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Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine)
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Subject: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Mar 08 - 11:32 AM A little note came over the email transom this morning from Writer's Market:
I've subscribed to the email from these folks for years. I don't get them all read, but I always find useful tidbits and I go to them for product and software comparisons. They were (sadly) in the news last year when one of their writer/reviewers, James Kim, died in the coastal range in Oregon when the family got onto a closed logging road and were trapped. Anyway, it is an interesting "shop" of techies and geeks who turn out a web forum that I find useful. Yet I never look at the print version of the magazine, so I suppose I'm part of the problem. Anyone else use this forum, and are there others that you think are comparable? Interesting that the place I learned about this is via a publication I had to buy in order to get into the email. I haven't updated my online membership (I did buy the book again) but the email still comes. There seem to be two models at work here--absolutely free web access, or web access dependent upon an annual purchase. Writer's Market is important to writers and manages to keep sales going, as far as I can tell, and has a mix of print and web users. Katlaughing is the one who convinced me to switch to the online Writer's Market. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: catspaw49 Date: 14 Mar 08 - 11:43 AM NEW YORK (AP) — Ziff Davis Media Inc., publisher of technology and video game magazines, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday and cited a decrease in revenue from print advertising and subscriptions as contributing to its decline. But the company said it expected to reorganize quickly and exit court protection by midsummer. New York-based Ziff Davis said in a court filing that it had about $500 million in liabilities and $313 million worth of assets, as of the end of December. It filed for Chapter 11 protection to restructure debt that had become burdensome. "We feel like we're in a position poised for wonderful growth," Ziff Davis Chief Executive Jason Young said Wednesday. "We just needed to solve this issue." The company is the publisher of PC Magazine and Electronic Gaming Monthly and Web versions of those magazines. Ziff Davis reached an agreement with senior creditors, to whom it owes $225 million. Under the deal, the senior creditors will be owed $57.5 million and at least 88.8 percent of the common stock in the company once it emerges. The company was unable to reach an agreement with more junior creditors, and is looking to use the court process to resolve that. Another 11.2 percent of the reorganized company's stock is available for distribution to those debt holders under the company's current proposal, but those creditors are likely to seek more equity in court. Creditors have set aside $24.5 million to fund the company's operations during the case and after it concludes. The company's filing states there are between 1,000 to 5,000 creditors. The company reaches 26 million consumers through 16 Web sites, three magazines and direct marketing. It is a remnant of a publishing empire established in the 1920s by William B. Ziff Sr. and Bernard G. Davis, who introduced such titles as Popular Aviation and Popular Electronics. In 1994, the Ziff family sold a 95 percent stake to private equity firm Forstmann Little & Co. for $1.4 billion. The following year, Softbank Corp. bought 70 percent of the company from Forstmann for $2.1 billion. Softbank in turn sold the company to another private equity firm, Willis Stein & Partners, in 2000. The bursting of the Internet bubble hurt publishers like Ziff Davis, which said its print advertising revenue dropped to $40 million last year from $215 million in 2001. Its total revenue fell to $76 million last year from about $300 million in 2001. Young said the company was focused on growing the online side of its business and that it has made progress over the past seven years to generate a growing share of its revenue from digital businesses over traditional print publications. "Operating-wise, we have executed this tremendous transformation," Young said. As of the end of December, it had 266 employees, with headquarters in New York and an office in San Francisco. Young said he did not anticipate the loss of any jobs. Ziff Davis Media's parent company is Ziff Davis Holdings, which trades as an over-the counter stock. The case has been assigned to Judge Burton Lifland in the federal bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: JohnInKansas Date: 14 Mar 08 - 02:39 PM Press Release from ZD today. ZD Home Page for anyone who might want general info. The press release appears to be "optimistic" and says they will continue with "business as usual" and expect to complete and emerge from the filing protections by summer of this year. I hope they're successful, as I've relied a lot on PC Magazine for around 20 years now, although I seldom look at the paper copies on a regular basis since Ulanof's (Chief Editor?) weekly email column summarizes almost everything I'm really interested in. The paper copies get dusted off only when I need to look up more details on the advertising - and I tend to be pretty ad-o-phobic. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,pattyClink Date: 14 Mar 08 - 02:47 PM Used to be a good resource in the pre-net days and helpful to users. Apparently all this means is they handled their money badly and now all the stockholders will lose theirs, and the banks will own the place. Not a recipe for riproaring success but I guess they'll limp on. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Joe Offer Date: 14 Mar 08 - 03:09 PM I used to enjoy their PC Computing Magazine, because it was directed to people who did their own work on home computers. It changed to a business-oriented format, and soon shut down completely. PC Magazine is good, but I think it's geared more to IT professionals. I now subscribe to PC World, but don't like it as well as PC Computing. I'm still searching for the ultimate publication for the do-it-yourself home computing geek. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: katlaughing Date: 14 Mar 08 - 03:53 PM Interesting. I've been wondering about the impact of Amazon's KINDLE on print media. The video at the bottom of that page is impressive. It won't hold a library, but I think it would be very popular with a person who reads a lot of papers and magazines. It saves on space, paper, weight; the business traveler would find it esp. helpful, I would think. I do think it is troublesome in that the technology seems to be bringing us farther away from an actual book in the hand. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Stilly River Sage Date: 14 Mar 08 - 04:18 PM The people behind the information are the resource, and finding a viable way to keep that resource accessible is a challenge these days. I read a lot online, but there is some work that I simply must do on paper (editing and proof reading). I can't sit and read screen after screen (a book) on screen either. When I read long newspaper articles I'm fine, but if I'm looking at something longer than that, like a 20-page PDF document, I print it. PDF documents are meant to be printed (they appear on screen and in your printer the same as the original printed page) so you can see how many of these journals save themselves the paper and distribution costs by making the PDF available to subscribers to print or save. Lots of places do that. If they don't want to bother with vetting subscriptions then they need to look at the ad route for income. It might be like Consumer Reports, ads are inappropriate (though the entire thing is an ad). It'll be interesting to watch. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Murray MacLeod Date: 14 Mar 08 - 04:42 PM Joe, is it possible to be a "home computing geek" these days ? I still recall fondly the early eighties, when a multitude of companies vied for your custom, Atari, Oric, Commodore, et al (and in the UK, Amstrad) those were the days, you had to have a smattering of BASIC even to get the machine up and running, and there were a host of magazines catering to every machine. IBM and Bill Gates put paid to all that, sadly (well, sadly in some ways ...) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,Jon Date: 14 Mar 08 - 05:11 PM I don't know... I wouldn't count incompatibility between different home computers as a plus. Computer wise, I started with a Vic20 and I did type loads of lines of BASIC code with loads of horrible gosubs and gotos in to find programs that were slow and not that exciting and also wrote a couple of my own messes. It wasn't until I got a PC (Amstard PC1512) and Turbo Pascal 5.5 that programing (well the bit I can do...) started to make sense to me and seemed worth the effort. Functions and procedures were so much nicer, plus I even learned a little about OOP... and the compiled programs were fast... These days though, I think just about everything I want is available somewhere for free and probably a lot better than I could come up with. Outside the occasional simple script, I rarely see a point in trying to write anything for my PC use. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: pdq Date: 14 Mar 08 - 06:03 PM You know you're getting older when you think Ziff Davis means Popular Electronics, not PC Magazine. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Richard Bridge Date: 14 Mar 08 - 06:34 PM My god I used to read that but ahd forgotten it was Ziff Davis. DId they do Pop Mechs too? |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,Jon Date: 14 Mar 08 - 07:51 PM Doesn't look like they did. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: JohnInKansas Date: 14 Mar 08 - 09:29 PM A few current ZD activities from my regular lists: ZD: PC Magazine I see offers regularly for an "online version" of the magazine for about $10 (US) per year, but have continued my paper copy at a somewhat higher price for around 20 years. a. Articles are written by qualified people, who's credentials you can inspect, and generally the same staff writes all the main articles. The rare "guest writer" will be identified and credentials shown. b. Hardware and software evaluations show how tests are run, what equipment and programs were used, and give specific results. In some cases, when they've built special test programs, the programs are made available for those who want to do their own tests. c. Opinions are clearly identified as "opinion," and generally cite sources that you can verify for yourself if you want. d. Article archives are fairly easily accessible, and are kept available long enough that the "Wiener proof" is very rare. e. Citations and links to "Partner Publications (see below) are abundantly supplied. ZD: eWeek - Security eWeek's Security section is just one area that I hit most often and had a link handy for. You can dig into other areas via the header or footer. ZD: Extreme Tech If you want DIY, you can find complete plans for building your own "from-scratch" computer, with complete part lists and specifications for all the components along with rationale for how/why specific selections were made. (Click on "Build It" on the header.) Also a good source if you want to get into "exotic" things like overclocking, "extreme gaming," or other dangerous things that are bad for you and your computer – with a reasonable safety net. This is where (some of) the ZD writers and editors "play." eWeek Microsoft Watch Might be of vague interest to a few. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Murray MacLeod Date: 15 Mar 08 - 10:12 AM Jon, the absolute zenith of my "programming career" was writing a program, in BASIC, to calculate fret spaces. Not only did it do that , it had an iterative function built in so that if the 12th fret didn't come out at exactly .50000000 of the scale length, accurate to eight decimal places, then it went back and modified the generally accepted divisor of 17.817 until the 12th fret did come out at exactly .50000000 of the scale length. I don't think the processor could handle more than eight decimal places IIRC Absolutely pointless exercise, of course, could serve as a definition for "spurious accuracy", but was it ever fun to write, and what a great sense of achievement I got. You can't do stuff like that on a PC or a Mac, Googling and downloading "fret space calculator" doesn't quite have the same heady sense of adventure ... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: pavane Date: 15 Mar 08 - 10:51 AM Of course you can still do stuff like that on a PC. Even if you don't have Visual Basic, you can use VBA in Excel, for example. Works just the same as VB. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: ranger1 Date: 15 Mar 08 - 11:02 AM I'm an occasional reader of EGM, but the big impact for me is their gaming website, 1up. The website is currently in the middle of chaos due to a server change and it doesn't seem as though there is any rush to fix things. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,Jon Date: 15 Mar 08 - 11:03 AM Nice one Murray, I understand that feeling. btw, I suspect the precision might have been to 8 digits (floating point) rather than to 8 decimal places, but maybe not. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: JohnInKansas Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:54 AM Murray - You can't do stuff like that on a PC or a Mac, ... The last time I laid one out, I did it in Word (and I bet you can't do it that way(?)) But I've also done that, and some slightly more tricky stuff, in BASIC back when the PC I could get at the office only had a 1D 5.25 Floppy to work with. The tough part was getting the program that your buddy was trying to run in PC-BASIC to run on the machine you had that had GW-BASIC. And "breaking the encryption" when some idiot "did you a favor" but used the default save on the program you'd been building for a week or two. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: pavane Date: 16 Mar 08 - 03:15 AM The original version of my music program HARMONY was written in QBASIC. No fonts, so all the notes, clefs, etc had to be drawn by graphics commands. PAINFUL (and not very pretty). |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,Jon Date: 16 Mar 08 - 06:50 AM I'd use a spreadsheet for the fret spacing. I'd probably use perl where I might have used BASIC. eg.
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Murray MacLeod Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:07 AM I never cease to be totally amazed at the power of Google. I just input "17.817153" into the search box, to see if anybody else had ever worked it out to such accuracy, and lo and behold, the first hit (of only two) was Jon's post above, only 18 mins after he had posted it. Totally awesome (in the true sense of the word) IMHO ... |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,Jon Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:14 AM Really I should have had 17.817154 which might give more results. I had used your 17.817 to google for the calculations and found this which amongst other things told me that the 17.817... is "the reciprocal of (1 - (reciprocal of the 12th root of 2))". A play with perl suggested. 17.81715374510574179112154524773359298706054687500 |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: JohnInKansas Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:28 AM It's pretty obvious that there are lots of ways to do a fret calc, and it's hard to say that one is better than another. I've used Word just because it's what I use for just about everything. Excel would be a step easier for most people, and of course a program in a favorite language is handy. A piece of string and a ruler also works if you're careful (although a good beam compass is a bit more accurate). For the sake of argument - without expecting anyone else ever to use it: THE THEORY: The ratio of the string length to one fret divided by the string length to the next (lower) fret is the 12th root of 2 for an equitempered scale. R = 2^(1/12) It's more convenient to work down from the full string length (0 fret = the nut), so invert the ratio 1/R = 1/(2^(1/12) For a string length A (bridge to nut) the distance from the nut to fret n is then Dn = A*(1 – (1/(2^(1/12))^n) THE PRACTICE: If this equation is written out properly in Word: Fret {seq fretno} Distance from nut = {=650&1-(1/(2^(1/12))^{seq fretno \c}))\#0.000000} THE ABOVE SINGLE LINE IS ALL THE "PROGRAM" YOU NEED. All one needs to do is copy that line and paste as many times as the number of wanted frets, select the whole mess and hit an F9, to get: Fret 1 Distance from nut = 36.481697 Maybe I should mention that the { and } are Field Markers and not just characters. They must be inserted using Insert|Field (or Ctl-F9) and the stuff inside them typed after they're put into the document. The funny little \#0.000000 at the end just tells Word to display 6 decimal places. It would of course be "prettier" using tabs to align columns, but that's a bother in html. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: JohnInKansas Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:30 AM I did proof, but there's one typo. The "&" in the "master equation" should of course be a "*" multiply sign ^#$@!!! John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,Jon Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:43 AM Interesting John. I don't know anything about that aspect of Word. |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Mar 08 - 11:35 AM When ZiffDavis' PC Magazine is running in whatever new dimension evolves from bankruptcy perhaps all of you will collaborate on a 17.817153 article for the new and improved company rag. ;-D |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: Stilly River Sage Date: 19 Mar 08 - 01:20 PM It struck me this morning when I glanced through my email that I had conflated two publications in the opening post. The deceased techie I mentioned was an employee at c|net, not PC Magazine. I get email from both. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: JohnInKansas Date: 19 Mar 08 - 04:17 PM Since the bankruptcy is proceeding methodically, and there isn't much to report, perhaps a report from ZD isn't out of place here, just to show that it is "business as usual" for now: Has anyone heard about the new programming language called F# ? Does anyone care about the new programming language called F# ? Has anyone ever played anything in the key of F# ? No? No?, and probably No? again? That's what I thought. I'm not much into programming, but this appears to be something that might be useful for some who do, even for those who love to hate Microsoft. Whether you're interested in using it, those who build their own websites and run servers may see it later and wonder where it came from (?). Microsoft Watch (ZD eWeek) provided a link in their latest newsletter to an article that suggests that a few of our people who actually might do some programming, and might need another tool, might be helped by at least being aware. Exploring the New F# Language gives enough of an "intro" that some might be able to play with it, offers why you might, and suggests how to get it - if anyone is interested. It's a pretty brief article (4 short web pages), and a quick read to see if it's worth knowing about. Features Listed: Full .NET accessibility Complete command line scripting use Integration with Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio 2008, and the Visual Studio 2008 Shell (download it at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vsx2008/products/bb933751.aspx) Cross-platform availability (Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Vista, Windows Server 2008, or Linux/Macintosh with Mono) Strong data typing and type inference Good application performance inline with using C# It's apparently intended for use mainly with Visual Studio, which won't run on Mac or Linux, but F# can be used on either of them, or in Windows, for other purposes - he says. I'd be curious to hear whether someone might have a use for it ... or if everbody but me already knew all about it. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,Jon Date: 19 Mar 08 - 08:20 PM Has anyone heard about the new programming language called F# ? I hadn't. So (for me) NO. Does anyone care about the new programming language called F# ? I cared enough to look at the article but I'm not interested in .net so YES NO. Has anyone ever played anything in the key of F# ? YES (well tried to) No? No?, and probably No? again? That's what I thought. ;-) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: JohnInKansas Date: 19 Mar 08 - 08:51 PM Well then how about the new HOME SERVER 2008? Comments in the same source a week or two ago revealed that this brand new Microsoft product, for HOME USERS who want to network all their computers and have a real server for backups and serving up programs and content, has something of a peculiarity - for a server. While it does sound like a nice little toy, especially for the backup part of it, this new OS features advanced parental controls that seem to interact unpredictably with other programs, and to randomly delete random files from its hard drive(s). ZD (eWeek/Microsoft Watch) is warning people NOT TO GET SUCKED IN - at least for now. Microsoft is reported as "working on it." Based on recent past performance, "working on it" likely means they're trying to figure out how to claim that randomly disappearing files are a "feature" and it's good for you. DO NOT BE MISLED though, by references you see to a "new OS" called "WinME II." That's just a pet name, used by a number of writers, for Vista. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 20 Mar 08 - 02:05 AM JiK This clever idea of being able to write SW in a language that will run on all platforms has a drawback - as detailed in the security magazine 'hackin9' - that's correct - it has a '9' at the end, and is the work of a Dutch guy named 'hacking'.... I'm not making this up you know.... :-P The problem is that malware is thus now able to easily run on all these platforms.... :-) |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Ziff Davis bankruptcy (PC Magazine) From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 20 Mar 08 - 01:27 PM Back in the early 60s Ziff Davis published the Science Fiction magazines, 'Amazing' and 'Fantastic'. Under the editorship of Cele Goldsmith these were two of the greatest mags in the field. |
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