gHacks technology news » free magazines http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Read Magazines At Google Book Search http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/12/read-magazines-at-google-book-search/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/12/read-magazines-at-google-book-search/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:24:43 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=8939 Google began to include magazines to their book search engine. The search is currently limited to selected magazines with plans to expand it in the future. One could probably assume that only older or outdated magazines have been scanned by the Google Book Search team. This is apparently not the case. Several December 08 issues of popular magazines are already accessible by the book search.

Some examples are issues of Maximum PC, Men’s Health or Mac Life.

Google does not provide a list of all available magazines which means that users need to use the search to find magazines of interest. One of the best methods to find current issues is to limit the type to magazines and the year to 2008 which can both be done in the advanced search options.

Each magazine can be read right in the web browser. It is possible to scroll through the magazine, jump to a page and to zoom in or out. There is also an option to view the magazine in fullscreen and to display two pages next to each other which is great for users with widescreen monitors.

magazines online

The quality of the scans is quite good. It is interesting to note that zooming will have no impact on the text quality. Google Books seems to use a method to sharpen text after zooming in or out.

Google needs to work on the usability of Google Book Search. The most important function that is missing is an overview of all available magazines.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/12/read-magazines-at-google-book-search/feed/ 0 Read Full Magazines at Mygazines http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/20/read-full-magazines-at-mygazines/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/20/read-full-magazines-at-mygazines/#comments Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:04:22 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5461 I only read a couple computer magazines on a regular basis and other magazines only when I have to go to meet a doctor who usually have heaps of them lying around in the waiting room. Still I know lots of people who read magazines, lots of them, on a regular basis. Women really seem to like those women magazines that talk about diets, fashion and celebrities.

If you like magazines you will love the Mygazines website. I first was not sure what to expect from that website until I opened a test magazine only to find out that it was the full version of the magazine in good quality.

With Mygazines users get free access to a large collection of popular magazines. If you check the Computers & Internets category you find many well known publications like PC World, Macworld or PC Gamer but there are other categories like Women’s Interests and Childrens & Teens that cater to different audiences.

If you take a closer look at the games subcategory you find the August 2008 issues of many popular game magazines. Not only PC Gamer but also Game Informer, GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthly, DPad and Total PC Gaming, some even with backissues.

You find so many magazines at that website that you could probably waste a whole month just reading all the currently available ones only to start over at the beginning of next month with the new issues being published there.

Did I mention that it is completely free and that everyone, including guests, can view all magazines on that website ?

The website makes use of a family filter that hides adult content from guests. Only registered users can disable the adult filter to view magazines suited for adults only. For the sake of this article I registered at the website and turned the family filter off to find lots of men’s magazines in the men’s interest category: Penthouse, High Society and Voluptuous to name a few.

Far more interesting is the option to receive notifications when a new magazine is published. The user can select a category, subcategory, keywords or magazine titles plus some additional information like a date range.

I’m not sure how long this site will be up but it is definitely amazing.

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