A PC Pro Wishlist


Yes, I’m in Rant mode again; just sent this to PC Pro magazine:

To: letters@pcpro.co.uk
From: neuro@well.com
Subject: Wishlist

Hi PC Pro Letters,

I was pretty disgusted to note the completely haphazard manner in which David Fearon researched and documented Ubuntu Linux’s “downsides” in your “Who’s Killing Windows?” feature (p122, issue 156). He references the relatively complex Synaptic package manager application to add and remove software, when for over a year a simple and usable “Add/Remove Applications” applet has been sitting at the bottom of the Applications menu in every standard install of Ubuntu. The rest of the article was littered with errors, and this has led me to a wishlist, a la Jon Honeyball’s (p128-129, issue 156).

  1. PC Pro should endeavour to contract writers who are knowledgeable on their chosen topic. If they can’t write authoritatively about the subject they are submitting articles on, they shouldn’t write them at all. The Real World section is terrible for being full of inaccuracies while purporting to be written by experts.
  2. More editorials from high profile figures from outside the IT industry, and real critical pieces from regular contributors such as Dick Pountain’s diatribe on cover discs.
  3. No more rambling back page rants from Jon Honeyball, please.
  4. More space for readers’ letters; surely you receive more than 10 usable missives a month? This is the age of Web 2.0, interactivity!
  5. Less screengrabs of websites in Real World and elsewhere, cf Steve Cassidy’s MS and IBM grabs (p175-176, issue 156). I understand writers sometimes struggle to find appropriate art, and that pictures speak thousands of words, but it’s akin to BBC News Online posting a shoddy screengrab of google.com to talk about Google. If you have to screengrab, at least get an app or relevant shot.

This is the first I’ve been compelled to write to PC Pro to complain in years of reading, and the magazine is otherwise consistently excellent. Hopefully this will be taken as constructive criticism and not just a random slating! Keep up the good work.

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