SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/

--
Ed Huntress

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

It looks good and it really communicates. I don't know what issue I'll
use it for, but I'm planning on it.

--
Ed Huntress

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)


It looks good and it really communicates. I don't know what issue I'll
use it for, but I'm planning on it.

As for this magazine who cannot yet be told, in what subject area is it?


Joe Gwinn

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g



It looks good and it really communicates. I don't know what issue I'll
use it for, but I'm planning on it.

As for this magazine who cannot yet be told, in what subject area is it?

It can be told now. It's FAB Shop Magazine Direct:

http://www.fsmdirect.com/

The publisher, TechGen, was planning a new automotive magazine to
begin in January. I was to be chief editor. But Russ Olexa, the editor
of FAB Shop, which is a several-years old, profitable and going
operation, died suddenly two weeks ago. Instead of the automotive
magazine, which is now pushed up a year, I've had to take over FAB
Shop.

'Not much chipmaking. It's laser cutting, plasma, welding, punch
presses, bending and forming, band-sawing, and other fabrication
technologies. I haven't done much with those subjects in recent years,
so for the next few months, I'm just following the previous editor's
schedule.

--
Ed Huntress




Joe Gwinn

Joe Gwinn wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
?
? I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
? "photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
? magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)


Me, too but I close any page that pulls that crap as soon as I see it
starting, unless I know video or music will start before I click on a
link. Leave it to Ed to use sleaze tactics. That is almost as stupid
as one website that had their entire electronics parts catalog in
'Flash'.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:29:03 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall out
before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

I hate that online-reader crap, particularly when they combine slowness
with that stupid "I'm going to pretend I'm a paper magazine" page-turning
crap.

If you're going to do an online magazine, then for God's sake do it in
HTML, with decent crosslinking and a good search function on the home
page or even as a permanent feature of the header bar.

(grumpy mumbling fading off into the distance...)

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn wrote:
In article , Ed Huntress wrote:
On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:
On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:
SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact,
[snip]

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

I use broadband cable internet too, and am not happy with websites that
start a video playing when a page is loaded. During google searches I
usually open several pages at once (on new tabs, via right click) and
it's aggravating when several start playing videos at the same time.
When that happens I find the offending page and click stop or close,
then come back to the page in its turn (or not, if I closed it).

--
jiw

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 15:15:27 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Joe Gwinn wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
?
? I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
? "photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
? magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)


Me, too but I close any page that pulls that crap as soon as I see it
starting, unless I know video or music will start before I click on a
link. Leave it to Ed to use sleaze tactics. That is almost as stupid
as one website that had their entire electronics parts catalog in
'Flash'.

No problem, Michael. I'll see if I can block you so you won't be
tempted.

--
Ed Huntress

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 14:24:42 -0500, Tim Wescott
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:29:03 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall out
before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

I hate that online-reader crap, particularly when they combine slowness
with that stupid "I'm going to pretend I'm a paper magazine" page-turning
crap.

If you're going to do an online magazine, then for God's sake do it in
HTML, with decent crosslinking and a good search function on the home
page or even as a permanent feature of the header bar.

(grumpy mumbling fading off into the distance...)

FWIW, this is a magazine that has extraordinary click-in rates from
e-mail, and other very good numbers. They've been doing it for three
years and neither you nor I are going to change it. d8-)

In general, I agree with you. I've never liked those things,
preferring Acrobat for anything that requires precise page makeup. In
fact, the underlying format of FSMD is Acrobat.

But it's improved quite a lot, and I now find it very convenient. I
have fast cable Internet, 6 GB of RAM, a terabyte hard drive, and a
rip-roaring CPU. That's where the price of entry is at the moment;
anyone with a lot less just isn't in the game these days.

Face it: You, me, and the kind of people who are on this NG are *not*
on anybody's trendline. g We're the past. And to drive it home, an
ad-agency exec I've known for 30 years brought me up to date last week
on the industrial-advertiser use of Twitter. When I saw the link rates
and the traffic, I almost fell off my chair. Two of those companies
are machine-tool builders.

I never would have believed it. Things are moving a bit faster than I
realized, and I have some catching up to do.

The online magazines are shaping up the way print magazines were 30
years ago: The really good ones are going gangbusters, and the rest
are being left in the dust.

--
Ed Huntress

James Waldby wrote:

I use broadband cable internet too, and am not happy with websites that
start a video playing when a page is loaded. During google searches I
usually open several pages at once (on new tabs, via right click) and
it's aggravating when several start playing videos at the same time.
When that happens I find the offending page and click stop or close,
then come back to the page in its turn (or not, if I closed it).


Would the first person who sees this site post the URL so I can add
it to my blocked sites list?


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem. I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is just
too awkward.

In a number of cases, the content also became insipid. I think the
core problem is that the magazine isn't profitable enough, so the
editorial staff is a bit thin. This could easily become a death
spiral.


It looks good and it really communicates. I don't know what issue I'll
use it for, but I'm planning on it.

As for this magazine who cannot yet be told, in what subject area is it?

It can be told now. It's FAB Shop Magazine Direct:

http://www.fsmdirect.com/

The publisher, TechGen, was planning a new automotive magazine to
begin in January. I was to be chief editor. But Russ Olexa, the editor
of FAB Shop, which is a several-years old, profitable and going
operation, died suddenly two weeks ago. Instead of the automotive
magazine, which is now pushed up a year, I've had to take over FAB
Shop.

Oof. That had to be a shock to all. Russ Olexa is still listed on the
website.


'Not much chipmaking. It's laser cutting, plasma, welding, punch
presses, bending and forming, band-sawing, and other fabrication
technologies. I haven't done much with those subjects in recent years,
so for the next few months, I'm just following the previous editor's
schedule.

Think of it this way - the chips are very large, and people pay to get
them. With those tiny oily chips, you have to pay to dispose of them.

Joe Gwinn

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:16:31 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem. I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is just
too awkward.

Yes, they have been awkward. The latest ones are a lot better.


In a number of cases, the content also became insipid. I think the
core problem is that the magazine isn't profitable enough, so the
editorial staff is a bit thin. This could easily become a death
spiral.

Some have already augered in.

The online magazine business is still evolving, and some models have
already been abandoned. And you're right, many of them are little more
than cut-and-paste press releases. That's what's happened to the
greatest of them all, _American Machinist_. When I was there, we had 7
full-time editors, of which 3 or 4 were degreed engineers. Today, it
has one editor, and it's an empty shell.

Magazines are "push" communications. The Web is inherently a "pull"
medium for people who are looking for something. Most of the models
try to emulate the push model. Ours is halfway in between, but I'm
sure it will become more "pull" as it evolves. As Tim (I think?) said,
we expect a good search engine, and the push models don't have that.
They need to.



