Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: eha@zombie.oulu.fi (Esa Haapaniemi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Amiga Shopper Magazine Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc Date: 28 Jan 1994 15:53:40 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 325 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2ibce4$ihs@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: eha@zombie.oulu.fi (Esa Haapaniemi) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: magazine, commercial PRODUCT NAME Amiga Shopper Magazine BRIEF DESCRIPTION Magazine concentrating on productivity software and hardware for Amiga. Includes coverdisks, and each subscription comes with a binder for storing a year's worth of issues. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Future Publishing Limited Address: Beaufort Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath BA1 2BW Great Britain NOTE! For orders: Amiga Shopper Future Publishing Limited Somerton, Somerset TA11 7BR Great Britain Telephone: GB-225-442244 FAX: GB-225-446019 E-mail: amshopper@cix.compulink.co.uk LIST PRICE Subscription coupons in the magazine give price for 12 issues to be #30 (British pounds) for direct debt in Great Britain, #47 for other European countries, and #67 for rest of the world. All magazines are mailed by air mail and packed in plastic. A single issue is #2.95 from a newsstand, and back-issues can be ordered directly for #3-4. Ordered a subscription after getting the address and approximate price from another orderer, and paid #79 to get as many issues as the money permitted. (The subscription will continue, and Future Publishing will inform me when the money is near ending.) SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE As the product is "pulpware", the hardware is updated every time a new version is published. All previous versions are still usable. :-) :-) Other useful hardware includes a reading lamp (it takes a long time to read 100-130 pages) and a VISA card. The latest 4 magazines have had a coverdisk, and almost all programs have been fully usable with any Amiga with 1 floppy drive. SOFTWARE The ability to read and understand text. (If you don't have this, there are a lot of pretty pictures.) :-) The software on the coverdisks generally requires AmigaDOS 1.3 or higher, but some may require AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher. Programs sometimes come with source code in C, AMOS, or assembly language -- you will need the appropriate compiler or assembler if you want to build the programs yourself. COPY PROTECTION None. The coverdisks are unprotected. All programs are provided in a "packed" format of some kind, so they must be unpacked onto empty disks or a hard drive before they can be used. You can also "protect" your "copies" of the magazine with binders provided by Future Publishing. They provide one free binder. Disks are packed as much as possible, and all programs must be unpacked on empty disks or HD before they can be used. INSTALLATION Just tear off the plastic and start reading. :-) The coverdisk is attached with sticky tape and may require some patience to remove from the magazine cover. Fortunately, the cover is printed on glossy paper, so normally you will not harm the magazine by removing the disk. Instructions for using the coverdisk are found in the section "How To Use The Coverdisk" in each issue. To unpack a program, you drag the icon into a directory with enough space and double-click on it, and it automatically unpacks in that directory. After that most programs are readily usable. (Some of them might need more installation with the Commodore Installer or other installation software, which is normally included.) The binder is very easy to use (though it arrived a little late, after I already had 3 issues). The binding system is friendly and does not harm the pages. There is no room for the coverdisks in the binder. MAGAZINE REVIEW The magazine is printed on cheap grayish paper with a glossy cover. The first thing to notice is that there are NO GAMES AT ALL in the magazine: no reviews, no previews, and no ads. And still, each issue has over 100 pages. A great deal of the magazine is ads, of course: 45 out of 116 pages in February 1994, and previously less (approximately 30 out of 110 pages). The February issue tends to have more ads for all those new Amiga users who got machines for Christmas. The hardware and software ads make me envious of English users because of the cheap prices (compared to here). One nice feature is that ads appear on their own pages, so if the user wants to make copies of some interesting articles, there is no need to copy any ads. The main contents in every issue have been News (reports, upgrades, new stuff), AmigaAnswers (experts help readers to solve their problems with printers/programs/buying/emulators/etc.), Software for Free (PD software reviews), CoverDisk "How to" column, and letters from readers. The reviews and other articles are pretty well written without being too technical, and every article includes a sidebar for "Jargon Busting" (an explanation of vocabulary for beginners; e.g., "DIP", "Emulator", "EPS", "TrueType", etc.) or "Beginners Start Here." With these additional explanations, the technical text is really easy to follow, even for newcomers. Reviews are normally several pages long, and sometimes the products are compared to PC and Macintosh equivalents. All hardware reviews are presented with color pictures, and software reviews contain screen shots. The printing resolution is high enough that the pictures are not jagged. Listings for programs are fully explained, and more hints and ways to make similar things are given. COVERDISK REVIEW I've received four disks so far with my subscription. November 1993 included Virus_Checker 6.30, a PD database program, a shareware spreadsheet, source code for Amos and C programs that the magazine