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by Phil Hughes
By the time you have reached this page, you may have noticed some changes in the appearance of Linux Journal. The changes are more than skin deep and, in this column, I will let you know what is happening.
The changes have come about both in response to reader feedback and in our attempt to streamline production of the magazine. Up through issue 11, layout was done on a contract basis by an outside person. This interface, both because of the physical location of layout being in a different place than the rest of magazine production and because there was a Macintosh involved, took more time and effort than was practical. With issue 12 we started to move layout in-house and, after a false start or two, we are happy to say all is under control.
Our new layout person is Amy Wood. She has previously worked for a weekly newspaper and the biggest problem we have with her is convincing her that she has a whole month between magazines instead of a week. The layout itself is still done in Quark XPress but it now runs on an MS-Windows system which is connected to our Linux network. The actual interface is handled by Samba (see LJ issue 7 for more info on Samba) and is transparent to Amy. For the rest of us, it means that files can be sent to and from that system without the need for sneaker-net. (In a future issue we will have an article on how Linux Journal is produced using mostly Linux systems.)
Because Amy had so much extra time after finishing up issue 13 she looked at the assorted comments about our layout and along with her own ideas, came up with the current layout. The major changes you should notice are a cleanup of the page format and the addition of "continued-from" lines on the continuation pages of articles which include a keyword so you know what article you are reading. Also, she is putting a lot of effort into minimizing the number of jumps within articles. Please let us know what you think of her work.
The second big change is still under way but should be done by the time you read this. We have established a WWW site, www.ssc.com. As well as having information on SSC products, we will be putting up information from Linux Journal. First we will put up the tables of contents and advertisers indices and then add some of the articles from the magazine. Advertisers can request links from their index entry to their web page and, if they don't have their own web site, for a nominal fee we will put their web pages on www.ssc.com. If you are an advertiser and need more information on this, contact Carlie Fairchild at (206) 782-7733.
As well as SSC and Linux Journal information, we will have some general Linux information on the site so if you are looking for something to browse try http://www.ssc.com. This is, of course, a Linux machine. If there are things you think should be added to the site, send e-mail to linux@ssc.com.
Finally, with Linux 1.2 out there, more commercial vendors are starting to take Linux seriously. If you see anyone with a commercial interest in Linux, whether it is a vendor interested in making their product work with Linux or a company that is using Linux, please point them our way. The more information of commercial interest we can get in LJ, the easier it is for us to convince others that Linux is a viable alternative to other operating systems.