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Sys Admin Magazine Ceases Publication
keithl writes "I received a postcard in the mail today informing me that Sys Admin magazine has ceased publication. 'We regret to inform you that the magazine has ceased publication effective with the August 2007 issue.' Only paid subscribers with remaining issues receive this mailing. If you do nothing, they will send you a copy of the Sys Admin archive CD (1992 – August 2007), or you can return the card for a full refund of all unsent issues. The deadline to return the postcard for a refund is October 1, 2007." The magazine's Web site has no word that I could find on the closing down of print publication.
Magazines simply can't compete with the interactivity and frequency of websites and blogs. The model is dying so all special interest magazines are feeling the pinch.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
...bad idea.
http://www.magazinedeathpool.com/
...that sucks. I hadn't heard anything about this. I actually subscribe to this magazine, and find (check that, found) it very helpful. I think if they had developed a way to digitally copy/paste text from the paper to my application, that would have save them. So many times I have said 'this code is really great. I'll just select it all and...oh wait... DAMMIT!'.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
But never bought it because all the issues I saw were like double issues in a plastic sleeve, so I could never check out the content. Pity, it looked interesting but not enough by just reading the cover.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
It was one of the few mags I'd had that put more into content, than into fluff and adverts.
So, umm, will they carry on in a web-only version?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
This was mentioned in a little blurb in the August 2007 edition; I guess a lot of people may have missed it if they're sending out postcards (I didn't notice it until the second time I thumbed through the magazine). From the looks of it, they won't be simply switching away from a paper format, but just ending the magazine all together.
Kind of a bummer, I've been reading it for years -- since before I actually started my career as an SA and was only tinkering with BSD and this newfangled Linux thing...
It's because of the ever shrinking UNIX installs, since Windows Server has become the dominant operating system in the data center. TechNet is a more relevant magazine that all of you open source zealots should start reading. Linux with Beryl is great for flipping your screen around in a cube all day. Windows is great for when you want to run a business.
does the card you're supposed to send back ask for your bank account number? Lol if their real website doesn't mention a word about it, that's just too strange for this not to be some sort of fake. Can anyone confirm this not being a scam?
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I don't know about that. I'd typically buy Linux Journal. Sys Admin felt almost like a weekly, although side-by-side I'd say Sys Admin was actually the better magazine (but Linux Journal caters to a wider audience..). I think Sys Admin simply missed the boat by not jumping onto the Linux bandwagon. Too bad, I always meant to get a subscription so I wouldn't be lured by the beefier Linux Magazines (with their end-user content, soft surveys and advertising).
Quack, quack.
The editor put the news in the final issue as well, which was mailed out a couple of weeks ago. I'll be looking for my postcard now though - thanks for the heads-up!
While it's true that printed media has a hard time competing with online resources, SysAdmin was one of the few magazines I looked forward to reading cover to cover each month, so I'm sad to see them closing up shop.
It's nice to have information "pushed" to you sometimes; I learned several things over the years on topics I probably would never have gone looking for on my own.
take your pills honey and turn off the light. mommy will sing you a lullaby
I've often wondered why magazines aren't formated for the different levels of expertise. Why not have the first 1/3'rd of the magazine devoted to beginner articles. The 2nd devoted to intermediate articles and the last 3rd devoted to expert material?
That way you'd appeal to every range in your audience AND your magazines would be worth keeping.
it should've just said "@HJ89u^@^NO CARRIER"
Death of Sys Admin Magazine was quietly announced on june 13. by the parent company, CMP, in a subsentence.
http://cmp.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1722
A few days later, I got a polite letter saying they wouldn't be needing the article I'd proposed for publication.
I'm sure there will be a few bucks in it for a year or two.
It happens when user requirements are satisfied and/or shift.
A better question is:
Do you read the issues and throw them away or do read and save them for reference like me (a devout computer publication pack rat)?
My defunct publication list (all of which I still have),
Nibble (one of my favorites),
Compute,
Compute Apple,
Incider,
A+,
C Users Journal (turned into C/C++ Users Journal),
Computist (one of my favorites),
Byte (now online, content not worth the fee).
I also subscribed to Omni and Final Frontier, both great magazines, now defunct.
I currently just subscribe to Dr Dobbs Journal (still great after a 20 year subscribtion (damn Im getting old)), and Linux Journal.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
Surely the real surprise is that any serious computing magazine survived this long in a dead tree edition. I kind of figured that went Byte went under it was only a matter of time for everything else. (Long live Jerry Pournelle!)
