I have been a print subscriber for years and NO WHERE on this site can I find how one is supposed to access the digital edition. I added the digital subscription to my print subscription. If anyone knows how to do this please let me know. Wy it is not in FAQ on this site, I have no idea.
You need to download Zinio reader 4;
https://www.zinio.com/account/download-reader-page.jsp
You should have gotten instruction to do this when your subscription was accepted.
When did you do this? As I remeber there was a delay between subscribing and getting the digital verzion.
MR sends the monthly issues to Zinio so download it and let us know what happens.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
AP328,
Just to the right of your post, there should be a box that says "Welcome back, [your name]"
Below that is a link to "Update your account" if it's an account issue, such as checking if payment went through, whether you're indicated as receiving the digital edition, etc.
I hope it's not too complicated. I'm about to be gifted with the wife's hand me down iPad and MR is on my list of subscriptions I need for it.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Yes, you need to sign up for a free Zinio account and download their app (if you want to read it on a tablet). When I signed up they were giving a bonus offer of money to use twoards other Zinio products so I also subscribed to a couple of other magazines. So for my $10 to add digital to my MR subscription, I ended up with subscriptions to 3 magazines.
And the digital MR comes early - I had it Friday already, my print one will likely come sometime this week. That's the May issue. I've already read it, might not even crack the print copy this month.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Too bad model railroader can only be read on this zinio reader, when every one already has a .pdf reader. check out how model railroader hobbyist does it. It's much better.
Ron
(Begin long rant, actually directed at Kalmbach, not necessarily the other forum members.)
AMEN! Although, frankly, I would prefer the Kindle or Nook formats (ESPECIALLY Kindle).
I've had my Locomotive 2012 digital content for about 24 hours now, and haven't read much more than a few lines. First, I had problems installing the Zimio on my Android tablet (admittedly, this seems to have improved subsequently without my doing anything, and looks to have the best Zimio experience since then).
I then had problems with the Zimio reader on my netbook- it showed the magazine for a moment, then disappeared when I accidentally closed the reader (Yet another complaint, this time directed to Adobe... WHY did you mess with a well-known interface by making your control boxes a different size/shape?)
I tried reading in the Zimio web app, and had the same experience that I had with the tablet originally- clicking would zoom in too far (thus the "read only a few lines" comment), and then I couldn't drag to a different location, but had to zoom back out and re-zoom in again. These are simple-enough things to do, and fundamentals that a company that wants to compete, heck SURVIVE, over the next few years will need to do.
By way of comparison, I can read Kindle content on: Windows XP, 7 (no Vista anymore), 8, in a browser, on my Android tablet, and on my Windows Phone. Just for grins and giggles, I'm installing the Kindle on my iPod Touch right now, just to prove to myself that it works. (I've read Dr. Seuss recently-enough that I'm tempted to say, "In a plane, on a train...". The Kindle apps can recognize formats other than the proprietary Kindle format (epub and Mobi being my preferences, but including PDF and plain text), and can read both DRM and non-DRM books.
Why did Kalmbach feel the need to re-invent the wheel and go with Zimio, which appears to me to be somewhat of a kludge? Because my experience has been so inferior so far, all I can figure out is 1) price, or 2) protection of their intellectual property (I'm not going to segue into my rant on DRM right now, although that's closely related to all of this).
Regarding the first... that is likely what I call a "False Economy". Perhaps Kalmbach can save a few royalty or distribution dollars here and there by going with Zimio. However, if they lose out on more dollars by discouraging people from purchasing the digital content in the first place, then overall, they've lost money.
Regarding the second... I vastly prefer buying DRM-free publications. (sorry, I guess I did segue after all....) I don't share them, I don't even loan them out (except by passing my tablet to another modular club member to read at a show). Why? Because in 30+ years of using computers, I've seen WAY too many file formats disappear. The thing I love about my piles of paper magazines is that I KNOW I'll be able to find "that article" and read it five, ten, or (God Willing) forty years from now. Only my ability to convert files from one format to another (using tools like Calibre) gives me confidence in my ongoing ability to read eBooks beyond a couple of years from now.
I won't claim that Kindle, or Amazon, or PDFs, or any of the other things I've suggested are perfect... far from it. (I WILL save those rants for another day. ) All I'm saying is, I've found them to be superior to my experience so far with Zimio and the Trains Digital Content. For the time being, I won't be buying any more of the digital content.
