SIMMER DOWN, BOYS... I
THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE
THAT MR. FOREMAN HAS
SUFFERED ENOUGH
A note by Harold Forman in
November’s In/Out section
slammed Jon Phillips for
a copy-editing error that
appeared in the October issue.
Forman astutely noted that an
apostrophe was omitted in the
word “were.” His razor-sharp
analysis of the error observed:
“’Were’ means something totally
different than the conjunction
‘we’re’.”
Little wonder that the
circles in which Forman moves
acknowledge his “way with
words.”
While the context of the
error did make it particularly
ironic, I’d like to suggest that Mr.
Forman lower his nose from its
present haughty perch and stickit in a good grammar book. The
misspelled “conjunction” that so
disturbed Mr. Forman (“we’re”)
is not a conjunction at all, but
rather a contraction.
Walk the halls of English
grammar with some humility,
Mr. Forman, and show a bit
of charity toward the harried,
human copy-editor, lest you trip
publicly over your own “way
with words.”
—BRADFORD TERRYBETTER RED THAN DEAD?
I was very shocked and offended
at the “ad” on page 39 of your
November issue. This ad has
a picture of the White House
with a Commie flag over it (and
lower in the page a little postage
stamp-size logo for the game
Civilization ). Sirs, this is not an
ad for a game—it is a political
statement, and a treasonous one
at that. Is it your policy now to
run this type of cheap-shot anti-
American propaganda when this
county happens to be at war?
After seeing this ad I willnever, repeat never, buy a Firaxis
or Atari game again for me or
anyone else, and you can relay
that thought to your advertisers.
If you’re going to continue to
run ads of this ilk, maybe you
should change the name of
your magazine to something
more appropriate, like Le
Socialist Workers People’s Review
of Maximum Decadent Kapitalistic
Komputers.
—RAY C. SCHULTZEDITOR-IN-CHIEF JON PHILLIPS
RESPONDS: It may be a disturbing
image, Ray, but I don’t think it’s trea-
sonous, at least not in the legal sense
of the word. Regardless, I should
point out the copy that runs with
the image: “But for a few decisions,
the world could be a very different
place.” Now, I don’t know about you,
but I interpret that as an endorsement
of America’s Cold War policy, whichpretty much had the widespread
support of our nation’s most pas-
sionate self-proclaimed patriots.
Regardless, I think we all know the
game publisher’s intent was ironic,
not political.
As for regulating the ads that
appear in the magazine, we are
sometimes a victim of the stringent
firewall that we place between the
advertising and editorial staffs of the
magazine: We don’t have the foggiest
idea of what the ads look like until
the magazine comes back from the
printer (nor does the ad staff have any
idea what specific content appears
in the editorial pages). Sometimes
this firewall really bites us, but the
Civilization ad wasn’t one of these
cases.MAD PROPS FOR MOZILLA
Your Head2Head column on web
browsers in the November issue
nailed it on the head when you
said that Mozilla was better than
Internet Explorer. The tab feature,
free pop-up controls, and
numerous skins available rock! I
switched to Mozilla six monthsago and found that sacrificing
a bit of speed for these
benefits was a no-brainer, but
compatibility issues gave me a
big headache. Many web pages
with certain scripts or Java
wouldn’t load, or would cause
Mozilla to crash. I considered
going back to IE , but I didn’t
want to lose the advanced
features I’d grown accustomed
to, so I went searching for
another browser.
What I found was the Avant
Browser (www.avantbrowser.com ).
It updates Internet Explorer’s
primitive interface to a tabbed
wonderland. The practical
upshot is that you keep the
speed and compatibility of IE,
and gain tabbed browsing,
pop-up controls, and skins,
just as Mozilla has. It’s freeware
and under 3MB to download. I
know this isn’t a “true” stand-
alone browser, but how could
you not even mention Avant?
—CHARLES PECKTECHNICAL EDITOR WILL SMITH
RESPONDS: We didn’t include
the Avant browser specifically
because it’s an extension of
Internet Explorer , and not a stand-
alone browser. It does add much
Mozilla -like functionality to IE , but
it still lacks the spiffy Mozilla
extensions. You should also know
that since we ran that story,
Mozilla released Firebird 0.7 ,
which is significantly more stable
than earlier releases. We haven’t
had any compatibility problems
with the newer version yet either.SECRET WEAPON
SENSITIVITY
Am I seriously the only person
that thinks the additions to
Battlefield: 1942 (from the Secret
Weapons Of WWII expansion),
such as the motorcycle with
machine gun sidecar and a
gunner with a freakin jetpack
are extremely disrespectful? Do
the people at EA not know how
many soldiers fought and died
in that war? I think it’s time
for the people at EA who were
responsible for this to pull their
heads out of their asses and
show some respect.
—MIKE MCKAYMAXIMUMPC
IN THE
CUTER THAN
BABY NEW YEAR
JANUARY ISSUE OF
NEXT MONTH
COMING
Extreme
Hardware
Our PC experts are poised to
reveal 2004’s hottest new compo-
nents, so don’t you dare upgrade
until you’ve read this report!
Includes a 10-point plan for stay-
ing ahead of the tech curve, and,
if all goes well, a special preview
of the world’s most controversial
uber-PC.The 2004 Softy
Awards!
Which applications and utilities
are worthy of your rig? Find out
in Maximum PC’s Second Annual
Softy Awards. Our editors present
their very favorite software—from
well-known apps to obscure digital
widgets—and explain in detail
what makes each one rise above
all the others in its category.The Maximum PC
Challenge: The USB
Key Endurance Test
You trust your personal data with
these flash-memory thingies—but
should you? It’s time we found
out just how rugged these little
pups are. Can they take the heat?
Can they endure the cold? Can
they survive a dunk in the john?
Our editors go out in the field to
answer these very questions.PLUS: In our most poignant
Head2Head ever, we inspect and
dissect the top four online music
downloading services. (The legal
ones, that is.) Find out who’s got
the most music, the lowest prices,
and the best policies—all without
spending a dime of your own hard-
earned cash.continued on page 10“
”
IS IT YOUR POLICY NOW TO RUN THIS
TYPE OF CHEAP-SHOT ANTI-AMERICAN
PROPAGANDA?In/Out
08 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2003