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Letter from the Editor - by Christopher B. Wright
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Summary: We're back. Miss us?

I suppose after more than four months of being MIA, an explanation is in order:

OS/2 e-Zine! started out as a bunch of static HTML pages. It also started out as a much smaller and simpler publication than it is today. These days, we have our standard layout, our printer-friendly layout, or Lash Back! forums, our Blast Back! forms, and a somewhat more sophisticated navigation system.

During the start of this year, it was taking Chris Wenham longer and longer to piece together each new issue of OS/2 e-Zine! It could easily take up to 20 hours... and that was just for putting it together, that didn't take into account collecting the articles, editing the articles, and following up the various loose ends that would inevitably arise at the last minute. That, combined with the fact that our current staff is much smaller than it used to be, was a huge strain.

Remember, the people working at OS/2 e-Zine! don't do so because we want to get rich - not these days, anyway. Once the OS/2 community was large enough so that it was actually a moneymaking operation - not anymore. These days we're a volunteer effort, a labor of love, a group of people doing our part for the OS/2 community. This generally means anything that gets done, gets done in our spare time.

Well, it got to the point where creating static pages for our zine was just too demanding on his spare time. It would be a lot easier, Chris reasoned, if the entire site were database driven, so that editors could submit and pass through articles without having to jump through all the hoops. So he started planning an SQL based format for OS/2 e-Zine!

The problem with database-driven sites is actually setting them up before you go live. Chris needed some time to prepare OS/2 e-Zine! for its new format, so he decided after our June issue that he would take the month of July and set up our new format, ready to go in August. Then he started working...

...and missed the deadline.

Quite simply, he misjudged the time it would take to set everything up, and then other things happened in the "real world" (i.e., his job) that demanded more of his time. And so he found that he had less and less and less time to devote to the new format (which is absolutely necessary if we are to be able to continue publishing in the long term).

Meanwhile, most of you were wondering what the hell was going on. Some of you were upset, because it appeared that we'd just disappeared overnight. A few of you, you know who you are, were very happy that we appeared to be gone, because, let's face it, you don't like us much.

The truth of the matter is, we were waiting for something to happen as well. Unfortunately, Chris was the only guy who really knew what he was doing as far as setting up the new format was concerned, and the rest of us were standing idly by.

Then in September I thought, "Hey, I ought to do something useful." So I got a few people on the e-Zine! staff to submit a few articles, I wrote a few articles, and got a few volunteers to write a few articles, and I sent them all to Chris, spell checked, html-ized, ready to be published. Unfortunately, employment happened, and Chris had no free time to spare.

So then I went to Warpstock (a fine event, I enjoyed it thoroughly) and a lot of people came up to me asking where the !@#$% OS/2 e-Zine! was, and why weren't we publishing? After Warpstock, Chris Wenham and I started talking about what to do - the new format was clearly taking much longer than we'd have liked, and we clearly needed to keep publishing, despite the technical difficulties. So, we came up with a plan.

I will, at least temporarily, be taking over many of Chris Wenham's editorial duties while he devotes his free time to setting up our new format. As such, I am hereby declaring myself Interim Editor In Chief. I now have all the REXX and PPWizard scripts Chris Wenham uses when he sets up each issue, and I'm lumbering my way through them. I know enough to piece 90% of an issue together - if you notice something missing, let me know but don't be nasty about it... I may not have known to do it, or I may have left it out because I didn't know how to do it and I thought publishing by early November was more important.

So we were hibernating for a while, now we're back. Expect the next few issues to be somewhat clumsy, and expect the editing to be a bit the worse for wear - I'm not used to editing monthly publications and feel rushed when I do so... I guarantee mistakes.

I would like to take a moment to thank all the people who contributed to this issue. I hit them up for it in September, and gave them very little time to work with (since at the time I was trying to get everything published before Warpstock '99)... only to have them sit and wait for months for their articles to actually see the light of day. Again, thank you for your contributions and despite being kept in limbo for months I sincerely hope you'll all do it again.

The important thing is, we're back. We intend to stay back, and we ask for your patience while I try desperately to figure out how everything works. Hopefully by the start of the year 2000 we'll have moved over to the new format. Hmm, that means I only need to worry about one more issue...

Keep your fingers crossed.

Regards,
Christopher B. Wright (wrightc@dtcweb.com)
Interim Editor-in-Chief, OS/2 e-Zine!

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