Hello, fellow Squeakers,

This email is to inform you that there is now a periodical fully dedicated to Squeak. Squeak News e-zine (electronic magazine) is a radical departure from most classical periodicals because it is interactive and multi-media, and uses the medium that it is created for as a main means of delivery!

The first ever issue is the July 2001 issue and it is available in two forms: a subset of the e-zine will be available on the http://www.squeaknews.com on 1st of July, and the full featured e-zine is available fully in Squeak on small saddle-shaped CDs (or standard CDs  for people whose computers can't read smaller CDs) which will start shipping before 1st of July. There is also a monthly email newsletter that contains the summary of activities in that month.

I invite you to examine the site and would very much like your comments and feedback. Check out the contents. In this issue there are cool articles by prominent Squeakers such as Ted Kaehler and Tim Rowledge, the first part of an in-depth interview with John Maloney, and fun articles such as learning how to juggle in Squeak.

If there are no objections, I would like to be able to send the table of contents to the list every month. Most articles are directly related to Squeak.

Bear in mind that although this is a commercial venture or at least attempting to be commercial, it is long way away from being self sufficient and all contributions to the e-zine were done voluntarily by generosity of the authors, and I am indebted to them. Let me take this opportunity to thank them all.

The site is not in its final stage. There is a lot more to do. Unfortunately not all parts of the site are fully observable from Scamper, but our goal is to be able to hook up to the site using only Squeak for Squeak users, totally eliminating the browser. We are close to this goal so bear with us.

There is also an ambitious Squeak documentation initiative that will be launched with the e-zine on the 1st July. I know that to a lot of us Squeak documentation is very important. Your help in this area will ensure that we have the best and most up to date documentation for Squeak accessible from within Squeak as well as on the web and in a printable form.

Finally, I would again like to call all of you to contribute. It is extremely rewarding to see an article come to life, a much different experience to having text on paper. By having your article featured in the e-zine you will get a free one year subscription to the CD-Rom version of the e-zine.

Please let your friends who have even a mild interest in Squeak know that there is now such an e-zine. You will find that it is an excellent tool to promote Squeak. We have no means of advertising at this stage and if Squeak News is to take off it will be only through word of mouth.

Thanks again to all people who contributed, encouraged and believed. This is your achievement.

Cheers

Tansel
Editor, Squeak News