For some reason I wasn’t aware, but I just read a long editor’s note stating PC magazine will no longer be printed and will only be available online. This is the last remnant of a bunch of subscriptions I started to stay on top of the industry when I was reviewing software in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It doesn’t surprise me although I believed most magazines were faring better than newspapers. Obviously not this one. I’m coming around to accepting all the new media and saying farewell to the printed page, probably because I’m not involved in the production of the printed page anymore. We are obviously in a period of transition. It just seems to be happening faster and faster.

I’m adjusting to news on my cell phone and other devices. A year ago I was pretty resistant to the Kindle, now I’m looking forward to version 2. The big problem with reading a mag online is that many of us work on PCs, browse for new info and research with PCs, store, copy and manipulate photos with PCs, rip, listen and manage music collections with PCs, so it’s nice to take a break from the eye strain of the PC screen, sit back and hold something in your hands and just relax and read. Always being in front of that PC screen is one of the biggest obstacles to a full-blown wipeout of the print industry. The Kindle offers a more eye-friendly screen, but I’m still waiting for the Japanese prototype of a thin Kindle-like device I can get a newspaper on and roll up and put in my pocket that was promised in the late ’90s.

PC mag is a good one. Because it was printed, slightly dated, but it has some interesting columnists, decent hardware reviews, good free utilities and indepth features. I’ll read it but probably not as much until it’s delivered onto something easier on the eyes.

Connecticut is a prime battleground for new media. Two papers about to go out of business in January, a bunch of Shoreline papers wiped out just the other day, the two largest dailies apparently going bankrupt.