What the acronyms are saying is that Railroad Model Craftsman (RMC) has published part 2 of Mark Baldwin's excellent article, "Virtual Gilpin" in the September issue, which is now available. In the same issue is my guest editorial on virtual railroading (VR) in the Editors Notebook column. A couple of minor errors slipped in during the editing process, but the essential thing is that a mainstream model railroad magazine has taken a chance and published a significant virtual railroading effort - Mark's Gilpin. Thank you, Mark, for a great series; and thank you, RMC, for publishing it.
Al
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Monday, August 01, 2005
Sociology, Anyone?
I'm loaded down with preparing the next issue of Virtual Railroader and working on a few other projects, so I'm going to let John Bruce do the talking. Have a look at his article "The Sociology of Model Railroading" here: http://www.trainweb.org/lfnwfan/html/Sociology.htm.
This is a fascinating bit of writing, and I should say a LOT of writing rather than a BIT. If this is too much to handle at one sitting - it is for me - try copying and pasting the entire article into a WordPad document on your computer for liesurely reading in small sections.
Speaking of WordPad, I've found the perfect replacement. It's called Jarte and is available free at http://www.jarte.com
I've been using Jarte steadiliy for nearly a month now for creating drafts of all my lengthy correspondence, articles, ideas, and so forth. It produces Rich Text Files - the universal word processing format - and stores them wherever you like. The nice thing is that it displays all your open RTFs in a tabbed environment in which the program interface gives the feeling of working in a notebook. That's great - all my stuff is in one place, yet it is not in a proprietary setting.
Al
This is a fascinating bit of writing, and I should say a LOT of writing rather than a BIT. If this is too much to handle at one sitting - it is for me - try copying and pasting the entire article into a WordPad document on your computer for liesurely reading in small sections.
Speaking of WordPad, I've found the perfect replacement. It's called Jarte and is available free at http://www.jarte.com
I've been using Jarte steadiliy for nearly a month now for creating drafts of all my lengthy correspondence, articles, ideas, and so forth. It produces Rich Text Files - the universal word processing format - and stores them wherever you like. The nice thing is that it displays all your open RTFs in a tabbed environment in which the program interface gives the feeling of working in a notebook. That's great - all my stuff is in one place, yet it is not in a proprietary setting.
Al
Monday, July 25, 2005
A Great Time To Be a Model Railroader
There's probably never been a better time to be a model railroader. I just received my copy of Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette today and looked through the ads and reviews with envy. I especially like the On30 equipment because it represents an easy way to get into narrow gauge modeling.
On second look, it seems to me that prices are getting out of sight - just the thing On30 was meant to combat. It makes me glad I made the switch to virtual railroading 4 years ago. I won't try to tell you VR is free. After all, computers need to be upgraded, and the more you spend the better. Still, $1000 for a new PC every 4 years equates to not that much model railroading equipment. Scanning the reviews, I spotted a gorgeous DRGW K-27 that goes for $489 - a bargain considering the quality. That's half my 4-year new computer budget. Yikes! There's also a laser-cut boxcar kit for $138. DOUBLE YIKES!!
Speaking of bargains, check out the prices of niche publications like Tall Timber Short Line. Meaning no disrespect for this fine publication, but you can see that Virtual Railroader, which is absolutely free, including all the back issues, is a bargain that's hard to beat. Come see us at http://www.virtualrailroader.com .
Al
On second look, it seems to me that prices are getting out of sight - just the thing On30 was meant to combat. It makes me glad I made the switch to virtual railroading 4 years ago. I won't try to tell you VR is free. After all, computers need to be upgraded, and the more you spend the better. Still, $1000 for a new PC every 4 years equates to not that much model railroading equipment. Scanning the reviews, I spotted a gorgeous DRGW K-27 that goes for $489 - a bargain considering the quality. That's half my 4-year new computer budget. Yikes! There's also a laser-cut boxcar kit for $138. DOUBLE YIKES!!
Speaking of bargains, check out the prices of niche publications like Tall Timber Short Line. Meaning no disrespect for this fine publication, but you can see that Virtual Railroader, which is absolutely free, including all the back issues, is a bargain that's hard to beat. Come see us at http://www.virtualrailroader.com .
Al
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