trail of the light
the truth is out there

Some time ago I had a brainstorm while using Handy News Reader Android app. This app is all about being up-to-date with all Your interests in a much easier way than browsing through many different websites You are used to follow. It can do all the work behind the scenes and provide You with the essence: the actual content (the newest and hottest blog posts, news, articles from various websites, You name it). Furthermore, regardless of high differentiation among website layouts and design, within Handy the content remains always unified, i.e., looks generally the same way (similarly to an e-book reader app which allows You to read various books looking alike on Your smartphone, regardless of their counterparts lying on bookstore shelves and being much different from one another).

Although I use this app for a pretty long time now, sometimes I have a pleasant feeling about what in fact the app resembles to me. Way back when, in the age of analog modems and connecting to the Internet with a kind of intriguing set of sounds accompanying the process (did You see You’ve got mail with Meg Ryan?) the so-called e-zines were around. They were digital magazines (something like The Disconnect which has been published not so long ago) distributed in a form of archived files (.zip, .rar, some of them had even their own .exe installers), sent to their subscribers either via email or by traditional post (using 3.5" floppy discs - not everyone today even knows what it is).

One of the nicest memories from that time was awaiting for new issues. E-zines have been published with different intervals - once a month/two months/sometimes even three. But it had been definitely worth waiting - because once a new issue arrived, You could feel so excited about it, close all Your things and focus on that sole exciting experience of a brand new issue of Your favorite zine! It was definitely something. I remember clearly as I plunged for hours on end, deeply lost into multiple articles written by geeks for geeks (which as such is a completely different story that at the time much more people were willing to express themselves without a second thought of a kind Am I good enough? - of course it made much amatorship possible, but on the other hand there were a great many highly interesting articles of a very individual style, which haven’t been around for a long time now).

One You’ve read a whole issue, You could spend the time waiting for another one by re-reading it or writing something by Yourself. I find that period amazing and remind myself of it with much nostalgia.

But today, years after that magical period, surprisingly I’ve realized that - when to think of it - I have a pretty similar experience in front of my eyes, and on a daily basis (!): in a form of a Handy News Reader app, which You do might perceive like the ultimate form of an e-zine (!). Ultimate, because this time there are no issues involved: instead You are constantly provided with an endless stream of new articles out of carefully chosen sources of Your liking.

Although probably it could be hard to find any e-magazine published off-line today - Handy makes it available again thanks to its brilliant concept behind the scenes, deriving articles out of modern websites and present them to You as just another “pages” making up Your Dream (and off-line!) Magazine of All Times :) . This was a real breakthrough for me to realize that - in a way - I am now back to this wonderful e-zine experience, and I can enjoy and savor it to my heart’s content.