It looks good and it really communicates. I don't know what issue I'll
use it for, but I'm planning on it.

As for this magazine who cannot yet be told, in what subject area is it?

It can be told now. It's FAB Shop Magazine Direct:

http://www.fsmdirect.com/

The publisher, TechGen, was planning a new automotive magazine to
begin in January. I was to be chief editor. But Russ Olexa, the editor
of FAB Shop, which is a several-years old, profitable and going
operation, died suddenly two weeks ago. Instead of the automotive
magazine, which is now pushed up a year, I've had to take over FAB
Shop.

Oof. That had to be a shock to all. Russ Olexa is still listed on the
website.

It was a shock, and his son is one of my staff editors. The kid pulled
himself together.

A lot of people in industry knew and liked Russ. I had written a few
articles for him in the past, and he will be sorely missed.



'Not much chipmaking. It's laser cutting, plasma, welding, punch
presses, bending and forming, band-sawing, and other fabrication
technologies. I haven't done much with those subjects in recent years,
so for the next few months, I'm just following the previous editor's
schedule.

Think of it this way - the chips are very large, and people pay to get
them. With those tiny oily chips, you have to pay to dispose of them.

Good point. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress


Joe Gwinn

On 08/02/2013 12:15 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Joe Gwinn wrote:

Ed Huntress wrote:
?
? I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
? "photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
? magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)


Me, too but I close any page that pulls that crap as soon as I see it
starting, unless I know video or music will start before I click on a
link. Leave it to Ed to use sleaze tactics. That is almost as stupid
as one website that had their entire electronics parts catalog in
'Flash'.

I used to do exactly the same thing until I got the "Flashblock" plugin
for Firefox. Now I don't see any flash animation unless I either click
the placeholder (as I did for this video), or whitelist an entire domain
(as I do for youtube).

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...on/flashblock/

Jon

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:16:31 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem. I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is just
too awkward.

Yes, they have been awkward. The latest ones are a lot better.

I haven't stumbled on any just yet.

My latest adventure is with PCWorld, a paid-subscription magazine that
just went all-digital using Zinio. It has not been smooth. And I
still cannot print an article. I'm working with Zinio tech support,
but this should not be necessary, and will deflect many potential
readers. Actually, pdf would work far better.



In a number of cases, the content also became insipid. I think the
core problem is that the magazine isn't profitable enough, so the
editorial staff is a bit thin. This could easily become a death
spiral.

Some have already augered in.

The online magazine business is still evolving, and some models have
already been abandoned. And you're right, many of them are little more
than cut-and-paste press releases. That's what's happened to the
greatest of them all, _American Machinist_. When I was there, we had 7
full-time editors, of which 3 or 4 were degreed engineers. Today, it
has one editor, and it's an empty shell.

Magazines are "push" communications. The Web is inherently a "pull"
medium for people who are looking for something. Most of the models
try to emulate the push model. Ours is halfway in between, but I'm
sure it will become more "pull" as it evolves.

The problem with pull is that I have to know what to ask for.

The core advantage of a magazine is the hordes of editors toiling to
find interesting things for me to read, things that I never knew
existed, and pushing them to me.

With a paper magazine, it's random-access and thus easy to skim and
find the stuff I care about without having to plow slowly through
everything.

With an online magazine, it's slow and clumsy to achieve reasonable
random-access. It's also harder to read if your eyes are not perfect,
and the reader (a desktop in my case) is clumsy.


As Tim (I think?) said,
we expect a good search engine, and the push models don't have that.
They need to.

Most websites that have a search function don't have a very good search
function, and what usually works better is to search via google using
the "site" qualifier. For instance, enter:

"plasma cutting site:fsmdirect.com" (omitting the quotes).

So one cheap dodge is the ensure that your site is accessible "from the
side" (deep-linking not prevented), and tell your readers of the site
trick, or decorate incoming requests with the site qualifier and pass
them on to Google.com.

Another trick is to buy from Google a search engine appliance (a piece
of computer network hardware) and install it in your web server
architecture, and aim it at the stuff you want to be publicly
searchable. While this costs money, it's immediate and guaranteed to
work.

http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/


It looks good and it really communicates. I don't know what issue I'll
use it for, but I'm planning on it.

As for this magazine who cannot yet be told, in what subject area is it?

It can be told now. It's FAB Shop Magazine Direct:

http://www.fsmdirect.com/

The publisher, TechGen, was planning a new automotive magazine to
begin in January. I was to be chief editor. But Russ Olexa, the editor
of FAB Shop, which is a several-years old, profitable and going
operation, died suddenly two weeks ago. Instead of the automotive
magazine, which is now pushed up a year, I've had to take over FAB
Shop.

Oof. That had to be a shock to all. Russ Olexa is still listed on the
website.

It was a shock, and his son is one of my staff editors. The kid pulled
himself together.

A lot of people in industry knew and liked Russ. I had written a few
articles for him in the past, and he will be sorely missed.

Our condolences to all.



Joe Gwinn

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 19:27:26 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:16:31 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem. I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is just
too awkward.

Yes, they have been awkward. The latest ones are a lot better.

I haven't stumbled on any just yet.

My latest adventure is with PCWorld, a paid-subscription magazine that
just went all-digital using Zinio. It has not been smooth. And I
still cannot print an article. I'm working with Zinio tech support,
but this should not be necessary, and will deflect many potential
readers. Actually, pdf would work far better.



In a number of cases, the content also became insipid. I think the
core problem is that the magazine isn't profitable enough, so the
editorial staff is a bit thin. This could easily become a death
spiral.

Some have already augered in.

The online magazine business is still evolving, and some models have
already been abandoned. And you're right, many of them are little more
than cut-and-paste press releases. That's what's happened to the
greatest of them all, _American Machinist_. When I was there, we had 7
full-time editors, of which 3 or 4 were degreed engineers. Today, it
has one editor, and it's an empty shell.

Magazines are "push" communications. The Web is inherently a "pull"
medium for people who are looking for something. Most of the models
try to emulate the push model. Ours is halfway in between, but I'm
sure it will become more "pull" as it evolves.

The problem with pull is that I have to know what to ask for.

The core advantage of a magazine is the hordes of editors toiling to
find interesting things for me to read, things that I never knew
existed, and pushing them to me.

Yes, that's the "push" model, and that's the traditional idea behind a
"magazine." That's what it's meant since the 19th century. _American
Machinist_, for example -- one of the oldest continuously-published
magaines in North America -- was founded in 1877. It was a "magazine"
of things you didn't know you wanted to know. g


With a paper magazine, it's random-access and thus easy to skim and
find the stuff I care about without having to plow slowly through
everything.

