…now where did I put that I-pod…er a I-phone…
I recalled seeing a CTT article about adding DCS to your existing TMCC system, but couldn’t remember which month’s issue. This is when I thought how cool it would be to have a DVD (holds more data than a CD) that I could search for the related topic and pull it right up on my PC.
… and if we could include past years, then we’d be cookin’ with gas! … while listening to that Cowboy music in the back ground. Was he cooking beans over a hobo-fire on that album cover?
OGR already does this with thier magazine. Here is a twist on the Idea how about an on line library of all past MRR, CTT, GR and Trains available only to those who subscribe? But I do like the idea of a dvd as well and there is nothing like the excitement and joy of coming home from work to find CTT in the mail.
If you go with either idea I second the no cheesey music.
I think it is a great idea. I would buy the previous year and any other previous years for that matter. If it were searchable it would be an added bonus!!!
Primarily, the inside baseball show-stopper is that nothing is in an electronic form prior to about 1998, which means 100% of the pre-98 stuff would require someone standing in front of a scanner, and flipping pages. In short, the cost of labor to create the new digital files.
I’m not savvy on the tech angle, but the material from 98 to about 2005 was made using design software called Quark. I’m not sure how easy it is to convert a Quark document to a PDF.
We are currently using Adobe’s InDesign, which even simple little me can use to create a PDF of a story I’m working on.
So the overall cost of labor and time is the challenge, when balanced by our estimate of how many people would buy it.
The conversion issue shouldn’t be that big a deal using modern technology. Our current multifunction Xerox “copiers” can scan directly to color pdf and will include OCR of recognizeable text. The main labor charge would be on unbinding the magazine and slicing the pages so they can be fed into the scanner’s hopper (aka you will be effectively sacrificing the hard copy to get the electronic version). I’ve one this with some journal’s that were compilations of other papers/articles. The resulting PDF file was often more usefull than the original hardcopy in that it is searchable. The original compilations often had no index and just generic tables of contents.
We’ve done exactly that sort of manual scanning in our library. It wasn’t that expensive but we were using student labor. Quark is a graphics program which spits out a beautiful print-ready copy - I have found it kind of a major hassle to transfer to another format though. Personally, I am a fan and will always be a fan of the paper mags - that said, I share / pass along most of my old ones with others. I like the idea of a CD - another magazine I subscribe to have offered a digital copy of all their issues ever (monthly since '93 so what… 180) on two CD/DVDs. It is cool to be able to search exactly for what I need/want.
That statement is mind boggling… a whole closet full of magazines into a tiny spot of living space… then you just snap in the cartridge you need and view on your hand held…wow…
I can then read Bob’s review while yelling up to my wife … “yes dear, I’m paying the bills!” … while wishing I had one of the frosty beverages in my grips!
