QuarterlyZine - Personal Telco Project

TomHiggins has suggested that PersonalTelco start a zine. Adam thinks that once a quarter would be about the right interval for it to come out in.

Here's a proposed table of contents written by TomHiggins for the first zine due out sometime in Q1 2003.

Letter from the Chief (thats you adam, think of something like the holiday party address to the masses and a general intro)
- AdamShand will do this.
Wifi 101 - a basic history, terms, where things came from , where tehy are now.
- TomHiggins will do this. Much of the content will come from the wiki.
How To Connect to PTP Nodes - (bascialy whats in the GetConnected ads but fleshed out, maybe some testimonials on how easy it is, examples for linux/win/mac)
My First Node -Steps to Building a Better Tomorrow Today- the basics of what it means to set up a node (platfrom unspecific), the options (now get os specific) and the hardware. Not too tech, but enough to get started
Antenna Mojo -Tech article on antenna basics, with each issue getting into the tech aspects of particular setups
The Centerfold (sexy pics of Piourette cans (with plans), Weatherproofed gear, the gutsof the ptp truck, etc etc)
Ask ProfessorKnowItAll - questions from email, irc, etc answered by our resident staff of bigbrainians
Resources - basic list of other wireless projects , maybe a spotlight article or two, lists of urls
PTP Happenings - meeting schedules, long term plans, contact info
Back cover with some more cool pics of geekly wirless stuff

Additional or future articles

Wireless and security -- ShaneGibson

Layout

If we keep it to 28-32 pages of content that would that would come out to 7-8 sheets of 8x11 with 4 pages of zine on each (2 front 2 back). I think with the rate the tech is moving, the expansion of a sceen that wants to learn, and the prolific writtings of some of our memebers we can easily do up a great zine this way.

Anyone who wants to do art, photos, images, etc.. start gathering them up and getting them ready. A good zine is about words but pics help greatly to make the words go down.

As to printing, I can handle doing about 40 copies or so of the zine IF we keep everything but the cover and back to black and white. The color cover and back I can get done in limited runs from a bud, but the while thing would be too much to do in color. I tried doing one issue of Countermoves in full color and nearly called it quits. Also, if you keep it to BandW I betmore than a few folks can squeeze off 10 or so copies from work related resources.

I also have one of them bigassed swingline staplers for stapling the beasts. Its not my orginal zine stappler, but it has the right mojo. If anyone else has one of them maybe we can ge togther a zine stapling party at my place. Ill even make dip:)- I have found in the past that a print run of about 150 to 200 can be done up this way in a night.

One Zine, Multiple Formats -- The Nitty Gritty of Zine Building

I have done a few zines and am currently putting a strategy board game zine out called Countermoves ( http://countermoves.blogspot.com/ ). Here is a way I have found to make one zine come out in multiple formats.

I start with just the text. I turn any images that are essential to an aticle into ascii (charts, boards, etc) when I can. All the proofing of words, syntax, grammar, spelling etc are done at this level. I then mold the basic zine as an ascii file, perfect for posting to usenet, bbs, or your fave ph!l3z drop.

Then I move up to Open Office. I pour the ascii into a zine template I made(page sizes, margins, gutters , etc all set up ). From there I add the presentational touches (fonts, tables, images, captions, etc). I save it up in OO format.

Form there I run it thru PDFCreator which turns it into a PDF. This is the display PDF. The pages run sequentialy .

I run the OO file thru PDFCreator again but this time set up for the Print Ready PDF output. The print ready PDF file has the pages set up right so all the enduser needs do is print all the even number pages, turn the paper over and put the stack back into thier printer, and print all the odd pages.. Folks with duplex printers wont have to do the turn step.

HTML can ge had by saving the OO file to HTML and touching up what OO is bad at. Failry simple and painless.

So there you have it.. start with simple ascii and build it up to whatever formats are needed. One source, many outputs.

I think that's a GREAT idea! The Newsletter could use any of the content Don and I have at [http://www.dailywireless.org dailywireless.org] - Sam Churchill

I can help by filling most layout and design needs for this, and also (if so needed) i have connections with several printers around town if we ever wanted to make a large run of this. -Dan Davis