Three Squirrels
It looks like the magazine's parent company, CMP media, has little faith in paper publications, preferring to focus their efforts on online material. However they are following this trend in a manner that hurts publications with real followings and a lot of history. Before sysadmin, it was the Perl Journal and venerable BYTE magazine that got the axe; I was particularly irked by Byte because it happened 4 months after I subscribed.
Someone from CMP did contact me about my problems when I complained (here on Slashdot, of all places!) and I realize that there are people within the company who really care about their customers and want to keep us satisfied. However it's obvious that someone up high, making the decisions, is making them with the sole intent of increasing profit, not pleasing customers. It's a business; they're entitled, but they should consider the "political" cost of taking measures such as axing established and very reputable publications.
Next thinhg you'll tell me The X Journal is under threat...
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Sys Admin community when IDC confirmed that Sys Admin market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all magazines. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Sys Admin has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Sys Admin is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent *BSD comprehensive networking test.
i used to subscribe to this magazine. reading it was by far my favorite way to enhance my IT knowledge--something i need to do daily in this industry.
i stopped my subscription when i decided to stop paying for dead tree media--an ecological decision.
i contacted the Sys Admin publisher and told them many many times that i was willing to pay *twice* their subscription price if they would make the magazine available digitally because i did't want a dead tree version. they told me in many different ways, no can do.
i'm not kidding when i say i contacted them many times and "climbed the ladder" speaking to various higher-ups. everytime i was met with what i would describe as a lack of vision. i was given every reason in the book as to why offering Sys Admin digitally via the internet would kill their revenue stream. unbelievable to me in the face of me telling them that i was willing to them pay double their subscription price (heck, i probably would have paid more).
imho, Sys Admin had a chance to become a (possibly THE) premier _profitable_ digital resource for IT folks. what got in their way was their lack of vision--their inability to re-imagine themselves.
R.I.P. Sys Admin
P.S.
if there are any flickering embers in the Sys Admin ashes, if someone takes up the reins and makes the rag digital i'm still willing to pony up good money for a subscription (and i suspect many others would be too).
Wow, I didn't even know it was still around .... I stopped reading when it was still called "UNIX Review".
it was good then -- not great, but good.
Sad. I would have actually purchased a subscription if it wasn't so darn expensive! From what I remember it was upwards of $40-50 dollars a year correct? That magazine should be no more than $20, especially since most of the content was user contributed.
I still have the first four issues wrapped up in plastic. Hopefully they'll be worth something on ebay one day.
sad to see samag bite the dust.
to me, samag was one of those just-in-time publications... often publishing topics just when i was boning up on those exact topics. there are several features of the magazine that i applaud:
+ table of contents is on the front cover (similar to vintage national geographics)
+ the authors were sysadmins and not journalists
+ samag was not a monthly ad circular with a few articles, but a monthly publication with articles and features with a few ads
+ articles are not editorialized ads like mainstream computer publications
+ articles are not lacking in technical information like mainstream computer publications
closing down this magazine without transforming it into an online publication is a real shame and and prolly a pretty stupid move on the publishers part. as with all things that have a strong following that meet an early and untimely demise(delorean, napster, radio shack model 100), samag will likely reincarnate in some fashion or another.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
Neglected, pure and simple.
a ting_Systems/Unix/
... insight.
They had the platform, the had the forum, they had an audience.
When it came to subscribe once again, I had to think - has this magazine answered, delivered, proposed anything of consequence? [not counting Amy's column]
It was supposed to be about UNIX (?), not just Solaris.
http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Oper
System Administrators want answers about the OS. [and the sum thereof]
I wanted Sys Admin to give me configuration tips, tuning tricks
I WANT magazines, not PDFs, I want something to refer back to, in these last few years I just skimmed it, read Amy Rich, then it went straight to the shelf.
It's too bad.
I liked the idea of the magazine, but they suffered neglect, from staff and ultimately reader interest alike.
~hylas
My copies were free (being a qualified subscriber). It must have bankrupted them... They were better in the earlier years but seemed to fall off the past few years. Being a hardcore packrat, I still have all of my old copies. I'll have to put them in my "archive" of defuct magazines along with Byte, Kilobaud (both sets from Issue 1 'til the end), 73, Popular Electronics, Science and Mechanics, Amazing Stories, Radio (TV) Electronics, Color Computer Magazine, The Rainbow Magazine, Elecronics World, Atari ST Magazine, Electronic Experimenter, etc., etc... RIP, Hugo Gernsback and William Ziff Sr./Jr., you are missed. Stay healthy Wayne Greene... Hmmmmm.... Wonder if I'll get free CD too?
