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SILICON SILIC CHIP www.siliconchip.com.au Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD Production Manager Greg Swain, B.Sc. (Hons.) Technical Editor John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.) Technical Staff Ross Tester Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc Nicholas Vinen Photography Ross Tester Reader Services Ann Morris Advertising Enquiries Glyn Smith Phone (02) 9939 3295 Mobile 0431 792 293 glyn<at>siliconchip.com.au Regular Contributors Brendan Akhurst Rodney Champness, VK3UG Kevin Poulter Stan Swan Dave Thompson SILICON CHIP is published 12 times a year by Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. ACN 003 205 490. ABN 49 003 205 490. All material is copyright ©. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Printing: Hannanprint, Noble Park, Victoria. Distribution: Network Distribution Company. Subscription rates: $105.00 per year in Australia. For overseas rates, see our website or the subscriptions page in this issue. Editorial office: Unit 1, 234 Harbord Rd, Brookvale, NSW 2100. Postal address: PO Box 139, Collaroy Beach, NSW 2097. Phone (02) 9939 3295. Fax (02) 9939 2648. E-mail: silicon<at>siliconchip.com.au ISSN 1030-2662 Recommended and maximum price only. 2  Silicon Chip Publisher’s Letter Our new website is up and running After what seems like a very long gestation period, our new website is up and running. In fact, at the time of writing it has been running for more than a month but it is only very recently that we have had it running with full credit card facilities. It is with considerable relief that I am writing this Publisher’s Letter but I am also aware that any website tends to be a work in progress and that there is always something that needs fixing or improving. If you visit the website you will find that we have all the issues going back to the beginning of 2004, a total of 135 issues (and growing) and almost 13000 pages in all, including most of the advertisements. This has been an enormous task, especially considering that we have incorporated most of the Notes & Errata that has been published for all of these issues. Nicholas Vinen has played the major part in constructing and writing the software for our new website, ably backed up by the rest of our staff in revising layouts, proof-reading, correcting circuits and a host of other time-consuming tasks. My heart-felt thanks to everyone involved. While the overall presentation of SILICON CHIP is a vast improvement over the previous website, I am also delighted that we can now provide on-line access to any subscriber who presently has a print magazine subscription, for a small extra fee. Many subscribers have asked for this service in the past and now you can have it. So if you have a one-year subscription for 2013, you can also have on-line access to those issues. Those with a longer subscription can go back further. So that’s good. But some readers have been very critical because they have Apple iPads and other Apple products which do not support Adobe Flash. This is unfortunate but this was a decision by Apple, not us. We hope to provide a workable solution but it must be said that an on-line magazine like SILICON CHIP which displays in doublepage spreads with page-turning is never going to work particularly well on tablets. This is mainly because SILICON CHIP often features large circuit diagrams and photos which spread over two pages. Moreover, the resolution on most tablets is simply not good enough to enable you to closely read and pore over the circuit diagrams and photos. We know that our readers like to go though the issues with a fine-tooth comb and while that is easy with a printed magazine, it doesn’t work too well with a tablet or a screen with poor resolution. Some readers will also be disappointed because we have not made the magazine available in PDF format. The problem with that is that it is too easy to copy and distribute. We already have great problems with piracy and with copying in general. Most readers are honest and some even go to the trouble of alerting us to websites where SILICON CHIP articles are being used without acknowledgement or authorisation. Thanks very much to those devoted readers. They recognise that if SILICON CHIP’S intellectual property is stolen then long-term viability suffers. In fact, magazines and newspapers worldwide are suffering from the inroads of the internet and if magazine publishers cannot make money from their content, there will soon be no magazines, at least not in a format which is likely to be viable and supporting a technical staff. And while we do allow previews of the magazine articles, we simply must charge for access to the full articles. Any publication which does not charge for its content will soon disappear, as many already have. I hope that you use and enjoy our on-line magazine. We have endeavoured to make it as close to the print magazine as possible but it will have more features as we develop it. Have a good look at the article starting on page 20 of this issue and also at the FAQs (frequently asked questions) on the website. Leo Simpson siliconchip.com.au