Well, doesn’t time fly. It only seems like yesterday I “commented” on a new issue of .NET, yet here is another one. Last month I resisted the urge to rant on about the magazine – unfortunately I dont think I can do the same this time round. There are good and bad points, possibly one of the major good points is the fact that this month the magazine is actually inspiring enough to rant about.

Sadly, some raging lunatic at .NET has decided to go for a major overhaul of the magazine. The sections are renamed, the writing style has drastically changed (and not for the better in most cases) and the sequencing has been altered. Now, I appreciate people often reject change but this really is change for changes sake. I cant for the life of me think they consulted their customers before this re-design (I subscribe and they never asked me).

The old layout, while re-assuringly familiar, did need a change. However it needed a change for the better. It seems that at the moment, .NET has hired the crazy horse who designs Computer Arts and gone for the same look and feel. Sadly, this seriously diminishes the “uniqueness” that .NET used to have regards structure, content and style. Now the magazine looks a bit like a poor copy of an arty style magazine and, strange though this is to admit, it actually takes away from the “authority” the advice it gives carries.

Some bits of it are good – the letters are at the very start now for example. There seems to be more advertising, but I dont know if that is actually the case or an effect caused by the way every article seems to be surrounded by ads. One other positive thing – the crazy editor who oversaw all manner of bad advice, typos, misprints and other assorted lunacy is leaving now. (I can only assume she is moving to Computer Arts…).

Well, that is enough on the style – I will think about polite things to say about the articles and return to this topic.