I hope all your stacks of stuff don't fall on you and seriously injure or kill you.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The fact that the magazine called for papers from its readers, rather than simply pay a small group of contributors for whatever they could scrawl out in a month seemed to deliver better quality articles - I suspect this is something similar to more academic journals. I always had a good deal more faith in their articles than in any other periodicals I read.
The idea of a web based version on the surface seems like a good idea. However, based on other postings on this thread this does not look like something that will take off with CMP.
Doesn't this leave an opportunity for someone else to step in ?
If you think about this, if CMP are discontinuing the magazine, then the only remaining assets of value are their website, subscriber list, stock of backissue CD's, and possibly any articles in their library that have not yet been published. Maybe there is an opportunity for someone ( eg OSDN - hint hint) to talk to CMP and see if they can buy the domain. That, coupled with the potential use of their subscriber email list, could be an opportunity to develop a web based publication of similar quality (you know - one with editors that dupe check, spell check, fact check, etc) to fill the void.
Sell advertising in the publications, pay people to review the content before it's release to subscribers, and do it while people remember that the magazine actually existed.
Irrespective of the delivery method, I believe that there is still a need for such a publication. If it was priced in the same market as some of the other electronic magazines (eg Linux Journal) it may work.
I'd buy it.
Everyone's touting this as a great magazine (well, most everyone anyway).
Someone mentioned Unix Review. I was getting that one for a while and then it went under and turned its remaining subscriptions over to Sys|Admin. So I had a subscription for a little while. The ones I got then weren't very impressive though so I let it lapse.
I'd see it once in a while in the book store, browse through it and occasionally see something that looked interesting and I'd pick it up. But seldom did I find it consistently good enough to justify resubscribing. For a while there I made a point in picking it up each month and it seemed like every other issue had nothing that interested me, while the ones with some info were ok. The problem of course is that even if it finally got as good as everyone said, I was already at the point where I just didn't bother to even look at it.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
...a cue from Google, SysAdmin now transfers existing subscriptions to another magazine: Barnacles Monthly. "Caveat Emptor, motherfucker," says company spokesman.
Every year i.t. companies, especially online presences are shelling out heaploads of money at irrelevant and illogical online "ventures" to merge with their existing business.
Why some of the more sane ones gather a bid, get the magazine and make it what it should be like ?
Read radical news here
Let my subscription lapse years ago. But, remembering how there were a few articles that gave me solutions I'm still using in production, I tried to resubscribe a few months ago. After some weeks, they sent me the January issue - in May! That pissed me off, so I waited to see if it would be followed by February or June (I really wasn't trying to "subscribe" to back issues). All that came, 6 weeks later, was a letter saying "We've trusted you and continued sending you issues even though we have not received payment." Bullshit; they never sent a second issue. So I sent an e-mail to the addresses in their masthead explaining that I'd be glad to buy the subscription if they'd start with the current issue. No response at all. May they rot.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
*sigh* I guess it's back to "Readers Digest" for my morning constitutional.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
I got one of the cards, too, the other day. I was going to get the CD anyway, having relocated too many times. They first made noises that it was going to be subscription only, then this.
*sigh*
I'll miss 'em, esp. since I am now a Published Author, having two articles published in SysAdmin in the last year (Egoless Documentation, Sept, 06, and Upgrading Linux, June, 07, I think).
Then there was the recent quirkyness that I really liked - Codysseus.
Yeah, I'll miss 'em.
mark
On the very first page of the last issue was an editorial saying that it was, in fact, the last issue.
I'm guessing that the magazine gathers dust on shelves if nobody knew about this until now.
Ecce potestas casei!
starting with Linux Format (always good, and the DVDs are a quick way to get a reasonably recent major distro ready to boot), and Linux User. These two have both tutorials, news (usually old news by the time it hits print) and more in-depth articles than you get from most Linux Web sites. There are articles for novices and more advanced pieces for Linux geeks.
Rarely get Linux Journal because most of their articles are usually focused on something I'm not interested in. They have the same problem as Sys Admin - way too narrow a focus per issue - and I expect they will eventually go away as well.
Many of the IT industry mags are going Web only. Network World is gone, InfoWorld is gone. There just isn't much point in print magazines for the industry - everybody gets their news from either RSS, email news feeds, or Web surfing. The lead times of a print magazine just can't handle it.
As for PC magazines in general, I download mine from Usenet and haven't bought one in years. And most of the time, I don't have time to even browse the downloaded ones, which is unfortunate since the bigger mags still do have useful articles.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
does anyone remember Creative Computing?
eric