I’m not renewing my subscription

[Tony PaynParticipant @tonypayn24819]

I've subscribed to the digital edition of MEW for one year now, but will not be renewing. At the end of that year, I have nothing to show for it.

Most of my year's subscription were downloaded to 'keep' on my old PC running Windows XP. Due to expiry of support for that by Microsoft, that is no longer connected to the internet for security. However, I can no longer read my downloaded magazines, as internet access seems to be required to validate whether I am entitled to read the downloaded magazines or not, and as this fails, I can no longer read them.

I bought a new laptop (not just for MEW) but as it runs Windows 8.1, and the offline reader seems incompatible, I can't see anything I've downloaded onto that computer either.

An email to PocketMags explaining these problems has received no reply.

I could continue subscribing and looking at the archive, but I have not received what I was promised and am reluctant to soldier on with what is in effect 'half a subscription'.

Shame, I was enjoying the magazine.

[Tony PaynParticipant @tonypayn24819]

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Tony;

As someone intimately involved in the Internet since the beginning (and before, with the Arpanet), and an App writer, and so on, I'll tell you about something I've discovered.

Paper magazines rock.

You can sit in the backyard with a beer and read them. You can go into the wilderness of Canada and read them.

You can horse-trade them with friends and family. You don't need to recharge to read.

You own them.

Try the paper magazine for a year, and see what you think.

Just my thoughts pre-coffee!

[Neil LickfoldParticipant @neillickfold44316]

With mine, win7 , there is an option to look at what is down loaded offline. It brings up a warning, but only means that while offline, new content can not be downloaded.So instead of choosing yes, I click NO, then it opens to a blank screen.I goto downloads and then can read the downloaded magazines.

I regret not getting the printed version. The digital version is not as user friendly as I would have hoped for or liked.

Neil

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

As Neil says if you are offline and open teh offline viewer it will try to connect and validate, if you are not connected then it shows the window below, click YES and you will be able to view all those that have been downloaded even if you are not connected.

 

The reader is not 8.1 compatible, maybe Neil could give us some info as to when it will be updated?

J

Edited By JasonB on 01/09/2014 11:52:59

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

Tony,

I've recently replaced my laptop, running Win 8.1, installed the pocketmags offline reader and downloaded all of my mags.

To test, I've just switched off my wifi and loaded the app, I get a warning about not being connected, clicked yes to work offline and I could read all of my downloaded content.

The digital mags are convenient for a quick read but I still subscribe to the paper copy as well for all the reasons John cited.

CB

[John ShepherdParticipant @johnshepherd38883]

I couldn't agree more with John's comments about paper copies. I consider I am what they call 'computer literate' and use them a lot but am I the only one that has to print a document to give it a critical read?

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

Part of the value of subscription WAS the online archive.

I am lead to believe that this online achive has ceased.

I shall consider whether the value of subscription meets the price.

 

As a MEW subscriber and estimating that ( sure soneone has the figures too hand) the saving of subscribing is say 1/3 rd it would only take 4 edition a year to not buy to break even ( if you see what I mean)

Shame really. ..I think the mew is currently at its best for some time…

 

 

Edited By jason udall on 01/09/2014 13:21:47

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

The online archive has not ceased.

You get it with Paper Plus or Digital subs but not with Paper only

 

CB, thanks for confirming the offline viewer will work with 8.1 I was going by what it said on the PM site.

J

Edited By JasonB on 01/09/2014 13:32:54

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

Ok.

THE FREE ONLINE ACHIVE has ceased

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Hmmmm! Was a subscriber for a long time, then got fed up with poor content and cancelled. Recent apparent improvements prompted a rethink, so, yesterday re-subscribed. Auto response acknowledged receipt and the following – "Your subscription number is noted below. Please quote this in all communications." Excellent … except that there was no such inclusion!!! Never mind, it will obviously arrive once the real people are back in the office … errr , NO! nothing so far Ah well, there have been enough forum complaints about the software and subs problems, so I can't say I haven't been warned! Will have to grab a bag of patience and wait for the nice people at My Time (or whatever they are this week) to consider offering some service for the use of my money. At least it is only for one year – that is DEFINITELY ONLY for one year!!

