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Chicago TImes Newsletter Distribution Notice


JB Freeware

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First off I would like to thank everyone for all the kind words and support. I just finished our second edition for March and have started on April. The reason for this added post was to notify everyone about a change in the way we will be distributing it. Originally we were going to set up an email subscription and take emails and send the newsletter to you each month. We then ran into a fatal problem with this method. The size of the newsletter is too large for some emails. This was due to two factors. One is we decided to print the newsletter in color (color takes more room vs black and white) and two, I've filled each issue with a ton of graphics. The first issue was only 18 pages and had limited graphics so it only bounced back (email return due to size) on a few accounts. The march issue is 20 pages with even more graphics. We intend to revive another age old Chicago User Group tradition and print a "Super Summer Issue" which will cover the months of June through August and be even larger.

 

So as you can see, using email to distribute this is not going to work. As such we are going to put each issue up on our new web page which is now in test mode right now. You can test it out now by going to www.chicagotiug.org (note you currently need the www but we are working on that) and downloading each months issue in standard PDF format. I'm very sorry for this bait and switch.

 

In addition, we are going to make each months issue available the day after our monthly meeting. After all it's only fair that our members who take the time to attend get first shot at the newsletter. If you attend you will get a hard copy of the newsletter in either large print or standard booklet form.

 

Once we put the finishing touches on the web page we will announce the official grand opening here. Until then, please feel free to enjoy our test preview version at www.chicagotiug.org

 

As usual, I welcome any comments and suggestions for both the newsletter and the web page. Thanks everyone!

Edited by JB Freeware
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Are you optimizing your PDF?  I know of several trade magazines and product brochures which are distributed via email in the 10s sometimes 100 or so pages, built like yours.  They are not print-quality in most cases, but distrubute well.

 

That said, bulk emails face many challenges due to email abuses.  Size is one, with some systems placing dial-up era restrictions on size, some with (reasonable) delivery restrictions for number of recipients in an envelope or per unit of time, and now Gmail, Apple, and Yahoo!'s demand of both SPF and DMARC for light senders and DKIM additionally for bulk senders.

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I'll have to talk to the group and see what they want. I thought about sending out email links but then again once you bookmark the web page, it's so easy to just hit the download button once a month. As far as optimizing the PDF you caught me there as I did not know you could do that. I simple hit "Print to PDF" when I'm done and I thought that was it. I'll check into what you suggest. Trying to keep the work down to a minimum so I can use my time to create the newsletter vs distributing it.

 

Thanks for the great tips!

 

Oh and BTW I'm looking for suggestions on content. Right now, with no one writing articles but myself, I am relying in old articles and stuff I can write up. I'd love outside content but I'm not going to steal others work without permission and seeking out said permission after so many years can be challenging at best. So I'm using public domain stuff and the old Chicago library and Newsletter. Much of the graphics are mine. I like tinkering with graphics :)

 

Anyone out there want to write a monthly byline? I'll add your name of course so you get full credit. Something of interest to the TI community. Reviews of games, history of the TI and insight to things that are not common knowledge. Now you'll get the very same pay that I do LOL

Edited by JB Freeware
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10 hours ago, JB Freeware said:

Thanks for the great tips!

I am happy to answer any questions or give whatever help I can.  I have been running mail servers for almost 25 years.  I have spent innumerable time tuning my system to deliver mailing lists (listservs) to various providers over the years.

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Just now, OLD CS1 said:

I am happy to answer any questions or give whatever help I can.  I have been running mail servers for almost 25 years.  I have spent innumerable time tuning my system to deliver mailing lists (listservs) to various providers over the years.

Thank you! I'm still getting my feet wet here but it's nice to know that so many in the community have never lost what I remember so fondly back then... the outpouring of support to help each other. I'll have to discuss some of the great ideas and options I have gotten here with the group and see how they want me to proceed.

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9 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

@JB Freeware I just had a look at the February newsletter.  It weighs in at a svelte 2.9MB, which should not be a problem for email distribution.  Even with MIME expansion, it should only come to about 4MB.  Did you have problems sending it before?

Yeah I got bounce back on a few accounts. I'm not worried about Feb but march is almost 8mb and the super summer issue will be twice that size. Graphics are the issues and I LOVE graphics LOL

 

Is there an advantage to sending out via e-mail vs people just downloading it? I'm not against creating an e-mail list and sending stuff out as long as there is a good reason to do so vs just providing the download link online.

 

I found this online:

 

Here are the file size limits of the most popular email service providers:
  • Gmail: 25 MB.
  • Yahoo: 25 MB.
  • AOL: 25 MB.
  • Outlook: 20 MB.
  • Hotmail: 10 MB.

So hotmail, if this is correct, is a problem or will be eventually as the size of the newsletter grows.

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On 2/27/2024 at 3:29 PM, JB Freeware said:

Is there an advantage to sending out via e-mail vs people just downloading it?

Eh, not really, I guess.  I think a lot have gone to fancy HTML emails with links to their newsletter page.  There are some who send out the actual publications, but usually those are not people who care about or want to generate extra traffic to their websites (big commercial corpos want you there, for certain.)  This method is mostly useless for me because I do not allow my email programs to render HTML, and often just toss emails which are so HTML-heavy I unable to make out a link for anything I find interesting.

 

(I also only have a maximum of five lines in my signature, no more than 72 characters-wide, starting with a "-- \n".)

 

About six-and-one-half, really.  Email is easy if you can do it, but restrictions resultant from email abuses are making email less reliable for the things we want to use it.

 

I am told the common wisdom on email size restrictions is to prevent over-working mail servers when large messages start taking up their spools.  I am also told the protocols used for email retrieval are not meant for streaming data caused by large attachments.  Oh, and the bandwidth issues.  Bullshit on them all.  Back when we ran mail servers on dual-100MHz Ross CPUs with 256MB RAM, 1GB SCSI drives, with fractional T1/T3 uplinks and POP3 over dial-up, perhaps.  But we live in the future with multi-Gb ISPs, 24-core blades, IMAP and MAPI, and multi-TBs of storage.

 

So, in conclusion, a good mailing list with valid recipients, proper SPF and DMARC records in DNS, and a website to host the document is probably the easiest way to go.

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