Spinning Out of Control in Public
April 6th, 2001I was shocked and amazed to find my name in the May issue of Macworld Magazine (page 19). Apparently, a rant I wrote filleting the editor’s for their inaccurate portrayal of my favorite text editor, Pagespinner, was found worthy for the reader feedback column. They made the mistake of calling it a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, which fueled a burning fire of rage in me so hot that it could only be extinguished with the swift stroke of my keyboard (see actual article). Not too long after I sent my nasty-gram, I received this from David Weiss, the Senior Editor of reviews at Macworld:
We didn’t mean the term “Quasi-Wizzy” to be critical in any way, and I’m sorry that the review came across that way. We meant to suggest that PageSpinner is ’sort of’ like a WYSIWYG editor, insofar as you can get a preview of how your fonts will display on the page.
And we certainly didn’t mean to pan the product—I’m sorry if you got that impression. Although we had one or two criticisms, in general we gave a strong buying recommendation, as summarized in the buying advice, and reflected in the 3+ mouse rating.
Okay, so maybe I feel a little guilty, but the point is most people will spot the caption in the picture of a magazine first, and there lied the perceptual blemish of their article. I hate to see a powerful resource like Pagespinner, which just happens to be an underdog application on an underdog platform, damaged in any way. So, I thank the editors at Macworld for voicing my opinion and I encourage them to keep making great reviews… for me to poop on!!!!