Rgds

Bill

[BikepeteParticipant @bikepete]

Bill, I'm not defending MTM in any way (no connection etc. except for a paper only sub!) but could I urge you to just call or email them? I run a subscription service (for something completely unrelated) and there's nothing worse than a dissatisfied subscriber 'being patient' and then several weeks later contacting you with steam coming out of their ears because you haven't done something you were entirely unaware they were waiting for! As you say the order processing is going to be completely automatic, and no human will likely be aware that you're missing a sub number. Only if you let them know there is a problem can they sort it out.

Edited By Bikepete on 01/09/2014 15:04:39

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hello Tony,

My understanding is that it is as Jason says and our website declares:

NOTE: We strongly recommend that you ensure that you download your magazine issues whilst connected to Wi-Fi due to the file size. Once downloaded, your magazines will be available to read without any internet connection.

Pocketmags IS compatible with W8.1

If you keep getting the error (and have no internet), please call the number below.

Can I stress that moderators have no direct involvement with subscriptions but the contact details for the people who can help are:

For any Offline Reader specific problems please click the Help link within the reader whilst connected to the internet or email help@pocketmags.com. If you have any general subscription questions please visit your magazine FAQs page through http://www.myhobbystore.co.uk/subsfaqs or email mytimemedia@subscription.co.uk. Our Customer Care Team can also be reached by phone on 0844 543 8200 (UK) or +44 1858 438798 (Overseas) lines open weekdays 8am – 9:30pm & Saturdays 8am – 4pm (GMT).

Anyon who is NOT able to resolve their problems through these routes, please email me with as much detail of the problem as possible and I will pass it on with a request to get it sorted, but PLEASE try to follow the above route first.

Thanks,

Neil

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

I fear that I might be about to shoot myself in the foot, but here goes, anyway …….

i am a paper-only subscriber to MEW and , like others, have recently lost the facility to view past issues via the forum link. Of course, I knew this was coming about and started to download the archive, page by page, using cutepdf printer utility. My goodness, that took a long time per issue and I eventually lost the will to live and gave up! I also have an app on my iPad which accesses the archive and, so far, this is still working for me. I'm sorry, I can't for the life of me remember where I got it from, but it must have been from the app store. If the OP has an iPad too, maybe he can get at the archive this way?

John

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

THE FREE ONLINE ACHIVE has ceased.

I think the story goes like this:

In days of yore people's expectations from 'digital magazines' were pretty unsophisticated.

A basic online viewer was put in place, but it has many limitations (no printing, no local download etc.).

As it was cheap, online access was bundled free with paper subs.

Technology marched on. By embracing new technology we could provide downloadable, printable mags but still with some copyright control and other functional benefits, such as smartphone access.

This was not cheap, so there had to be charges for all – not a fortune, it's about £9 a year extra on top of a paper sub, for digital access.

At this point, the obvious thing to do was remove the old system, but then existing subscribers would have lost access to all the back issues.

It was suggested to leave free access to the old archive for paper subscribers, but the counter argument would have been that this competes with and undermines the paid-for system.

The situation for the last year and a bit has been a compromise: "give people over a year's notice that access to the online archive will be taken away from paper only subscribers. EMAIL EVERYONE and put a BIG NOTICE on the archive no-one will be taken by surprise. Paper subscribers will appreciate not simply cutting access off suddenly"

Neil

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Neil,

I hear what you say and it doesn't conflict with what has occurred. However, it doesn't explain how I (and others in the same situation) can still access the archive through the "old" iPad app. I've done a bit more digging and there is reference to the app in a thread on the forum entitled "using subscription on MEW app on I pad" (sic). It appears that this app is no longer available from the iPad store, just the reader, from, presumably, the publishers, which charges per issue.  So I'll continue to access the back issues this way until such time as the facility is stopped.

John

 

Edited By John Hinkley on 01/09/2014 16:49:23

[VicParticipant @vic]

I do understand copyright control etc but digital content readers are just plain rubbish compared to a half decent PDF file in my opinion.

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 01/09/2014 16:21:33:

A basic online viewer was put in place, but it has many limitations (no printing, no local download etc.).

Actually, the viewer that was used when the archive was first put in place did allow printing and what's more, allowed printing of the whole issue in one go. The publishers soon got nervous about that for obvious reasons and replaced the viewer with (an earlier release of) the current one, which only allows printing one page at a time, in an effort to make printing (to pdf) more difficult and therefore less attractive other than for short sections.

But printing of some kind was always an option.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I've done a bit of digging in the Pocketmags FAQs. People having PC issues may need to install or upgrade their Silverlight plugin (free from microsoft).