With an online magazine, it's slow and clumsy to achieve reasonable
random-access. It's also harder to read if your eyes are not perfect,
and the reader (a desktop in my case) is clumsy.

Yes, and that's why I was skeptical of online magazines since the
beginning.

But I was a circulation manager before I was a writer and editor, and
I've compared what I know about readership of print magazines with the
statistics I've been catching up on with online magazines. The "time
spent reading" is longer for print magazines. But the raw readership
-- the number who open it up, and the number who respond to ads -- is
slightly higher with direct e-mailed online magazines.



As Tim (I think?) said,
we expect a good search engine, and the push models don't have that.
They need to.

Most websites that have a search function don't have a very good search
function, and what usually works better is to search via google using
the "site" qualifier. For instance, enter:

"plasma cutting site:fsmdirect.com" (omitting the quotes).

Yes, that's what I often do.

IMO, the best online trade magazine, in terms of functionality, is
_Modern Machine Shop_. They were pioneers online, and the publishers,
with their own staff, have developed a highly functional website. It
has searchability from several directions.

It's a little different because they also have a print version. But
they use the website to expand what they do in print. It's a fine job.


So one cheap dodge is the ensure that your site is accessible "from the
side" (deep-linking not prevented), and tell your readers of the site
trick, or decorate incoming requests with the site qualifier and pass
them on to Google.com.

The company that handles FSMD's online operations is one of the
leaders, and very sophisticated. I'm looking forward to talking with
them. They're in PA, so I intend to drive over one day soon.


Another trick is to buy from Google a search engine appliance (a piece
of computer network hardware) and install it in your web server
architecture, and aim it at the stuff you want to be publicly
searchable. While this costs money, it's immediate and guaranteed to
work.

http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/

I've used those quite a bit and I think they're very good. I'll keep
that one in mind.



It looks good and it really communicates. I don't know what issue I'll
use it for, but I'm planning on it.

As for this magazine who cannot yet be told, in what subject area is it?

It can be told now. It's FAB Shop Magazine Direct:

http://www.fsmdirect.com/

The publisher, TechGen, was planning a new automotive magazine to
begin in January. I was to be chief editor. But Russ Olexa, the editor
of FAB Shop, which is a several-years old, profitable and going
operation, died suddenly two weeks ago. Instead of the automotive
magazine, which is now pushed up a year, I've had to take over FAB
Shop.

Oof. That had to be a shock to all. Russ Olexa is still listed on the
website.

It was a shock, and his son is one of my staff editors. The kid pulled
himself together.

A lot of people in industry knew and liked Russ. I had written a few
articles for him in the past, and he will be sorely missed.

Our condolences to all.

Thanks, Joe.

--
Ed Huntress




Joe Gwinn

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 19:27:26 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:16:31 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at
DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take
a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching
my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine
is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem. I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is just
too awkward.

Yes, they have been awkward. The latest ones are a lot better.

I haven't stumbled on any just yet.

My latest adventure is with PCWorld, a paid-subscription magazine that
just went all-digital using Zinio. It has not been smooth. And I
still cannot print an article. I'm working with Zinio tech support,
but this should not be necessary, and will deflect many potential
readers. Actually, pdf would work far better.



In a number of cases, the content also became insipid. I think the
core problem is that the magazine isn't profitable enough, so the
editorial staff is a bit thin. This could easily become a death
spiral.

Some have already augered in.

The online magazine business is still evolving, and some models have
already been abandoned. And you're right, many of them are little more
than cut-and-paste press releases. That's what's happened to the
greatest of them all, _American Machinist_. When I was there, we had 7
full-time editors, of which 3 or 4 were degreed engineers. Today, it
has one editor, and it's an empty shell.

Magazines are "push" communications. The Web is inherently a "pull"
medium for people who are looking for something. Most of the models
try to emulate the push model. Ours is halfway in between, but I'm
sure it will become more "pull" as it evolves.

The problem with pull is that I have to know what to ask for.

The core advantage of a magazine is the hordes of editors toiling to
find interesting things for me to read, things that I never knew
existed, and pushing them to me.

Yes, that's the "push" model, and that's the traditional idea behind a
"magazine." That's what it's meant since the 19th century. _American
Machinist_, for example -- one of the oldest continuously-published
magaines in North America -- was founded in 1877. It was a "magazine"
of things you didn't know you wanted to know. g

Until it hollowed out ...

Though I must admit that was struggling with the proper handling of the
Editors of the Horde -- should they be described as sweaty,
smoke-stained, ink-stained, or all of the above?

My image is a 1930s big-city newsroom. Quart of whisky in the bottom
drawer, just in case. What brand did the editors of _American
Machinist_ prefer?


With a paper magazine, it's random-access and thus easy to skim and
find the stuff I care about without having to plow slowly through
everything.

With an online magazine, it's slow and clumsy to achieve reasonable
random-access. It's also harder to read if your eyes are not perfect,
and the reader (a desktop in my case) is clumsy.

Yes, and that's why I was skeptical of online magazines since the
beginning.

But I was a circulation manager before I was a writer and editor, and
I've compared what I know about readership of print magazines with the
statistics I've been catching up on with online magazines. The "time
spent reading" is longer for print magazines. But the raw readership
-- the number who open it up, and the number who respond to ads -- is
slightly higher with direct e-mailed online magazines.

Hmm. Based on personal experience, I'd doubt that emailed magazines
get slightly higher ad responses than print, if only because I rarely
get through most of the email magazines.

One possible confounding issue is that when I'm searching for
something, I will usually find a bunch of online articles or ads, and
I'll click through some of them. So these could have never been
emailed, and still I'd find them, once I knew I was interested. Which
brings us back to the need for a usable digital push model.


As Tim (I think?) said,
we expect a good search engine, and the push models don't have that.
They need to.

Most websites that have a search function don't have a very good search
function, and what usually works better is to search via google using
the "site" qualifier. For instance, enter:

"plasma cutting site:fsmdirect.com" (omitting the quotes).

Yes, that's what I often do.

IMO, the best online trade magazine, in terms of functionality, is
_Modern Machine Shop_. They were pioneers online, and the publishers,
with their own staff, have developed a highly functional website. It
has searchability from several directions.

It's a little different because they also have a print version. But
they use the website to expand what they do in print. It's a fine job.


So one cheap dodge is the ensure that your site is accessible "from the
side" (deep-linking not prevented), and tell your readers of the site
trick, or decorate incoming requests with the site qualifier and pass
them on to Google.com.

The company that handles FSMD's online operations is one of the
leaders, and very sophisticated. I'm looking forward to talking with
them. They're in PA, so I intend to drive over one day soon.


