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page that says “We [Amazon] will share the name, billing address, and order information associated with your newspaper or magazine purchase with the publisher, who is under obligation to keep that information confidential.” We can assure you that we’ve never had access to any of this information and have been told - in direct contradiction to the above - that it’s against their policy to share this information. It would be rather handy if we had access to it, as we could then be more inclusive of our electronic readers by offering them subscriber-only features such as free marketplace ads. These kinds of bumps in the road make things harder than they really have to be and they can’t be doing much to encourage more publishers to try out the new technology.

We’ve also been experimenting with new formats, such as our annual 300 page collection of articles and expanded pictures in PDF format. The reaction to last year’s Volume 26 was strong enough to get us to do it again for Volume 27. For each of these projects, it’s vital that everything be done properly, which takes more time than we had ever anticipated. But in the end, that’s a good thing because we wind up with something unique that we’re proud of and it provides a service for those who want the magazine in this format. We also have a bit more control over pricing and publishing conditions, meaning that we can do this cheaply and with absolutely no digital rights management (DRM) controls. (We insist on this for all of our projects, but sometimes a provider does something that goes against our wishes, in which case we’re forced to complain and drag their name through the mud.)

It doesn’t have to end there. This is a new landscape and we can populate it with original ideas and features that would have been difficult before. As always, we’re open to feedback on this. It may take time to get things working just right, but we seem to be well on the way, and in a relatively short amount of time.

All of this is not meant to take away from the importance of our trusty paper edition. We believe there will always be a strong market for our kind of material in a printed magazine and that there’s something special and unique about our publication when it appears in mailboxes or on bookshelves. We don’t want to ever lose that thrill. But that’s how things change in a positive way - new facets of technology merge with the old ways of doing things and we end up with multiple outlets that complement each other and make the entire experience that much more fulfilling.

We’ve learned so much in the last half a year and it seems there is a good deal more ahead. We need to take this method of achievement and apply it everywhere else that our interests lie, not just in the places where we’re expected to go. For example, rather than accept limitations of technology as defined by our own expectations of how the door will be closed in our faces, why not start the dialog and reach for something new? If, say, hacker conferences in Europe can get phenomenal amounts of bandwidth donated to them by their phone companies, why must we assume that such a thing could never happen here? If the media continues to misunderstand and misreport what the hacker world is all about, why do we conclude that we will never be able to sway the perspective in a totally different direction? Sure, any such achievement is an incredible challenge and requires a lot of people working together. But it can only be attained if the effort is expended and if there is a belief that those things everyone believes are impossible can be completely doable with some determination and cleverness. This is how hackers have always accomplished things. We know how to do it on an individual and local level. Naive as it may sound, we can reach much higher and eventually see even more accomplished.

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Dealing with Credit Card Companies - Lessons Learned from an Illness

by The Piano Guy | 1472 words

In the event of illness and loss of ability to conduct your own affairs, someone is going to have to manage your financial