I’ve been an advocate of e-magazines – magazines that you can subscribe to and read on your computer using a modified PDF or similar format that preserves the publication’s original format and can be printed out if required. (Not as much of books online, because books are by definition longer than magazines, and usually require careful reading – whereas most magazines are simply browsed through, and perhaps 1 or 2 articles and a few other snippets read… And books have shelf-life, most magazines don’t.. ).
I loved Zinio when it was launched, and gradually added most of my favorite magazines (unfortunately not all of them – and I don’t read many… ) to its list.
However, I’ve been having problems reading the last 3 issues of PC Magazine – Zinio downloads them but I can’t read them. I click on the magazine thumbnails to open them but Zinio doesn’t act. No errors. No crashes. No visible attempts to open those issues.
Interestingly, all previous issues work, and so do all other magazines except new issues of PC Mag.
Further, there’s no response whatsoever from Zinio. PC Mag folks reply back – not sure from which part of the world, because they lack any customer service skills whatsoever – to tell me they can’t find my subscription.
What adds further insult to injury is the fact that I recently renewed my subscription!
If anyone out there is facing similar issues with Zinio or PC Mag, please leave a comment – it’d be great to find out I’m not the only one!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
My Dec ’06 issue of PC Magazine is consistently available to download, yet my PCW Feb ’07 issue downloaded and then got deleted everytime I checked for new deliveries. After 3 times, I can’t download it again, yet I can still download the latest PC Magazine (11 times now).
I am using Vista Ultimate 64bit, and all magazines download but I get Message # 32 when I try to open any. I never had this problem with XP. I already applied Zinio’s resolution to Message #32 but I still get the same message and cannot open any magazine.
I miss the days when I used to look forward to the mailman bringing my current issue of PC MAG.
Got the email on 2/2/09 to view my magazine. Here it is 2/9/09 and took a few minutes to see if I could get it and failed.
I’m getting to old to spend a lot of time trying to figure how why it’s not working with my machine. It’s a few years old,,it’s slow but it gets the job done. Since I’m more then comfortable around my computer I’ll say that it’s nothing wrong on my end. If this keeps up I’ll cancel my subscription,,I’ll miss the magazine bit I don’t need all this much stress.
So far I’ve been able to read PC Magazine with Zinio without problems, but every month I have to send a message to Zinio asking them to download the issue. They don’t seem to be able to do so automatically but they can send spam advertising other magazines to my e-mail account. Looks like I will be asking for a refund for the remaining issues as this is too much bother for a very slim e-magazine.