Interesting, I have Zinio on my tablet, twice, because I also installed Android on it in a dual boot mode so I have the native WebOS version of Zinio as well as Android, and I've had no problems with my digital MR or the other two magazines I subscribed to (at no cost - see my previous post - but I won't be renewing either one). In fact last month's MR, I don't think I even opened up my paper copy. The digital one gets here a good 4-5 days before my paper one and I've often already finished it byt he time the paper copy gets here.
As for why Zinio - well, it's cross platform, about as widely as can be - I even have it on my iPhone although reading a magazine on that is a challenge to say the least. It's available for WebOs, iOS, Windows, MacOS, Android, and perhaps more. Zinio distributes a LOT of magazines, not just Kalmbach's, probably the largest collection of various apps. There was no re-inventing of the wheel, Zinio was already an established digital magazien distributor when Kalmbach went with them - remember, they are kind of late to the party with this digital thing.
My experience I exactly opposite, at least when it comes to using the Kindle App on a non-Kindle device - it's is a HUGE pain to get any non-Kindle content loaded, I've given up. I just use the iBooks app on my iPhone, Aldiko on Android. I understand on an actual Kindle it's actually much easier. Doesn't surprise me that Amazon would make it work better on their own device, but I have no desire for a single tasker.
I DO agree when it comes to the other Kalmbach content such as the 75 year MR collection. It would be really nice if I could read that on my tablet and not just my desktop PC or laptop. While the total installation is clearly too large for even top of the line tablets, all it woudl take is an option to install a subset, whatever you're willing to use up of your storage.
As for the other mag, while I CAN read it on my tablet, I rarely do so - to get the full effect of the embedded content it works much better on my desktop on a big monitor in full screen. May be different once they go to HTML 5 instead of PDF. Frankly, Adobe's updates every other time I start my computer are a bit tiring, how about just fixing it RIGHT and stop adding a bunch of unecessary bells and whistles? When it comes to creating and viewing documents cross-platform, the original intent of PDF, there are free tools that are much faster than Adobe's, they just don't do all the embedded movie stuff.
Brian,
Model Railroader has been available in the Kindle store and the Nook store since last winter.
Sincerely,
Neil B.
editor
Neil Besougloff
editor, Model Railroader magazine
Neil,
I'm aware of that.
What I'm talking about is the desire that:
were all available in a format I could read on a wider variety of devices.
In some ways, I'm sure that I'm an outlier... I've got all the devices mentioned in my original post, and then some. In theory, I could install the 75 years of MR on my laptop, bring up whatever issue I'm trying to read, and bring that into my workshop. (takes more disk space than I can afford right now...)
What I can't do is:
Real Soon Now, I'm going to have a Microsoft Surface RT*, which I'm kinda hoping will replace the Android tablet. Kindle will work on that, but the Zimeo probably won't any time soon, and the encrypted PDF-based Kalmbach digital archives (the DVD sets listed above) probably won't, since they require full-blooded Windows.
Because of the convenience factor, once I got a tablet, I watched my laptop use go down by perhaps 75%- I'm only using it for actual content creation (I can't touch-type on a touch-screen), or programming DCC. I'm actually replacing my favorite physical books with eBooks (mostly Kindle, a few Nook or DRM-free ePub when I can find a source such as www.baenebooks.com that offers them).
Begin Rant Mode:
Overall, what gets on my nerves about DRM is:
1) that it's necessary in the first place. I've had many arguments with "pirates" (let's just be frank, and call them data thieves) of my acquaintance over the whole "Information wants to be free" discussion, and I'm sure I'll never convince any of them that don't actually become authors, and thus, losers of income.
2) once DRM been implemented, I can only use the content I've purchased in "Officially Sanctioned" ways. AFAIK, none of the DRM solutions are perfect, preventing a determined pirate from getting at the content. All they do is prevent those who try to work within the system from valid Fair Use.
In other words, I'm punished because I actually pay you for your product, instead of hacking my way around the DRM. The doesn't seem right to me.
End Rant Mode. Sorry 'bout that.
* The ARM-based, Windows-8-lite, hopefully-iPad-killer more-than-a-tablet device.