Mag Online
Volume Number: 9
Issue Number: 5
Column Tag: Online
MacTech Magazine Online 
By Ken Gladstone, MacTech Magazine Technical Editor
We at MacTech Magazine have recently expanded our set of services to include
online forums on AppleLink, CompuServe and America Online. These forums provide
you with a wealth of information. On each forum, you will find the source code and
supporting files for all the articles from the most recent issues of the magazine. You
will find mail-order store and magazine subscription order forms [So that means you
can renew more easily. So do it now! - Ed.]. You will find information for prospective
authors and advertisers for the magazine, message posting areas, employment
opportunities, and much more. Here is a brief summary on how to get to our area on
each of the three services, and what you will find there:
America Online
The quickest way to get to us from America Online is to select “Keyword” from
the “Go To” Menu (-K) and enter “MACTECHMAG”. You will also find us (at least
for a while) in “New Services” off the Welcome screen. Our full path is
“Departments: Computing & Software: Development: Company Support: MacTech
Magazine”. Add us to your “Go To” menu with “Edit Go To Menu” for quickest access.
Once in our area, you will see a file called “About MacTech Mag” that describes the
magazine and the forum, and you will see three sub sections. The first section contains
information such as product and contact information. The second area is a message
board where you can post and read messages. The third area is the Library where
source code files, information for authors, and information for advertisers are all
available for downloading.
To sign up with America Online, call 800/827-6364. This will get you
Customer Service and you can request a free copy of the AOL software.
CompuServe
Type “GO MACTECHMAG” and you will find yourself in the “Macintosh D Vendor+
Forum” that we share with several other companies. The long way to get to our forum
is: “Forums: Hardware Forums: Macintosh Forums: Mac Vendor Forums: Mac D Vendor
Forum+.” Once you are in the forum, you can select “Browse Libraries” and choose
our library section. This is where we post source code files, along with information
for authors and advertisers. You can also choose “Browse Messages” and select our
section to post a public message on a new topic, or to add a message to an existing topic.
Choose “Waiting Messages” to see your private messages. Choose our section in “Join
Conference” to carry on a real-time conversation with anyone else in the conference
area.
To sign up with CompuServe, call 800/524-3388 and ask for Representative
193. This will get you an “intropak” with a $15 usage credit.
AppleLink
You will find us in “Third Parties: Third Parties (H-O): MacTech Magazine.”
Add us to your “Personal” menu for quickest access. In our area, you will find a
“Welcome to MacTech Magazine(TM)” document describing the area. You will also see
three folders. The “MacTech Magazine Information” folder contains information for
authors, information for advertisers, our product order form, and information about
our various products. The “MacTech Library” contains several folders containing
everything from source code for our magazine articles to third party upgrade patches
to tools that you may be using. The “Discussion Area” folder is where you get a chance
to put in your two cents. It has a folder for submitting “Tips and Tidbits,” it has
“Help Wanted” and “Help Available” folders for matching people with jobs, it has
folder for news releases, and finally it has a “General Discussion & Questions” folder
for the interchange of ideas. To sign up with AppleLink, call 408/974-3309.
Your magazine! Your online areas!
If you are currently a member of one or more of these services, try out our
forums and explore. If you are not yet a member of any of these services, you now
have yet another reason to join. We monitor all of these forums daily, and when we
can, we will provide answers to appropriate questions that you post. Please give us
feedback on how you like these services, and if there is anything we can do to improve
them. We have always said that this is your magazine. Now you can add to that: These
are your online areas!