Welcome to the Press Room

This is where the OS/2 eZine is put together each month. You'll find our mission statement, contact information, column's in search of an author, article ideas, suggested review format, submission guidelines and new writer information below. If you need anything else or have questions, contact Isaac Leung, Editor in Chief.

The eZine Staff

Isaac Leung, Editor in Chief
Pete Grubbs, Senior Editor

Submission Deadline

The deadline for article submissions for each issue is the 6th of the month prior to the issue date. In order to give the editors and layout people a bit of time to make each issue the best it can be, this is a firm deadline. We appreciate any extra effort you make to your articles in on time.

Columnists Needed

We are looking for regular columnists to cover the following (or bring your own ideas):
    Industry News
    Product mini-reviews hardware or software
        What is new and cool for Developers

Article Ideas

    Odin, Today and Tomorrow
    20 questions with ...
    OS/2 Netlabs, hey that's a lot of neat software
    So Just Who's using OS/2 These Days - Industry interviews
    Freetype/2 - What is it and what will it do for me http://www.freetype.org/ft_os2/index.html
    OS/2 User Groups - Where are they and how do you get to attend, contact info, meeting dates
    Links - A review of current, interesting OS/2 related websites
    Gaming on OS/2 - what projects are going on?
    OpenOffice - What's happening on the OS/2 front.
    OpenWatcom - Project Status
    Device Driver Development Basics - DDK2, WarpDriver at OS/2 Netlabs, OS/2 PDD list, Timur Tabi's Pages
    PHP3 and MySQL on OS/2 - Building database driven websites.
    Privacy & Cryptograpy - an introduction for the OS/2 user
    Sundial Systems - the makers of Junkspy, Mesa/2, DBExpert, Clearlook and more. What are they up to?
    PM123
    Graverobbers - there's lots of free discontinued commercial software available, get some! Wipeout, Post Road Mailer, PhotoGraphics Pro
    OS/2 On the Cheap - How do you get into OS/2 on a budget?

Submission Guidelines

The deadline for submissions is the 6th day of the month the issue the article is to appear in.
Articles may be submitted to the editors at os2editor@yahoo.ca
The language of OS/2 eZine is English - but don't worry if English isn't your first language, we have very good editors.
Articles should be submitted as plain text, one blank line between each paragraph.
Minimal HTML markup such as <B>bold</B> and <I>italics</I> is allowed (and appreciated) for tables or emphasis where required.
Photos and diagrams should be marked in the text with <filename.png> in the body of the article.
You should SPELLCHECK your submission before sending it to the editors.
You should READ your submission through from start to end until you stop making changes.
Photos and diagrams must be in PNG or JPEG format. PNG's are better for screenshots. For legal reasons we will no longer be accepting GIF's.
Images should generally be under 610 pixels wide, but if they are larger than 760 pixels wide, we would appreciate smaller versions as well.
If your article is made of more than one file, please gather them together in a single ZIP file.
Name your files to all start with the same 3 or four letters, this makes it easier for us to find article related images among the many that go into each issue.
If you are submitting a file in a word processor format please add image marks rather than just inserting the image. Be sure to include the original image files. Try to avoid complex formatting, it is hard to move to HTML.
If you wish to publish a photo of yourself with your article, it must be no larger than 135x135 pixels, and black and white.
If you wish to include a description of yourself, it must be 40 words or less. It may include a web link to your business or personal site.
If you like, you can provide an email address where readers can contact you. Let us know if you want to use a different email than the one we use to contact you.

We reserve the right to refuse to publish any article for any reason. Some examples: material we deem likely to cause the OS/2 eZine legal difficulty, material that is offensive or unsuitable for a family audience.

Review Guidelines

If you are writing a review, we suggest you include the following sections and information:

Introduction
About the product
Installation
Operation
Product Support & Service
Summary
Links, price, manufacturer, support and contact information

This is a skeleton outline only, feel free to add or skip sections as needed. Here is a sample. We appreciate at least one photo or screenshot of the reviewed product.

New Writer Information

If you have never written for the OS/2 eZine before, this is how it works. All our authors and editors are volunteers. Nobody gets paid. We do this out of the goodness of our hearts so everyone has to keep that in mind when they ask for things. If you are willing to help out and have a topic in mind, contact the editors with your idea. The more information you can provide the better, a brief outline would be particularly helpful. If they think it is something for the eZine, they will put it on the schedule. If they think it doesn't suit the eZine, or if it has been covered recently, they might suggest a different slant, or even a different subject if you're willing.

If you don't have a topic in mind, check out the list of article ideas above for some suggestions. Once you have a topic and a slot in the schedule, you'll be assigned an editor to work with. This person will help you polish your finished article until it shines. In general the editors prefer to keep their editing to minor changes in spelling, word choice or grammar. For larger changes they will make every effort to consult with you, although if it comes down to the publishing date, the Editor in Chief will have the final decision. If you have an issue with the editing of your article, please don't get mad, talk to your editor, there's probably a good reason for the change.

To make life easier for the editors, before you submit your completed article, spellcheck it, and read it from beginning to end until you can get through it without changing anything. Please make an effort to submit your finished article by the deadline. Our editors, like you, are volunteers and life isn't pleasant for them if they have to try to do everything at the last minute. If English is not your first language, please try to submit your article early to give your editor a little extra time to work on it.

If your article states any facts that may be in question, please have verifiable sources and provide them to your editor. If the article contains any offensive material, slanderous statements or issues that may cause the eZine legal difficulties, or that the editors feel is not in the best interest of the OS/2 eZine or the OS/2 community, or that the editors otherwise deem to be unfit to print, the eZine reserves the right not to publish it, although we will help you try to find another venue for it.

If you aren't going to make the deadline, let us know as soon as possible so we can try to find something else to fill your slot.

If you really want to make things easy for us...

If you really want to make things easy for us, here are the markup macros we use to layout the OS/2 eZine each month. If you use these macros in your text, you will save the Editors the work of adding them.

<$EndOfIntro> - Mark the end of the introductory paragraph(s).
<$Heading T="Section Heading">
<$Email I="email" D="domain.com" N="Your Name"> - a spambot-proof email link of the form email@domain.com that displays "Your Name" on the page.
<$Link U="http://www.url.com" T="Link to a web page"> - any link you like.
<$LinkURL U="www.url.com"> - url link where the text is to be the same as the URL (note no http so only works for http links.)
<$ReviewSplitter> - splitter between a review's body text and the info section at the bottom.
<$FontStart> <$FontEnd> - start/end fonts for tables or anywhere where the document font isn't used and you want the default eZine font.
<img src="yourfile.png" width=432 height=661> - insert image. Make sure you set the width and height correctly.

Mission Statement

OS/2 e-Zine is committed to serving the OS/2 community by providing accurate, useful, and timely information every month. We will deliver user-oriented hardware and software reviews, thoughtful editorial comment, and 'how-to' articles which will include useful tips for both the novice and the experienced OS/2 user.

- Thanks to Pete Grubbs for this succinct description of our purpose as a publication.