has been writing: o ASPaint -- how to make DPaint I with AMOS o Address Book -- in C and more. December 1993 had mapcreator for designers, some quick tools and utilities, and an ACC programming guide (assembly language tutorial), January 1994 included the latest shareware version of DICE with a simple manual and source code for ASPaint and Address book. It also contained some example images from Nexus Pro Backgrounds. February 1994 included ReSource demo, Rend24, Virus_Checker 6.33, GUI-Guru (PD program for analyzing Guru numbers) and two programs for AmigaDOS 2.0 and higher: ToolsDaemon and Ambush. These are all useful utilities, even though most are available from Aminet. However, these are tested by the magazine and include some "How To Use" documents in the magazine. BINDER REVIEW This is a large, white, hardback binder with "AmigaShopper" written in red on the back and cover. The binding mechanism is pin-like and very easy to use. The binder is big enough to hold an entire year of issues. Magazines are still very easy to read after installing them into binder. Unfortunately, the binder itself will not stand straight until there are enough magazines inside. Also, the binder is somewhat twisted after it has been stored in its too-tight package. DOCUMENTATION What can I say about this? It is pretty well done, even for beginners. The coverdisk programs are documented in the magazine. The text is written mainly for experienced users, but the Jargon Busting and Beginners_Start gives everyone an opportunity to follow along. LIKES AND DISLIKES For simplicity's sake, I collected my likes and dislikes for the whole magazine's concept, not for any particular issue. All likes are marked with '+', and dislikes with '-'. These are not in any particular order. + The Only English magazine without game reviews. + Well done for beginners, and also very usable for professionals. + Includes programs on disk and a binder for storing magazines. + Magazine is sent by air mail, and thus it is received almost at the same time here as in England. + Cheap prices in ads, even for mailorder. + Programming hints and full programs are well written, and the authors have documented their routines for beginners (almost). And the programs do cover the whole range from machine language to Amos/C. - The price for disks and binder is included in the subscription cost. - Some contests (for example, "Win an Epson GT-6000 by answering some simple questions") end too quickly, especially since the magazine arrives later here. - Too much advertising. - Commodore does not provide the magazine with "enough" information. - Magazine is packed in plastic. Fortunately it can be burned without destroying nature. For me, the coverdisks could be omitted, as the same programs are available on the Internet: sometimes even newer versions than the ones on the disk. But I do understand that many readers have this as their only source for cheap programs. As I don't program myself, the source code on coverdisks is not much use. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I have tried to find some good Amiga magazines for long time. I did order .INFO from the USA, but I got only one issue before they went out of business. As far as I could tell from one issue, Computer Shopper is quite close to .Info's "standard." The only main difference is the advertising on this English magazine. Similarly, Amiga+ Magazine has unfortunately vanished. Other good magazines for Amiga users from USA like AmigaWorld and Amazing Amiga Computing (that I have read) are lacking in deep reviews, and I don't like their attitude toward games (that should be left to game magazines). Also, both have reduced their number of pages over the years, and I wonder if perhaps they have lost many subscriptions and are suffering now. Perhaps there is one more "enjoyable" Amiga magazine available, but for worldwide readers it has a language problem. As "Amiga" is written totally in German, it has very little use for English speakers. Magazines like Amiga Format, CU Amiga, Amiga Games, ... are not for me, even if they include some minor articles of new releases from Commodore or some rare articles on productivity software. BUGS I have not found any misinformation in the magazine. I suppose the editor uses some English spelling checker too. To my knowledge, the text is British English (not American English). Perhaps some of the programs on coverdisks have been old versions that don't work as they should. For example, DICE did not handle floating point, but examples in the included booklet used them. VENDOR SUPPORT I have not tried to contact the E-Mail address nor other addresses yet. I sent this review to the address mentioned above to be checked, but no one has answered. I don't have any ties to Future Publishing except as a subscriber. WARRANTY I suppose the paper is not made with acid paper, and so it could last (in the binder) several years. Of course the articles come old sooner than the magazine. Still no warranty (as it includes also Commodore) are given. CONCLUSIONS I like the magazine and articles in it. Perhaps it is even too easy to read with their support for beginners. Mostly, I'd like to get it somewhat cheaper by leaving the coverdisk and binder off; and if that is not much cheaper, I could settle for surface mail (because the contests are already too late here). I definitely recommend this magazine to others. It is much better than British game magazines, and for American users it could give some more hope for getting software/hardware information that is not easily available there. COPYRIGHT NOTICE No rights claimed. These are purely my personal opinions, and everyone can borrow or comment on them freely. Thanks for Daniel Barrett for checking and correcting my text. M.Sc. Esa Haapaniemi University of Oulu Department of Chemistry, Structural Elucdation Finland --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews