Saturday, January 22, 2011

Some Changes Being Made

Some of you might have figured out that there hasn't been an update since last year! Well, apart from either getting stuck in weather or having to get organized to start teaching and going back to class, I've been working out a few changes around here.

First off, no SAM Site Update yet, because there's apparently been no Google Earth imagery update yet this year. Nowhere new to go snooping around, you know how it is.

Second, I'm working on moving from web publishing to PDF publishing via a subscription system. No, it won't cost anything, I know what you were thinking there. This is going to basically entail a monthly publication via PDF format, distributed using a mailing list. More to follow on this later, but basically you'll still get the standard monthly content, just in an easier to read format. The thin-style Blogger format is getting old, and I'm getting more adept with the PDF thing. This will work just like the SAM Site Overview mailing list worked a while ago when I was having download issues. Certain things will still be published here, certain things will show up in the monthly PDF file. As a result you'll notice that a lot of things are being pulled from this site to undergo updating and PDF formatting. I think the end result will be a far more polished product, one that you can more easily retain for future reference.

Third and final, I'll be uploading a text-based piece analyzing the J-20 from a rather different perspective, either today or tomorrow, whenever I get it finalized. See, I haven't just been sitting here watching you all visit the site and wondering where the updates are! I'll also upload details for the mailing list/subscription thing shortly so I can start building the address list, in anticipation of getting something out for February.

Questions or comments, post 'em in the Comments section below.

6 comments:

Elf Zig said...

Thank you very much for all your effort you put into this! Really appreciated :-)

Regarding your choice, though: Wouldn't this be a whole step backwards? Something as inflexible and "offline" as PDF? Why don't you rather make a step forward, upgrade your blogging platform that allows a more convenient way to do things, and also publish in e.g. EPUB instead? (For example, there's a plugin for WordPress that allows posts (and even the whole blog) to be exported directly into EPUB). Or even just EPUB, as it's HTML based, a website could automatically be made of it — lots of writing software allow a direct export to this standard ebook format, so layout flexibility shouldn't be a problem.

If this at least sounds interesting, or you need some technical assistance, feel free to contact me: elfzig (at) gmail (dot) com

Sean O'Connor said...

There are other factors involved that make this a better option.

Plus, I always get asked if I can convert things to PDF format because people want to save the info, so this all worked out anyway.

Anonymous said...

Hi. Sounds great.

However could you maybe post the PDF attached to a blog post as well when you release it? Or a monthly reminder with a pointer to where it might be downloaded.

This way your site still could be followed via RSS.

Sean O'Connor said...

I will post a monthly announcement when the PDF is published, including the topics covered. At that time I'll also re-post the instructions for subscribing.

Sarab said...

Thanks for your effort.
i hope everything will be user friendly.

Anonymous said...

Sean,

I mailed you a couple of weeks ago regarding the PDF publishing & I'm more than happy to have it in this format. Hopefully you'll soon get around to publishing all of the archived material to PDF too.
Dave - UK