Another trick is to buy from Google a search engine appliance (a piece
of computer network hardware) and install it in your web server
architecture, and aim it at the stuff you want to be publicly
searchable. While this costs money, it's immediate and guaranteed to
work.

http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/

I've used those quite a bit and I think they're very good. I'll keep
that one in mind.

I've heard only good things about these boxes. One box can be shared
over multiple magazine titles.


Joe Gwinn

"Michael A. Terrell" on Fri, 02 Aug 2013
17:05:53 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

James Waldby wrote:

I use broadband cable internet too, and am not happy with websites that
start a video playing when a page is loaded. During google searches I
usually open several pages at once (on new tabs, via right click) and
it's aggravating when several start playing videos at the same time.
When that happens I find the offending page and click stop or close,
then come back to the page in its turn (or not, if I closed it).


Would the first person who sees this site post the URL so I can add
it to my blocked sites list?

Firefox has an add-on "stop autoplay" as well as the ability to
"shut it off":
[I have not tried this part] ^C

^V:

Instructions

1 Click the "Tools" menu at the top of the Firefox window,
then click "Options."
2 Click the "Applications" tab.
3 Locate the file type that you would like to modify the
autoplay settings for. Because this may be a long list, you can type
the file extension in the search box to locate it more quickly.
4 Click the file type, then click the drop-down menu next to
it. Select "Always Ask" or "Save File" to prevent Firefox from
automatically playing that type of file.
5 Click "OK" to save your settings if you only want to modify
the autoplay configuration for one type of file, or continue until you
have disabled autoplay for each file type.


hope it helps
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical operation
of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual transmissions
(conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a little
vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a look at
this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/

Y'know, it was impressive and the video was nice, but it really seemed
like it imparted very little information for the amount of time spent.

(I must just be negative this week)

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

On 2013-08-03, Tim Wescott wrote:
On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical operation
of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual transmissions
(conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a little
vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a look at
this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/

Y'know, it was impressive and the video was nice, but it really seemed
like it imparted very little information for the amount of time spent.

(I must just be negative this week)


Totally useless video.

i

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 21:14:58 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 19:27:26 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:16:31 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 09:20:56 -0700, wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at
DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take
a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/
Thanks for the link Ed. Even though I already knew how manual
transmissions work, and have rebuilt a few, I still like looking at
animations of them working. In fact, I like to watch just about any
type of mechanical system working. I still get fascinated watching
my
CNC machines make a part even though I am the one who programs and
sets up the machines and can see in my mind's eye what the machine
is
doing as I write the program.
Eric

I love those things, too. I'll bet that most of the people here, at
least the mechanical types, enjoy it as well.

I have some great videos that I'm planning to use as the cover
"photographs" for the online magazine I'm working on. You go to the
magazine home page, and the video starts right up.

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues. We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem. I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is just
too awkward.

Yes, they have been awkward. The latest ones are a lot better.

I haven't stumbled on any just yet.

My latest adventure is with PCWorld, a paid-subscription magazine that
just went all-digital using Zinio. It has not been smooth. And I
still cannot print an article. I'm working with Zinio tech support,
but this should not be necessary, and will deflect many potential
readers. Actually, pdf would work far better.



In a number of cases, the content also became insipid. I think the
core problem is that the magazine isn't profitable enough, so the
editorial staff is a bit thin. This could easily become a death
spiral.

Some have already augered in.

The online magazine business is still evolving, and some models have
already been abandoned. And you're right, many of them are little more
than cut-and-paste press releases. That's what's happened to the
greatest of them all, _American Machinist_. When I was there, we had 7
full-time editors, of which 3 or 4 were degreed engineers. Today, it
has one editor, and it's an empty shell.

Magazines are "push" communications. The Web is inherently a "pull"
medium for people who are looking for something. Most of the models
try to emulate the push model. Ours is halfway in between, but I'm
sure it will become more "pull" as it evolves.

The problem with pull is that I have to know what to ask for.

The core advantage of a magazine is the hordes of editors toiling to
find interesting things for me to read, things that I never knew
existed, and pushing them to me.

Yes, that's the "push" model, and that's the traditional idea behind a
"magazine." That's what it's meant since the 19th century. _American
Machinist_, for example -- one of the oldest continuously-published
magaines in North America -- was founded in 1877. It was a "magazine"
of things you didn't know you wanted to know. g

Until it hollowed out ...

Though I must admit that was struggling with the proper handling of the
Editors of the Horde -- should they be described as sweaty,
smoke-stained, ink-stained, or all of the above?

My image is a 1930s big-city newsroom. Quart of whisky in the bottom
drawer, just in case. What brand did the editors of _American
Machinist_ prefer?

g Smoke-stained, but not sweaty. They didn't do a lot of drinking,
except at our parties, where yours truly often got smashed on whatever
was at hand. It was a pretty straight-laced bunch. I was the
youngster, and tolerated for such transgressions. But there were no
booze bottles in desks.

However, my bosses and cohorts in the circulation department, before I
became an editor, frequently did the two-Martini lunch. I got them
both at once, served straight up but in a brandy snifter. That would
be 1973 - 1974. Then I closed the door to my office and told my
secretary to take my calls.

It was the tail-end of the "Madmen" era. It was a suit, tie, and white
shirt (no button-downs) all day, every day. Editors could get away
with sports jackets and a pastel shirt when we were feeling sporty --
tweeds with leather elbow patches were the editorial uniform for days
when we didn't have visitors. I never owned one of those.

The editorial environment at AM was pretty faced-paced for a monthly,
but that's nothing like a weekly, and not even remotely like a daily.
I've been in plenty of newsrooms when I worked in NYC. Their
environment seems most related to their publishing cycle.



With a paper magazine, it's random-access and thus easy to skim and
find the stuff I care about without having to plow slowly through
everything.

With an online magazine, it's slow and clumsy to achieve reasonable
random-access. It's also harder to read if your eyes are not perfect,
and the reader (a desktop in my case) is clumsy.

Yes, and that's why I was skeptical of online magazines since the
beginning.

But I was a circulation manager before I was a writer and editor, and
I've compared what I know about readership of print magazines with the
statistics I've been catching up on with online magazines. The "time
spent reading" is longer for print magazines. But the raw readership
-- the number who open it up, and the number who respond to ads -- is
slightly higher with direct e-mailed online magazines.

Hmm. Based on personal experience, I'd doubt that emailed magazines
get slightly higher ad responses than print, if only because I rarely
get through most of the email magazines.

As I said, FSMD has unusually high open- and click-through
percentages. I don't know why, specificially.


One possible confounding issue is that when I'm searching for
something, I will usually find a bunch of online articles or ads, and
I'll click through some of them. So these could have never been
emailed, and still I'd find them, once I knew I was interested. Which
brings us back to the need for a usable digital push model.

