hi.

From the off, I'd like to apologise for the delay that this issue has experienced. I've been leading something of a hectic life, which has involved me variously working sixteen hour shifts, quitting my job,. drinking a tin of metholated spirits, and being swallowed alive by my living room couch (although I have come to believe the latter may be a direct result of the former...) But more on that later.

Well, it's been a funny few months. Since our last installment, the hotline server has vanished, reappeared, gone private, had an admin cull and otherwise changed a hundred times over. We apologise to the users of the server who were affected, and rest assured that we will endevour to linch the guilty party (except for the admin cutbacks, which were deliberate, preemptive attempts to rip the hearts out of all the good people who hung there, if some of the more emotional former admins are to be believed.) Hotline shenanigans aside, we've also seen a fair few other interesting developments, not least of which is the reinvigoration of Apple Computer. It seems that in order to boost sales, the liquid soap manufacturers were right all along. You don't need to have a superior product (although in Apple's case I should stress that they do) or any expensive marketing wizardry; you just have to make sure that your product comes in a translucent fruity-coloured case. In light of these revelations, I'd very much appreciate it if those making a hard copy of this issue could run over the cover with a blue-green pen. Trust me, your enjoyment of the magazine will be heightened ten-fold.

Anyway, on with the introduction. It's been something of a strain putting out this issue, due to the enormous amount of papers we have received. When I took the reigns back in issue five, I got literally no submissions. If someone had told me then that within the next year the magazine would grow to be one of the biggest in the Macintosh underground (or whatever you choose to call it,) with an accompanying hotline server which has well over a hundred regular users, I would probably have told you to fuck off and leave me alone.. but enough about that :P

When I released issue#09, I have to admit that I felt I had built a rod for my own back by releasing that issue with so many articles; it would perhaps have been more beneficial to roll over half of the papers into this issue, allowing for a less tardy release. This is not, however, the way I operate, so I took the decision to delay issue ten until we could put out a fuller magazine. With regards to size, we've obviously succeeded.

This issue we include a wealth of articles, of varying degrees of quality. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that issue 10 covers the whole spectrum; there are some articles which I freely admit are far from perfect, and others which are truly excellent. My advice to you is to skip the sections you don't like. I've been slagged off enough, thank you very much :)

As usual, enjoy the magazine,

Jambo@blackout.org