Windows Secrets Newsletter

Topic

New Reply

I’m baaaaaaaaaack. After a long hiatus, I’m very happy to say that I’m back writing for my favorite newsletter, Windows Secrets, and working with two
[See the full post at: Windows Secrets Newsletter]

Reply | Quote

Replies

Hi Woody, perhaps I am not awake, but *where* can I subscribe for the newsletters?
bit puzzled here
regards

Reply | Quote

Wow. That post is eleven years old! Since then, Brian has gone on to writing about investing, Paul has formed his own publishing empire, and I’ve broken up with Windows Secrets entirely. The company, newsletter, and forum, were sold, first to iNet, then to Penton. I never made the leap to Penton.

Windows Secrets Newsletter has gone from pay-what-you-want (a revolutionary concept created by Brian) to freemium, and it’s been intertwined with Penton’s other properties, including WinSupersite. Tracey Capen, Fred Langa and Susan Bradley now form the backbone of the organization.

You can see where they are now at windowssecrets.com.

Reply | Quote

I suspect this thread really can be retired!

Win10 22H2 Pro, MBAM Premium, Firefox, OpenOffice, Sumatra PDF.

Reply | Quote

With so many posts being brought in from over a dozen years of blogposts in the original format of AskWoody, several will now be irrelevant.
With so much to do all at once, it may take a while to close off some older topics from new comments. Please bear with us, in this very exciting transition 🙂
Great to see you are making good use of the new facilities.

Reply | Quote

Actually, the Windows Secrets Newsletter is still alive. It’s paid-for now though. http://windowssecrets.com/newsletter/get-the-most-out-of-windows-10-file-explorer/?utm_rid=CPNET000001180679&utm_campaign=3842&utm_medium=email&elq2=ff8acc237af445bda21c0c7c853f9a41
Gives you access to the website and the archives for $.

Reply | Quote

Funny you should mention. Windows Secrets Newsletter has been mass mailing a promotional that points to a sign-up page. Of the six writers listed on the page, five (including me) no longer write for WSN. Tracey Capen quit a few months ago. Fred Langa is on extended leave. Robert Vamosi hasn’t written for WSN in five years, and Denny Arar quit three years ago.

I’ve written to WSN and asked to have my name removed from their promotional material.

1 user thanked author for this post.

PhotM

Reply | Quote

It’s been getting less pertinent since it was bought, then started charging. There are still some meaty articles – and Susan Bradley’s info, of course.

Reply | Quote

Sent you an e-mail on this

Reply | Quote

Actually, the Windows Secrets Newsletter is still alive. It’s paid-for now though.

That’s what I thought too, but today they sent out an email with a link to a page that says you can subscribe for free. However, when you click the Subscribe button, you are taken to a page that asks you to log in or to set up an account if you don’t have one. But when you try to do that, you are presented with three paid-only subscription options and no mention of the free subscription. I’m not sure what they’re up to.

Reply | Quote

The Windows Secrets Newsletter itself is still being sent out for a required subscription fee of $25.00 per year. But there have been no posts to the Windows Secrets Lounge by column authors or editors since January, 2017. It appears that the newsletter is now read-only and the Lounge over there is defunct for all practical intents and purposes. Few people ever post anything there anymore last I checked in.

With the opening of the AskWoody Lounge here, I think my dollars would be better spent contributing to AskWoody and Woody’s Lounge than messing around with a newsletter which no longer has contributors or articles which interest me. If we could somehow get Fred Langa to finish setting up his own forum, or maybe entice him to join us over here, and get Susan Bradley to contribute somewhere with free access or voluntary contributions, I would be happy.

Susan’s patch watch is the only Windows Secrets feature I would miss. By itself, it isn’t worth the price of the subscription, especially with reader feedback eliminated now.

Once I see that this Lounge is really up and running, my contribution will be on its way.

-- rc primak

1 user thanked author for this post.

woody

Reply | Quote

I would be overjoyed if Fred and Susan dropped by. (Barb Bowman is already contributing.) My main problem is that I have no working capital – all of the contributions so far have gone into developing the Lounge – so I can’t afford to pay them…. assuming they’d want to jump on this rogue ship anyway. 🙂

Reply | Quote

In my opinion, the Windows Secrets Lounge / Forums is alive and well. Although apparently no WS columnist posts there, a lot of very gifted people post regularly.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM

Reply | Quote

Quite true. I just don’t know if the folks there realize who they’re working for….

Reply | Quote

woody wrote:

Funny you should mention. Windows Secrets Newsletter has been mass mailing a promotional that points to a sign-up page. Of the six writers listed on the page, five (including me) no longer write for WSN. Tracey Capen quit a few months ago. Fred Langa is on extended leave. Robert Vamosi hasn’t written for WSN in five years, and Denny Arar quit three years ago.

I’ve written to WSN and asked to have my name removed from their promotional material.

I used to be a Zealous Reader and Supporter of WSn until Penton Bought and proceeded to do its greedy destructive approach. Susan Bradley always did an Awesome a Sissynced Column on Patching BUT there are so many other sources now including, Here and Patchmanagement List:

http://patchmanagement.org/

that I found I didn’t need WS so I never renewed!

I am warming up to supporting Woody via PayPal which I did for others in Dec for the year….

AskWoody is turning out to be an Awesome Replacement to WS, I am very impressed!!!!

Best Regards,

Crysta

PS Woody, wasn’t “Tracey Capen” the founder of WS? If so, his quitting tells it all…..

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

-----------------

1 user thanked author for this post.

Elly

Reply | Quote

Likewise. Penton ruined it and I didn’t renew when my last contribution ran out, preferring to support Woody. I was sorry to lose Susan Bradley’s column, but with W7 moving to new patching regime the contributors and posts on here have proved just as valuable if not more so.

Thanks everyone!

Win10 22H2 Pro, MBAM Premium, Firefox, OpenOffice, Sumatra PDF.

Reply | Quote

Nope, Brian Livingston founded Windows Secrets Newsletter – named after his book, “Windows Secrets.” He bought out my old Woody’s Windows Watch newsletter, then Fred Langa’s Langalist, then Gizmo Richards’ newsletter, turned it into a 400,000 circulation giant.

The key, I’m convinced, is Brian’s approach to subscriptions. “Pay what you think it’s worth.”

Brian dropped by the house a few months ago. He’s working on a financial planning book. His wife, Margie, is getting award after award for her artwork. They still live in Seattle.

3 users thanked author for this post.

rc primak, satrow, Elly

Reply | Quote

Back in May of 2016, I received this from Tracy Capen as part of a receipt for my lifetime subscription:

Your paid subscription to the Windows Secrets Newsletter
has an expiry date of 2211-05-16.

Soon after that, Windows 8 came out and I found myself uninterested in leaving Win7. The newsletter became a quick skim and I looked only for articles that applied to Win7. And now with the emphasis on Win10, it’s been quite a number of months since I even opened any of the newsletters. I’ve been spending all my time here.

Reply | Quote

… and we’re all better for it!

1 user thanked author for this post.

MrJimPhelps

Reply | Quote

Susan Bradley seems to keep the newsletter alive.
Excellent article: How to De-Consumerize Your Windows 10 Machine
Among many other things, will tell those with Home Edition about the limitations of that edition and why they are better off upgrading to Pro.
Few essential settings are covered in detail.
Very good reading for anyone interested in Windows 10.

1 user thanked author for this post.

woody

Reply | Quote

Just saw it.

Yep, Susan hit it out of the ballpark again.

The article came today as part of the (paid) subscription newsletter. The first part is available online.

Reply | Quote

I got it last night. +1 for Susan

Reply | Quote