Or something like we're just beginning with FSMD. Our e-mailed
editions are emulations of print magazines -- straight push. Our
website is a hybrid. It allows category searches and archive
selections. We need much more versatile and specific searches for the
"pull" readers who come to the website looking for something specific.



As Tim (I think?) said,
we expect a good search engine, and the push models don't have that.
They need to.

Most websites that have a search function don't have a very good search
function, and what usually works better is to search via google using
the "site" qualifier. For instance, enter:

"plasma cutting site:fsmdirect.com" (omitting the quotes).

Yes, that's what I often do.

IMO, the best online trade magazine, in terms of functionality, is
_Modern Machine Shop_. They were pioneers online, and the publishers,
with their own staff, have developed a highly functional website. It
has searchability from several directions.

It's a little different because they also have a print version. But
they use the website to expand what they do in print. It's a fine job.


So one cheap dodge is the ensure that your site is accessible "from the
side" (deep-linking not prevented), and tell your readers of the site
trick, or decorate incoming requests with the site qualifier and pass
them on to Google.com.

The company that handles FSMD's online operations is one of the
leaders, and very sophisticated. I'm looking forward to talking with
them. They're in PA, so I intend to drive over one day soon.


Another trick is to buy from Google a search engine appliance (a piece
of computer network hardware) and install it in your web server
architecture, and aim it at the stuff you want to be publicly
searchable. While this costs money, it's immediate and guaranteed to
work.

http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/

I've used those quite a bit and I think they're very good. I'll keep
that one in mind.

I've heard only good things about these boxes. One box can be shared
over multiple magazine titles.


Joe Gwinn

--
Ed Huntress

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 21:14:58 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 19:27:26 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:16:31 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

[snip]

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues.
We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem. I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is just
too awkward.

Yes, they have been awkward. The latest ones are a lot better.

I haven't stumbled on any just yet.

My latest adventure is with PCWorld, a paid-subscription magazine that
just went all-digital using Zinio. It has not been smooth. And I
still cannot print an article. I'm working with Zinio tech support,
but this should not be necessary, and will deflect many potential
readers. Actually, pdf would work far better.


[snip]

The online magazine business is still evolving, and some models have
already been abandoned. And you're right, many of them are little more
than cut-and-paste press releases. That's what's happened to the
greatest of them all, _American Machinist_. When I was there, we had 7
full-time editors, of which 3 or 4 were degreed engineers. Today, it
has one editor, and it's an empty shell.

Magazines are "push" communications. The Web is inherently a "pull"
medium for people who are looking for something. Most of the models
try to emulate the push model. Ours is halfway in between, but I'm
sure it will become more "pull" as it evolves.

The problem with pull is that I have to know what to ask for.

The core advantage of a magazine is the hordes of editors toiling to
find interesting things for me to read, things that I never knew
existed, and pushing them to me.

Yes, that's the "push" model, and that's the traditional idea behind a
"magazine." That's what it's meant since the 19th century. _American
Machinist_, for example -- one of the oldest continuously-published
magaines in North America -- was founded in 1877. It was a "magazine"
of things you didn't know you wanted to know. g

Until it hollowed out ...

Though I must admit that was struggling with the proper handling of the
Editors of the Horde -- should they be described as sweaty,
smoke-stained, ink-stained, or all of the above?

My image is a 1930s big-city newsroom. Quart of whisky in the bottom
drawer, just in case. What brand did the editors of _American
Machinist_ prefer?

g Smoke-stained, but not sweaty.

Saved by HVAC, and the Surgeon General's report was still young.

But, what about the ink - digital was in the future.


They didn't do a lot of drinking,
except at our parties, where yours truly often got smashed on whatever
was at hand. It was a pretty straight-laced bunch. I was the
youngster, and tolerated for such transgressions. But there were no
booze bottles in desks.

However, my bosses and cohorts in the circulation department, before I
became an editor, frequently did the two-Martini lunch. I got them
both at once, served straight up but in a brandy snifter. That would
be 1973 - 1974. Then I closed the door to my office and told my
secretary to take my calls.

Could people hear the snores over the bustle and typewriter clatter,
despite the soundproofing?


It was the tail-end of the "Madmen" era. It was a suit, tie, and white
shirt (no button-downs) all day, every day. Editors could get away
with sports jackets and a pastel shirt when we were feeling sporty --
tweeds with leather elbow patches were the editorial uniform for days
when we didn't have visitors. I never owned one of those.

The editorial environment at AM was pretty faced-paced for a monthly,
but that's nothing like a weekly, and not even remotely like a daily.
I've been in plenty of newsrooms when I worked in NYC. Their
environment seems most related to their publishing cycle.

Yes. Organizations are always molded by how they are paid.


With a paper magazine, it's random-access and thus easy to skim and
find the stuff I care about without having to plow slowly through
everything.

With an online magazine, it's slow and clumsy to achieve reasonable
random-access. It's also harder to read if your eyes are not perfect,
and the reader (a desktop in my case) is clumsy.

Yes, and that's why I was skeptical of online magazines since the
beginning.

But I was a circulation manager before I was a writer and editor, and
I've compared what I know about readership of print magazines with the
statistics I've been catching up on with online magazines. The "time
spent reading" is longer for print magazines. But the raw readership
-- the number who open it up, and the number who respond to ads -- is
slightly higher with direct e-mailed online magazines.

Hmm. Based on personal experience, I'd doubt that emailed magazines
get slightly higher ad responses than print, if only because I rarely
get through most of the email magazines.

As I said, FSMD has unusually high open- and click-through
percentages. I don't know why, specificially.


One possible confounding issue is that when I'm searching for
something, I will usually find a bunch of online articles or ads, and
I'll click through some of them. So these could have never been
emailed, and still I'd find them, once I knew I was interested. Which
brings us back to the need for a usable digital push model.

Or something like we're just beginning with FSMD. Our e-mailed
editions are emulations of print magazines -- straight push. Our
website is a hybrid. It allows category searches and archive
selections. We need much more versatile and specific searches for the
"pull" readers who come to the website looking for something specific.

You can also collect differentiated statistics on the the number of
click-throughs from pushed content versus click-throughs that come in
from random directions, as from search engines.


IMO, the best online trade magazine, in terms of functionality, is
_Modern Machine Shop_. They were pioneers online, and the publishers,
with their own staff, have developed a highly functional website. It
has searchability from several directions.

It's a little different because they also have a print version. But
they use the website to expand what they do in print. It's a fine job.

I'll have to sniff around http://www.mmsonline.com/ for the
experience. And to drool over the toys.

Joe Gwinn

On Sat, 03 Aug 2013 18:50:35 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 21:14:58 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 19:27:26 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:16:31 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

[snip]

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues.
We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem. I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is just
too awkward.

