Dear Linux Magazine Reader,
When you look at something long enough, your eyes start searching for new things to notice. Subtleties come to light. Visual effects that once seemed insignificant begin to command your attention. You follow that attention to once-unknown perspectives - exploring every nuance; casting yourself upon the pathways of discovery. And every nuance leads to other nuances and other perspectives, until the mundane resonates with breathtaking urgency, like an endless fractal ever blooming upon itself.
Then after about five years you say, "All right. Can we please try something different now?"
You'll notice that we have reached one of those departure points with this issue. We decided to mix things up a bit - give ourselves a new look.
Of course, many of our heavy tech readers are not so oriented around the visual - they just want to start up the tools and get immersed in the code - but such things really are important. A front yard is no substitute for a house, but it is still a good idea to have some concern about what your visitors will see when they come walking up your path.
In our popular culture (and especially in geek popular culture), it is fashionable to believe that content and presentation inhabit opposite ends of a continuum and pursuit of one is somehow a rejection of the other, but we have always challenged ourselves to achieve both at once: great technical information, and a classy, stylish, but not-too-busy or over-designed appearance.
As you read through this issue, I know you'll notice our new look, but I hope you will also notice that, behind the graphics and beyond the boxes and spirals, our content is just the same as always - the same practical articles about interesting new Linux technologies and useful open source applications.
We did, however, reorganize things a bit. We wanted each of our sections to have a different, distinctive look, and the large number of sections in our previous design would have caused a disorienting proliferation of looks. So we condensed the previous Know-How, Programming, and Sysadmin areas into a single Features section. If you look closely, though, you'll still see that favorite authors like Klaus, Charly, Kurt, and the Perlmeister are still in the mix, and the Features articles still span the spectrum of advanced HowTo, programming, and admin topics.
Keep watching for more changes in the next couple of issues as we settle into the new design. And don't hesitate to let us know your thoughts: letters@linux-magazine.com.