Neil

[DuncParticipant @dunc]

John Alexander Stewart posted: "You can go into the wilderness of Canada and read them."

Gee, we're not that bad… are we?

[Tony PaynParticipant @tonypayn24819]

Wow, a lot of replies to my post and thank you all for your comments.

I entirely agree with John Alexander Stewart about the benefits of paper copies. I am just this way with books – no Kindles or such for me. I would be with magazines too except they need somewhere to store them, my other half is none too keen on me collecting more stuff to dust!

I tried my old desktop again this evening and the problem is that when the offline reader loads, no magazine covers are shown but instead, an exception is thrown which brings up a box asking me if I want to debug the application (= offline reader). When I decline this, it closes the application.

However, some good news is that on my new laptop (Windows 8.1), the offline reader now works! One of the enormous number of updates Windows did the other day must have done something to make it work.

So I'll monitor the situation over the next few days and then make a decision on re-subscribing. In the meantime I am a relatively happy bunny once again – I can at least read the ones I paid for.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Ok then, here's what I do!!!

I get a paper copy. Always have, always will. Space wise, I have a couple of shelves for the mags in the garage. The mags themselves are stored inside old large breakfast cereal cartons suitably cut. When I receive a copy, I read it, and then copy into the computer any, not many actually, articles which might be applicable to my admittedly narrow range of interests. I also have a home-made database into which I enter brief details of most of the articles.

What this means is that I can either find a copy on the computer and then print it out, backs of old A4 envelopes or those adverts that come through the letterbox, you know, the ones with a clean reverse side, are useful here. If I haven't already got it on the computer, then a search through the database, followed by retrieving the original and printing as above.

Which means that I don't need to bother about downloading, storage in the cloud, subscriptions, or whatever since I always have the original.

And by the way, the database is an old, ancient, obsolete, DOS based database known as Masterfile Professional which can be made to work very well under Windows XP, which in turn is running as a guest system on a Linux machine. Copying of articles is done by scanning and saving as a JPG under Linux now, but originally via Paint Shop Pro under Windows XP & 2000.

Smugly yours (!!!),

Peter G. Shaw

[John CoatesParticipant @johncoates48577]

Hi Peter

So it's the digital subscription you're not renewing? Must admit I'm a paper copy guy keeping a database of all the articles so I can search when I'm undertaking a particular project then dig the relevant mags out

Good system for the electronic copies. And I'm a Linux user too

John

[Raymond Sanderson 2Participant @raymondsanderson2]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 01/09/2014 15:50:28:

Hello Tony,

My understanding is that it is as Jason says and our website declares:

NOTE: We strongly recommend that you ensure that you download your magazine issues whilst connected to Wi-Fi due to the file size. Once downloaded, your magazines will be available to read without any internet connection.

Pocketmags IS compatible with W8.1

If you keep getting the error (and have no internet), please call the number below.

Can I stress that moderators have no direct involvement with subscriptions but the contact details for the people who can help are:

For any Offline Reader specific problems please click the Help link within the reader whilst connected to the internet or email help@pocketmags.com. If you have any general subscription questions please visit your magazine FAQs page through http://www.myhobbystore.co.uk/subsfaqs or email mytimemedia@subscription.co.uk. Our Customer Care Team can also be reached by phone on 0844 543 8200 (UK) or +44 1858 438798 (Overseas) lines open weekdays 8am – 9:30pm & Saturdays 8am – 4pm (GMT).

Anyon who is NOT able to resolve their problems through these routes, please email me with as much detail of the problem as possible and I will pass it on with a request to get it sorted, but PLEASE try to follow the above route first.

Thanks,

Neil

Thanks Neil for this info as stated elsewhere I am not happy with the quality of Pocketmags digital edition visually.

The statements here by some who have already pointed if using older win versions it may become impossible to transfer the digital copies downloaded to later win versions. Just try opening some old original Win Office files, thank goodness for Wordperfect Office.

However all may not be lost for those using older Win versions I have not done it yet but locating the storage folder and doing whats needed to transfer to new system.

I wonder also if in saving the files and software to a USB stick or external HDD maybe the best option that way its always portable.

Ray

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 01/09/2014 18:07:14:

I've done a bit of digging in the Pocketmags FAQs. People having PC issues may need to install or upgrade their Silverlight plugin (free from microsoft).

Strange …. PocketMags works perfectly well on my Windows 8.1 machine and I don't allow Silverlight within a mile of it.

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