Yes, they have been awkward. The latest ones are a lot better.

I haven't stumbled on any just yet.

My latest adventure is with PCWorld, a paid-subscription magazine that
just went all-digital using Zinio. It has not been smooth. And I
still cannot print an article. I'm working with Zinio tech support,
but this should not be necessary, and will deflect many potential
readers. Actually, pdf would work far better.


[snip]

The online magazine business is still evolving, and some models have
already been abandoned. And you're right, many of them are little more
than cut-and-paste press releases. That's what's happened to the
greatest of them all, _American Machinist_. When I was there, we had 7
full-time editors, of which 3 or 4 were degreed engineers. Today, it
has one editor, and it's an empty shell.

Magazines are "push" communications. The Web is inherently a "pull"
medium for people who are looking for something. Most of the models
try to emulate the push model. Ours is halfway in between, but I'm
sure it will become more "pull" as it evolves.

The problem with pull is that I have to know what to ask for.

The core advantage of a magazine is the hordes of editors toiling to
find interesting things for me to read, things that I never knew
existed, and pushing them to me.

Yes, that's the "push" model, and that's the traditional idea behind a
"magazine." That's what it's meant since the 19th century. _American
Machinist_, for example -- one of the oldest continuously-published
magaines in North America -- was founded in 1877. It was a "magazine"
of things you didn't know you wanted to know. g

Until it hollowed out ...

Though I must admit that was struggling with the proper handling of the
Editors of the Horde -- should they be described as sweaty,
smoke-stained, ink-stained, or all of the above?

My image is a 1930s big-city newsroom. Quart of whisky in the bottom
drawer, just in case. What brand did the editors of _American
Machinist_ prefer?

g Smoke-stained, but not sweaty.

Saved by HVAC, and the Surgeon General's report was still young.

But, what about the ink - digital was in the future.

We didn't handle ink. Ink was handled by a company that printed AM and
Business Week, and a half-dozen other McGraw-Hill magazines, in New
Hampshire.



They didn't do a lot of drinking,
except at our parties, where yours truly often got smashed on whatever
was at hand. It was a pretty straight-laced bunch. I was the
youngster, and tolerated for such transgressions. But there were no
booze bottles in desks.

However, my bosses and cohorts in the circulation department, before I
became an editor, frequently did the two-Martini lunch. I got them
both at once, served straight up but in a brandy snifter. That would
be 1973 - 1974. Then I closed the door to my office and told my
secretary to take my calls.

Could people hear the snores over the bustle and typewriter clatter,
despite the soundproofing?

I didn't snore in those days. But it was awkward. Unlike my boss, I
didn't have a couch in my office. I think I fell over in my office
chair once.



It was the tail-end of the "Madmen" era. It was a suit, tie, and white
shirt (no button-downs) all day, every day. Editors could get away
with sports jackets and a pastel shirt when we were feeling sporty --
tweeds with leather elbow patches were the editorial uniform for days
when we didn't have visitors. I never owned one of those.

The editorial environment at AM was pretty faced-paced for a monthly,
but that's nothing like a weekly, and not even remotely like a daily.
I've been in plenty of newsrooms when I worked in NYC. Their
environment seems most related to their publishing cycle.

Yes. Organizations are always molded by how they are paid.

g In this case, it's a matter of how many hours they have before
their assignments are due. On a daily, you can really sweat it.



With a paper magazine, it's random-access and thus easy to skim and
find the stuff I care about without having to plow slowly through
everything.

With an online magazine, it's slow and clumsy to achieve reasonable
random-access. It's also harder to read if your eyes are not perfect,
and the reader (a desktop in my case) is clumsy.

Yes, and that's why I was skeptical of online magazines since the
beginning.

But I was a circulation manager before I was a writer and editor, and
I've compared what I know about readership of print magazines with the
statistics I've been catching up on with online magazines. The "time
spent reading" is longer for print magazines. But the raw readership
-- the number who open it up, and the number who respond to ads -- is
slightly higher with direct e-mailed online magazines.

Hmm. Based on personal experience, I'd doubt that emailed magazines
get slightly higher ad responses than print, if only because I rarely
get through most of the email magazines.

As I said, FSMD has unusually high open- and click-through
percentages. I don't know why, specificially.


One possible confounding issue is that when I'm searching for
something, I will usually find a bunch of online articles or ads, and
I'll click through some of them. So these could have never been
emailed, and still I'd find them, once I knew I was interested. Which
brings us back to the need for a usable digital push model.

Or something like we're just beginning with FSMD. Our e-mailed
editions are emulations of print magazines -- straight push. Our
website is a hybrid. It allows category searches and archive
selections. We need much more versatile and specific searches for the
"pull" readers who come to the website looking for something specific.

You can also collect differentiated statistics on the the number of
click-throughs from pushed content versus click-throughs that come in
from random directions, as from search engines.


IMO, the best online trade magazine, in terms of functionality, is
_Modern Machine Shop_. They were pioneers online, and the publishers,
with their own staff, have developed a highly functional website. It
has searchability from several directions.

It's a little different because they also have a print version. But
they use the website to expand what they do in print. It's a fine job.

I'll have to sniff around http://www.mmsonline.com/ for the
experience. And to drool over the toys.

Wave to my buddy Mark Albert. We started in this business at about the
same time and we're roughly the same age. I call him Dorian Gray,
because he stopped aging about 20 years ago.

--
Ed Huntress


Joe Gwinn

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sat, 03 Aug 2013 18:50:35 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 21:14:58 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 19:27:26 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:16:31 -0400, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 13:16:23 -0400, Joe Gwinn

wrote:

[snip]

People on dialup will not be happy with this. (No, I'm on
cable.)

If they're on dialup, they probably won't be reading our issues.
We're
"direct": we send out 71,000 copies by e-mail.

And we're on the Web with the same material. But it's a byte-heavy
online-reader format, and I think what's left of my hair would
fall
out before I paged through an issue with dialup. g

A lot of the trade mags are going this way, and it's a problem.
I've
stopped reading a number of old standbys because the interface is
just
too awkward.

Yes, they have been awkward. The latest ones are a lot better.

I haven't stumbled on any just yet.

My latest adventure is with PCWorld, a paid-subscription magazine that
just went all-digital using Zinio. It has not been smooth. And I
still cannot print an article. I'm working with Zinio tech support,
but this should not be necessary, and will deflect many potential
readers. Actually, pdf would work far better.


[snip]

The online magazine business is still evolving, and some models have
already been abandoned. And you're right, many of them are little
more
than cut-and-paste press releases. That's what's happened to the
greatest of them all, _American Machinist_. When I was there, we had
7
full-time editors, of which 3 or 4 were degreed engineers. Today, it
has one editor, and it's an empty shell.

