Magazine of the day: Guitar Aficionado

With all these book stores (Stacey's, B.Dalton) disappeared near where I work, what I missed the most was browsing through their magazines (the former has a great selection!) Now my first priority whenever I'm in a book store is going through the magazine section. That's how I found this new magazine Guitar Aficionado last weekend.

It is not your typical guitar magazines, i.e., those with lots of instructions, transcriptions, reviews. It is more like other magazines of luxury goods (e.g. watches, boats, cigar......) In fact, it does have sections about luxury goods! The cover piece is about a famous chef who is also a guitar enthusiast. So, you get the idea. I'd say it's an interesting approach. The subscription rate is $24.95 for 4 issues (per year.) I guess it's not a bad addition to anyone's coffee table (which I don't have)

Magazine of the day: Audiophile (Hong Kong)

If there is such thing as audio equipment news junkie, I would be one. Even though I rarely buy any equipment, I just love reading the reviews or even the advertisements! Those gears always look interesting to me. One of my favourite magazine is Audiophile from Hong Kong. Most of the gears are so exotic (and not to mention, expensive) that I'll never own one. However, the March 2009 issue is an exception: it has a special on complete systems that are under HK$30k (~US$4k) Definitely a good read. I could see 2 trends in this mag:
1) more and more coverage of brands from China. After all, they make affordable gears and they know the taste of audiophiles in Hong Kong and China well.
2) even though most of the systems are still being used with CD players, some are taking PC/iPod into account. And I believe that is the future.

每週冷飯﹕懷舊

原刊登於00年5月1日:

最近家中大收拾和整理舊物﹐因為筆者喜歡懷舊﹐所以把舊書舊雜誌翻閱得津津有味﹐原來我早己和雜誌結下不解緣﹗其中不少是自八十年代開始收集﹐本本都有感情﹐本本都捨不得丟掉(最後迫不得已唯有只留下每個年代一些有代表性的舊書舊雜誌)

我以往買的雜誌主要關於電腦科技﹑影視娛樂以及音樂。電腦雜誌方面﹐我自83年起開始閱讀I.E.電腦週刊﹑微型電腦專刊﹑現代電子﹑香港電子等等 ﹐今天重讀﹐其中不少內容都令筆者感概良多﹐包括今天大放異彩的UNIX﹐袋裝電腦(今天Palmtop Computer的前身)﹐85年John Sculley重組Apple公司和Steve Jobs被擠出局﹐雷聲大雨點小的日本第五代人工智能電腦計劃﹐以及可以列為文物的8"大磁碟的廣告(如果嫌這個不夠懷舊的話﹐請讀關於卡式磁帶機驅動程式一文﹗)

以上提及的所有雜誌現在均已不再存在﹐在雜誌界想圪立不倒實在是一件十分困難的事﹐曾拍過多張具代表性和紀念性照片的《Life》雜誌亦於最近宣布停刊(只搞網上版)﹗不過我相信如果零零誌在十幾年之後還會被大家重讀的話﹐我們一眾主筆必定已心滿意足。

原來《Life》雜誌只是比PC Magazine, AsianWeek及Dr. Dobb's Journal走快幾步﹐它們都在去年停印﹐只出網上版。