Summary
- Name: Zinio
- Developer: Zinio LLC
- Current Version: 1.2
- Language: English
- Category: News
- Price: Free (+ Magazines subscriptions)
- iTunes App Link: Zinio
Review
Let’s face it, Apple’s iPad is the content delivery savior for traditional media companies: be it newspapers, magazines, or books. While Apple’s iBooks app is an excellent reader and store for books, it doesn’t offer other printed materials such as magazines or papers.
Zinio for the iPad is another tool from the successful Zinio platform. The app lets you read your magazines in the comfort of your hand with one of the biggest selection of magazines online. It allows you to buy subscriptions or individual issues of hundreds of US and International magazines so you can brows through them on your iPad (or iPhone, PC, Mac, etc.)
The app allows you to brows quickly through your magazines exactly as they were published. Yet all text is clear and readable in its original formatting or using the text button that displays only the text itself in an iBooks like manner. It also allows you to email any article in its text format, a great feature in my opinion.
Even though the app has its own quirks (slowness, crashes, etc.) yet it is still the only real solution for magazine publishers to deliver their content to readers and subscribers on Apple’s iPad. I like the idea of reading my magazines on different platforms and this is where Zinio shines.
Pros
- Large selection of magazine subscriptions
- Horizontal mode allows the view of 2 pages of an issue
- Automated delivery over Wi-Fi
- Text reading mode and email features
- Simple interface
Cons
- Magazines’ prices are high (digital v. print)
- Very limited options and tools (bookmarks, text selection in magazine view)
- iPad store offers fewer titles than other platforms
- Performance issues
Verdict
| Features |   |
| Performance | |
| Usability |  |
| Updates | |
| Price |  |
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Gallery
Twitter
After trying many plug-ins for WordPress to publish my site’s posts on both Twitter & Facebook, I came to a simple conclusion: 3rd party plug-ins are useless! The best way to go is using plug-ins that truly integrate with WordPress. The ones I used were: Wordbook (integrates with Facebook) and WordTwit (integrates with twitter). The result is satysfying and practical: both plugins submit new posts directly to Twitter & Facebook.
Now, the only problem I encountered was with Wordbook: It requires PHP5. By default, my host (1and1) uses PHP4, you have to choose PHP5 when you create a new MySql database. To overcome this problem, I used a very simple solution that I found on 1and1 FAQ site (Link to original page):
By default Apache uses PHP 4 for .php extension. If you don’t want to rename all your
scripts to .php5 you can do the following:
Create a .htaccess file and place the following line AddType x-mapp-php5 .php in it.
Now I enjoy true integration with my 2 favorite social sites 
Gravatar
Managing multiple profile on tones of websites, forums, blogs, social services, etc. is becoming more and more difficult as your digital self grows on the web!
One service that might help you cope is Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar). This service helps you publish your avatar (symbol, image, or icon that represents you) on almost any forum, blog comment or post, etc.
By signing up with Gravatar you’ll be able to upload your avatar (or multiple avatars) to it and associate one or multiple emails to it. Thus, whenever you post a comment on a blog or interact with any website, your avatar (or Gravatar in this case) will appear automatically without you having to create a profile! Magic isn’t it!!
The service explains:
Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?
if you looked into the comments left on some posts in here you’ll appreciate the power of Gravatar:
Gravatar Example
Finally, here are some links to understand the service more:
Web 2.0
Trying to connect all my online activities and social connections into one place, my personal website, proved to be a challenge. Yet WordPress in addition to various plug-ins made it happen: at last I can rest assured my scattered info all over the inter webs are happily residing in one place!
This little experiment allowed me to connect: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, digg, etc.
Whenever I post something in here it gets published in twitter (as a tweet) and Facebook (as a ststus). When I update my profile on Facebook or update my status on Twitter, my website gets the info! Flickr images are integrated into my site!! And on top of it all, RSS feeds are generated for me!!!
One last thing, I have to applaud WordPress.org for their excellent iPhone app! Now I can update my site comfortably and in a meaningful way from my iPhone. Web 2.0 is a dream come true…
I was looking for an iPad App that replaces Google Reader’s dull interface. There are many RSS feed readers on Apple’s App Store but The Early Edition ($4.99) stands out in such an elegant way. The app aggregates your feeds from all over the web and then presents them in newspaper like interface, with page flips!