Magazines are "push" communications. The Web is inherently a "pull"
medium for people who are looking for something. Most of the models
try to emulate the push model. Ours is halfway in between, but I'm
sure it will become more "pull" as it evolves.

The problem with pull is that I have to know what to ask for.

The core advantage of a magazine is the hordes of editors toiling to
find interesting things for me to read, things that I never knew
existed, and pushing them to me.

Yes, that's the "push" model, and that's the traditional idea behind a
"magazine." That's what it's meant since the 19th century. _American
Machinist_, for example -- one of the oldest continuously-published
magaines in North America -- was founded in 1877. It was a "magazine"
of things you didn't know you wanted to know. g

Until it hollowed out ...

Though I must admit that was struggling with the proper handling of the
Editors of the Horde -- should they be described as sweaty,
smoke-stained, ink-stained, or all of the above?

My image is a 1930s big-city newsroom. Quart of whisky in the bottom
drawer, just in case. What brand did the editors of _American
Machinist_ prefer?

g Smoke-stained, but not sweaty.

Saved by HVAC, and the Surgeon General's report was still young.

But, what about the ink - digital was in the future.

We didn't handle ink. Ink was handled by a company that printed AM and
Business Week, and a half-dozen other McGraw-Hill magazines, in New
Hampshire.

Ahh. Safe distance, so no ink-stained wretches. Busted to wretch, 3rd
class.


They didn't do a lot of drinking,
except at our parties, where yours truly often got smashed on whatever
was at hand. It was a pretty straight-laced bunch. I was the
youngster, and tolerated for such transgressions. But there were no
booze bottles in desks.

However, my bosses and cohorts in the circulation department, before I
became an editor, frequently did the two-Martini lunch. I got them
both at once, served straight up but in a brandy snifter. That would
be 1973 - 1974. Then I closed the door to my office and told my
secretary to take my calls.

Could people hear the snores over the bustle and typewriter clatter,
despite the soundproofing?

I didn't snore in those days. But it was awkward. Unlike my boss, I
didn't have a couch in my office. I think I fell over in my office
chair once.

Nobody will notice the occasional thud.


It was the tail-end of the "Madmen" era. It was a suit, tie, and white
shirt (no button-downs) all day, every day. Editors could get away
with sports jackets and a pastel shirt when we were feeling sporty --
tweeds with leather elbow patches were the editorial uniform for days
when we didn't have visitors. I never owned one of those.

The editorial environment at AM was pretty faced-paced for a monthly,
but that's nothing like a weekly, and not even remotely like a daily.
I've been in plenty of newsrooms when I worked in NYC. Their
environment seems most related to their publishing cycle.

Yes. Organizations are always molded by how they are paid.

g In this case, it's a matter of how many hours they have before
their assignments are due. On a daily, you can really sweat it.

And get a lot of stuff wrong.


With a paper magazine, it's random-access and thus easy to skim and
find the stuff I care about without having to plow slowly through
everything.

With an online magazine, it's slow and clumsy to achieve reasonable
random-access. It's also harder to read if your eyes are not perfect,
and the reader (a desktop in my case) is clumsy.

Yes, and that's why I was skeptical of online magazines since the
beginning.

But I was a circulation manager before I was a writer and editor, and
I've compared what I know about readership of print magazines with the
statistics I've been catching up on with online magazines. The "time
spent reading" is longer for print magazines. But the raw readership
-- the number who open it up, and the number who respond to ads -- is
slightly higher with direct e-mailed online magazines.

Hmm. Based on personal experience, I'd doubt that emailed magazines
get slightly higher ad responses than print, if only because I rarely
get through most of the email magazines.

As I said, FSMD has unusually high open- and click-through
percentages. I don't know why, specificially.


One possible confounding issue is that when I'm searching for
something, I will usually find a bunch of online articles or ads, and
I'll click through some of them. So these could have never been
emailed, and still I'd find them, once I knew I was interested. Which
brings us back to the need for a usable digital push model.

Or something like we're just beginning with FSMD. Our e-mailed
editions are emulations of print magazines -- straight push. Our
website is a hybrid. It allows category searches and archive
selections. We need much more versatile and specific searches for the
"pull" readers who come to the website looking for something specific.

You can also collect differentiated statistics on the the number of
click-throughs from pushed content versus click-throughs that come in
from random directions, as from search engines.


IMO, the best online trade magazine, in terms of functionality, is
_Modern Machine Shop_. They were pioneers online, and the publishers,
with their own staff, have developed a highly functional website. It
has searchability from several directions.

It's a little different because they also have a print version. But
they use the website to expand what they do in print. It's a fine job.

I'll have to sniff around http://www.mmsonline.com/ for the
experience. And to drool over the toys.

Wave to my buddy Mark Albert. We started in this business at about the
same time and we're roughly the same age. I call him Dorian Gray,
because he stopped aging about 20 years ago.

I shall, but for now I'm in mole mode.

The website does seem clean and well organized. This is far harder to
achieve than it looks. And requires immense self-discipline.

One thing to be grateful is there is little of the blinking confusion
effect one sees on many websites. Then again, I have flashblock, which
greatly helps with readability.

Joe Gwinn

On Friday, August 2, 2013 8:20:09 PM UTC-7, Ignoramus22619 wrote:
On 2013-08-03, Tim Wescott wrote:

On Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:56:21 -0400, Ed Huntress wrote:



SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical operation

of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual transmissions

(conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.

If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a little

vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a look at

this.



http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/



Y'know, it was impressive and the video was nice, but it really seemed

like it imparted very little information for the amount of time spent.



(I must just be negative this week)





Totally useless video.



i

Then do something productive and post a link to a video you think is better.

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

We didn't handle ink. Ink was handled by a company that printed AM
and
Business Week, and a half-dozen other McGraw-Hill magazines, in New
Hampshire.


Was it Rumford Press in Concord NH?

On Sat, 3 Aug 2013 23:36:23 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
.. .

We didn't handle ink. Ink was handled by a company that printed AM
and
Business Week, and a half-dozen other McGraw-Hill magazines, in New
Hampshire.


Was it Rumford Press in Concord NH?

Yeah, I think that was it.

--
Ed Huntress

On 8/2/2013 7:56 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/


I've driven nothing but manual transmission cars since 1971, and I
didn't find that video at all helpful in understanding the inner
workings of a manual transmission. It also was odd that most of the
driving footage showed vehicle traffic in Great Britain or Australia,
although the narrator had an obvious American accent.

This multi-page site doesn't have the nifty video, but it helped me make
much more sense of the workings of the transmission.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission.htm

On Sun, 04 Aug 2013 08:16:56 -0700, George Plimpton
wrote:

On 8/2/2013 7:56 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/


I've driven nothing but manual transmission cars since 1971, and I
didn't find that video at all helpful in understanding the inner
workings of a manual transmission. It also was odd that most of the
driving footage showed vehicle traffic in Great Britain or Australia,
although the narrator had an obvious American accent.

