The readers have spoken — and the COS digital edition is a big hit!

Readers from coast to coast (and overseas) and from a wide range of industries are letting us know how much they appreciate our efforts to keep them informed about health and safety news and products.

Please let us know what you think and we'll publish your letters too! Just send an email to editor Todd Phillips at [email protected].
 

The Readers Speak

 “The digital version of COS is an excellent use of technology. While everyone else is still struggling to convert documents to PDF, you’ve gone miles beyond the readers’ expectations. Brilliant! I love it. What you’re doing is in line with what tech companies do. I think this is a big deal for a publication with a more industrial readership.”
—Shannon Nicholson  
Technical Support Specialist
Hydro Ottawa  Limited
Safety, Environment and Training

“The new digital edition is really remarkable. I think it’s the way to understand the use of technology: no space limitations, in your hand zoom tools — I love it. Thanks for the efforts.”
— Claudio Piga  
Environment, Safety and Health Manager
ITT Flygt Canada

“Great job, really slick.”
—Maureen Moffat
General Motors, St. Catharines Powertrain
Health and Safety
 

 “I like it very much!”
—Conrad Turner  
Vice President, Human Resources &  Administration
Tannis Food Distributors
Ottawa, Ont.

“Great, very easy to use. I forwarded your digital edition to other disciplines within Hydro One and got great responses back.”
—Robert Tweedy  
HydroOne, Training  Specialist
Work Methods & Training

“I would like to congratulate you and the rest of the staff of COS magazine for choosing an extremely usable and enjoyable on-line format for the magazine. As an environmentally conscious person and organization we are always looking for usable means to keep as much of our periodicals in soft copy. The format used with the digital edition of COS magazine has some very similar impacts of using a hard copy magazine. I like the page flipping and zoom-in/zoom-out functionality quite a lot. Keep up the progressive nature of the magazine, both in content and format.”
 —Ken Page, CRSP
Weston International
Canadian Operations
Calgary, AB   

“First off, well done! Congratulations and thank you. I asked for this 4 or 5 years ago when on faculty at the BCIT OH&S program so it is a pleasure to see. Faculty, teachers, students, and practitioners now have ready access to a great resource. It is especially handy for those of us living and working internationally. This provides a valuable service for the profession and should increase the rates you are able to charge for advertising and the volume of same. The only suggestion I have at present is to index all of the text to make the archives searchable. For example, searching for “SawStop” should indicate in the search results the article found in your Jan/Feb. 2005 issue, yet it indicates: Total 0 results found. I have no particular interest in nor do I derive benefits, financial or otherwise, from SawStop, it merely served as an example.
— Mark Varley   BSc, MSc, Dip.Occ.Hygiene, Dip.Occ.Safety, CRSP
 Abu Dhabi UAE
 
“The primary reason for my email is to give you my feedback on this new adventure upon which COS has embarked — the digital  edition. To set the stage, I do already receive a number of trade magazines in digital format (Offshore, Safety At Sea International, Maritime Reporter, Maritime Executive Magazine, and others).

They arrive in either HTML or PDF versions (with the ability to download and store the issue, as well as browse online). Your editorial group (if they had anything to do with this approach) and certainly your technical people need to be congratulated on the success of the first edition and the technical quality of the document. It was intuitive, fun to read, and as normally informative as your print edition. It certainly is convenient to be
able to focus on stories of interest (and for old eyes, the ability to up-size the print to follow the story is greatly appreciated.) The ability, once upsized, to arrow or mouse around the enlarged print is a good touch and eliminates frustration of having to constantly enlarge and reduce the window to follow the storyline. The pre-set level of enlargement may end up being a challenge for many readers. Those without gargantuan monitors, they will not be able to read some of the contents as the print in the expansion is sometimes still too small to clearly read. As an example, the list of names of new CRSPs is hard to read, even when expanded. The print image is not “crisp,” even on a 22” widescreen monitor, using a leading edge video card. Thank you for taking the magazine down this new path. I look forward to reading future issues, print OR digital!

— Fred Leafloor, CRSP, CHSC
Professional Member, Canadian Society of Safety Engineering
Regional Vice President, CSSE Atlantic Region
President / Principal Consultant
Safety First Industrial Safety Services
Dartmouth, NS