Earlier this week I got the press release saying that new edition of Thanet District Council’s magazine Thanet Matters was available online, I couldn’t find it on the council’s website, so I let them know there had been some sore of glitch.This sort of thing quite often happens and I suppose in instances like this the council see me as irritating but useful, anyway I got the response that it was going up on the internet, which it eventually did.
Once they finally managed to publish it and I was going to put up on the Thanet press release blog as I do, however when I looked at the online edition I noticed that the pictures were all blurry see http://www.thanet.gov.uk/pdf/TDC_Thanet_Matters_Issue47_web.pdf I informed the council that it hadn’t published properly about 24 hours ago, well I still haven’t had a response about this and the pictures are still all blurry.
I know that this sort of thing may not seem that important, but publications like this cost us the council taxpayers a tidy sum and to do the final web publish badly really isn’t necessary.
I think much of the problem here is the way the council doesn’t use the internet as well as it should do, to put the magazine up as a pdf file, something that is difficult for older computers manage.
Now if this was a commercial magazine it would probably be published as a series of interactive web pages, something like all the local papers do now.
Another thing here is that when the council first failed to put it up they did put the press release about it on the council’s website, now because the part of the website where they put press releases has feeds this means that probably a great many people would have gone to look for this non existent magazine.
One really bizarre aspect of this edition of Thanet Matters is that the blurry picture of Ramsgate Sands shows the Royal Sands Development (Pleasurama) completed, there is no mention in the magazine that work hasn’t even started on it yet. I do wonder if council even know anymore that this 12 year deserted building site in Ramsgate’s most prominent leisure area even exists.
Anyway enough of moaning about the council, I will end on a positive note, a usually reliable source from within the council told me today that they have managed to get The Rank Organisation to promise to repair the structure and the outside of The Royal Victoria Pavilion. My understanding is that it isn’t part of the agreement that they will refurbish and redecorate the inside, but I think it fair to say that this will be enough to get this iconic building back into use.
My only reservation is that the pavilion has an inadequate sea defence and that resolving this issue should be an important part of any refurbishment work done there.
Sorry about the lack of punctuation and other errors this is a mobile post made on my day off.
I reckon your being picky re Thanet Matters PDF, the text is clear,often illustration aren't that great, I assume this keeps the file size down.
ReplyDeleteAs ever the content is tripe
Look at it like this Tony, I have just put up a post linking to some pictures of Broadstairs, now this sort of thing may not be your cup of tea, but a lot of people like these posts with lots of pictures, I can tell this from the web statistics.
ReplyDeleteSuppose you clicked on a link to look at the pictures and they weren’t there, so you bothered to contact me an tell me, then I told you I had put them up and you had a look and they were so blurry as to be not worth looking at, would you bother to do so again?
The main problem here is that it isn’t difficult to use a combination of text and images for an online magazine and to make pages that load quickly, it is just that pdf is the wrong format for this see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id7.htm
Michael
ReplyDeleteIts Thanet Matters I referred not your masterpieces, the images used are to enhance the publication, the meat is in the text.
I'm assuming they save bandwidth, so that middle-aged fuss pots like ourselves can ferret around the corners for interesting morsels to write about.
And yes images are important this is why I generally why I have a picture attached to each posting whether its relevant or not
Tony a problem is that putting it up as a pdf makes it a much larger file than it would have been using html, Thanet Matters pdf file even with the very low definition pictures is 5.15mb say compared with the 57 high definition pictures of Broadstairs on Sunday the whole lot is about 6mb.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures in the PDF file are pixellated. Probably because the wrong definition has been used at upload. As for the content, I agree it is risible, particularly the "view" of Thanet in 2030 - what an absolute load of old cock.
ReplyDelete