As a fellow who spent a decade being a major-publisher editor and then another deciade being a software-development company owner, before becoming a builder, I looked forward with interest to the latest round of DVDs containing the back issues for both FHB and FWW. I owned the last set, from several years back and, while their interfaces had some serious limitations (can’t search by issue number, for example, nor even find out what the issue number is, ecept by looking into the folders on disk at the actual filenames), in general they were good. Sooooo, I bought the latest versions–both of them–for the better part of $300. What a disaster! You’ve chosen to make the main interface window very small, and, for older fellows like me with limited vision, the effective viewing of text is about one paragraph. You’ve also disabled the Maximize button, and you’ve encrypted the articles themselves, on disk. So we’re forced to use this painfully this tiny viewport you’ve provided. What a blunder. Did your lawyers think this up? I’m glad I still have my od CD-ROM versions. At least I can now view pages full-screen. What could _possibly_ be the value of disabling the Maximize button?
Can I send them back?
Replies
There is another thread about this, somewhere. IIRC, the editor knows about it and they're looking into it.
Ah. Found it. Some good person over in the FHB forum pointed me to it:
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=82307.1
Gee, they were a lot harsher than I was. Lot of very unhappy people............. Let's see. Video res is hard coded at 800. So people with 1024, 1200, 1600, et cet., have to flip back and forth to use your app? UnLIKEly. Imagine if you had to flip video res every time you wanted to use Word, or Excel, just to make text readable. Hmmmmm.
This is a relatively new way of doing business for companies that are used to printed media and personally while I think it was a MAJOR goof up that someone working on the PC side of this should have advised them against (the fixed Res issue) I think that in general the company is doing well what with this forum for all of use to use and all. And if what was said in a different thread about them looking into a fix and a replacement for those that have the old disks then I think they have stepped up to the plate pretty well and better then most companies would/have.
Doug Meyer
TERRY, Thank you for the info on the latest DVD for Fine Woodworking.
I'll hold off on my purchase until I can read what the people at Fine Woodworking have to say regarding your comments. In addition to that, maybe they can tell us what has happened to Anatole Burkin. I only talked to him once but he left me with the impression of an OK guy.
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