This multi-page site doesn't have the nifty video, but it helped me make
much more sense of the workings of the transmission.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission.htm

If you don't know how a synchro manual transmission works, that video
I linked to isn't going to help you. As I said, I linked to it for
people who DO know how they work, but are a little vague on the
relationship of those parts.

People like me, for example. I last had a manual transmission apart in
1969, when I took the synchro rings out of my Alfa Romeo to make it a
poor-man's racing crashbox. That was a common work-around for
low-bucks racers.

I knew how all those parts related then, but it's been a long time,
and the video refreshed my memory.

--
Ed Huntress

On 8/4/2013 8:42 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Sun, 04 Aug 2013 08:16:56 -0700, George Plimpton
wrote:

On 8/2/2013 7:56 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/


I've driven nothing but manual transmission cars since 1971, and I
didn't find that video at all helpful in understanding the inner
workings of a manual transmission. It also was odd that most of the
driving footage showed vehicle traffic in Great Britain or Australia,
although the narrator had an obvious American accent.

This multi-page site doesn't have the nifty video, but it helped me make
much more sense of the workings of the transmission.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission.htm

If you don't know how a synchro manual transmission works, that video
I linked to isn't going to help you. As I said, I linked to it for
people who DO know how they work, but are a little vague on the
relationship of those parts.

People like me, for example. I last had a manual transmission apart in
1969, when I took the synchro rings out of my Alfa Romeo to make it a
poor-man's racing crashbox. That was a common work-around for
low-bucks racers.

I knew how all those parts related then, but it's been a long time,
and the video refreshed my memory.

I never did much automotive work. I learned to do a little more than
basic stuff on cars I had in the 1970s, all of them Japanese four
cylinder engines. I could do a tuneup including valve adjustment, I
rebuilt the carburetor on a late 1970s Honda Civic, and I could do a
fair amount of disassembly and reassembly/replacement of things on the
outside of the engine. I never got into the internals - didn't have
enough interest to learn what I was doing, and figured I'd wreck it and
have to pay someone more to fix my wreckage than if I had just paid a
pro to do the work in the first place. However, I did always wish to
know how a manual transmission works, but never quite enough to look
into it very much.

On Sunday, August 4, 2013 9:05:21 AM UTC-7, George Plimpton wrote:
On 8/4/2013 8:42 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:

On Sun, 04 Aug 2013 08:16:56 -0700, George Plimpton

wrote:



On 8/2/2013 7:56 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:

SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical

operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual

transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.

If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a

little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a

look at this.



http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/





I've driven nothing but manual transmission cars since 1971, and I

didn't find that video at all helpful in understanding the inner

workings of a manual transmission. It also was odd that most of the

driving footage showed vehicle traffic in Great Britain or Australia,

although the narrator had an obvious American accent.



This multi-page site doesn't have the nifty video, but it helped me make

much more sense of the workings of the transmission.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission.htm



If you don't know how a synchro manual transmission works, that video

I linked to isn't going to help you. As I said, I linked to it for

people who DO know how they work, but are a little vague on the

relationship of those parts.



People like me, for example. I last had a manual transmission apart in

1969, when I took the synchro rings out of my Alfa Romeo to make it a

poor-man's racing crashbox. That was a common work-around for

low-bucks racers.



I knew how all those parts related then, but it's been a long time,

and the video refreshed my memory.



I never did much automotive work. I learned to do a little more than

basic stuff on cars I had in the 1970s, all of them Japanese four

cylinder engines. I could do a tuneup including valve adjustment, I

rebuilt the carburetor on a late 1970s Honda Civic, and I could do a

fair amount of disassembly and reassembly/replacement of things on the

outside of the engine. I never got into the internals - didn't have

enough interest to learn what I was doing, and figured I'd wreck it and

have to pay someone more to fix my wreckage than if I had just paid a

pro to do the work in the first place. However, I did always wish to

know how a manual transmission works, but never quite enough to look

into it very much.

It's no surprise to me that The Pimple has little or no mechanical talent. He's proved that for years in this newsgroup.

On Sun, 04 Aug 2013 09:05:21 -0700, George Plimpton
wrote:

On 8/4/2013 8:42 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
On Sun, 04 Aug 2013 08:16:56 -0700, George Plimpton
wrote:

On 8/2/2013 7:56 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
SAE's online operations produce some good videos of mechanical
operation of car parts. Here's a video on contemporary manual
transmissions (conventional) that they link to at DriveLineNews.com.
If detents, synchronizers, blocking rings and clutch cones are a
little vague in your mind and you want to see them in action, take a
look at this.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/manual-transmissions/


I've driven nothing but manual transmission cars since 1971, and I
didn't find that video at all helpful in understanding the inner
workings of a manual transmission. It also was odd that most of the
driving footage showed vehicle traffic in Great Britain or Australia,
although the narrator had an obvious American accent.

This multi-page site doesn't have the nifty video, but it helped me make
much more sense of the workings of the transmission.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission.htm

If you don't know how a synchro manual transmission works, that video
I linked to isn't going to help you. As I said, I linked to it for
people who DO know how they work, but are a little vague on the
relationship of those parts.

People like me, for example. I last had a manual transmission apart in
1969, when I took the synchro rings out of my Alfa Romeo to make it a
poor-man's racing crashbox. That was a common work-around for
low-bucks racers.

I knew how all those parts related then, but it's been a long time,
and the video refreshed my memory.

I never did much automotive work. I learned to do a little more than
basic stuff on cars I had in the 1970s, all of them Japanese four
cylinder engines. I could do a tuneup including valve adjustment, I
rebuilt the carburetor on a late 1970s Honda Civic, and I could do a
fair amount of disassembly and reassembly/replacement of things on the
outside of the engine. I never got into the internals - didn't have
enough interest to learn what I was doing, and figured I'd wreck it and
have to pay someone more to fix my wreckage than if I had just paid a
pro to do the work in the first place. However, I did always wish to
know how a manual transmission works, but never quite enough to look
into it very much.

Transmissions are very tricky to work on; you were better off leaving
it to pros, because you need some special tools for many of them and a
pretty good knowledge of more mechanics than just turning wrenches.

The Alfa was straightforward but it was still a PITA. It's not
something I would have done if I wasn't a hopeless gearhead and
usually broke, between girlfriends and trying to make my sports cars
raceworthy.

And I broke a huge limb on a maple tree in my parent's yard hauling
out a Jaguar engine -- they weighed like sin. So I wasn't getting any
family help. g

--
Ed Huntress