The news is organised in chronological order, with the most recent stories at the top. Choose the month you require, then click on a topic heading to jump to the associated announcement.
| 2003 | Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | 2003 |
| Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan | ||
| 2002 | Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | 2002 |
| Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan | ||
| 2001 | Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | 2001 |
| Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan | ||
| 2000 | Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | 2000 |
| Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan |
After a long period of development and testing, AMPlayer 1.38 is now available from the AMPlayer site, with a new URL:
Major changes in this version include:
A more detailed changelog is included in the archives, which expands on these and includes many other of the improvements.
In case you were unaware, AMPlayer is:
If you are using AMPlayer, we strongly recommend that you visit the ESP website for an update to the SharedSound module:
http://www.espmusic.co.uk/ssnd.htm
If you have any queries about AMPlayer, you should contact the developers at mailto:amplayer@amplayer.org.
As in the past, we would like to thank the beta testers for their continued feedback.
As many of you will be aware, RiscStation Ltd is now taking orders and deposits for the new RiscStation Laptop.
Portable Base Unit only: 999ukp + VAT (1173.83ukp inc VAT)
Portable Base Unit & Docking Stn: 1248ukp + VAT (1466.40ukp inc VAT)
By placing a depost of 100ukp inc VAT you can reserve a RiscStation Portable. N.B. almost all of the first batch of machines manufactured will be preassigned for advance orders - so place your order or deposit now in order to avoid long delays.
Features include:
Optional Docking station includes:
Optional extras: Car power adapter, High capacity 40W battery
Place your order, or obtain more information, from:
RiscStation LtdTel: 01942 797 777
Fax: 01942 797 771
Email: info@riscstation.co.uk
http://www.riscstation.co.uk/
Or your RiscStation dealer.
E&OE - Specifications may be subject to change or enhancement.
!Jess version 1.10 (Fri 28th December 2001) is now on my website
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/free/
!Jess can extract multiple JPEGs embedded in other files such as some Windows screensavers
(e.g. at http://www.traveltex.com/screen.asp?SN=1203087&LS=0&SS=2)
or RISC OS Drawfiles. It can also split Exif JPEGs with embedded thumbnails into two JFIF JPEGs.
Version 1.10 is completely rewritten and should be less error prone than previous versions.
The latest version of !Webgen, a small utility to create web sites from a directory of images, has just been uploaded to my website.
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/daves/software.html
Version 1.25 is just going up alongside this announcement.
New features:
Now allows the choice of whether to use the 3 character dos extensions (htm or jpg) or the full extensions (html/jpeg).
Allows for the addition of a Home button on the top page.
User prefferences are now a bit easier to set up and use.
The help file has been written out rather more fully.
EasiFiler 1.14 is now available from <http://homepage.eircom.net/~lrtc>
Changes:
EasiFiler 1.12, the quick-fix version to fix many bugs in 1.10, has in turn, many bugs!
EasiFiler has been in development prior even to version 1.10 being released. The specific changes between 1.12 and 1.14 are:
Documantation for EasiFiler can be found at: <http://homepage.eircom.net/~lrtc/computers/software/easifiler.html>
Happy New Year to all!
If you don't know the Python programming language, you may have a look at the Executive Summary below or at http://www.python.org/.
RISC OS Python includes the following highlights:
For use of Python you will need a filing system with long filename and >77 files/directory support.
Often, programmers fall in love with Python because of the increased productivity it provides. Since there is no compilation step, the edit-test-debug cycle is incredibly fast. Debugging Python programs is easy: a bug or bad input will never cause a segmentation fault. Instead, when the interpreter discovers an error, it raises an exception. When the program doesn't catch the exception, the interpreter prints a stack trace. A source level debugger allows inspection of local and global variables, evaluation of arbitrary expressions, setting breakpoints, stepping through the code a line at a time, and so on. The debugger is written in Python itself, testifying to Python's introspective power. On the other hand, often the quickest way to debug a program is to add a few print statements to the source: the fast edit-test-debug cycle makes this simple approach very effective.
Version 4.12 of the freeware assembler ASM is now available - this fixes a bug with the signed half-word and signed byte versions of LDR and STR.
ASM can be found by pointing your browser at
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/tigger/programs/progs.html
and following the 'Misc' link.
http://rox.sf.net/rox_download.php3
It's a developer release, so you may wish to stay with the current stable version.
Quite a lot of changes this time, but less than in 1.1.9. I'm not planning on adding any major features to the filer until after 1.2.0 (the next stable release). Until then, it's mainly just fixing bugs!
Changes since 1.1.9:
Gtk+-2.0 API support:
Bugfixes:
Translations:
The filer is distributed under the GNU General Public License, which means that anyone can modify it, use bits of it in their own (GPL) programs, etc. Indeed, many of the improvements made to the filer were added by other ROX users and posted as patches to the mailing list.
The filer comes with translations for Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Russian and Spanish.
http://rox.sourceforge.net/install.php3
http://rox.sourceforge.net/guide.php3
You can read more, download ROX-Filer, read the comments people have made, and look at some screenshots here:
http://rox.sourceforge.net/
http://rox.sourceforge.net/comments.php3
http://rox.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php3
There are two mailing lists; rox-users and rox-devel. You can subscribe here, or look at the archives:
http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=7023
A selection of tutorials on writing ROX applications is available on-line:
http://rox.sourceforge.net/tutor.php3
Version 1.70 of BookMaker is available for download from
http://www.bookmaker.riscos.org.uk/
This fixes a rather nasty little memory management bug.
BookMaker is a hotlist and address book management tool that supports all major RISC OS browsers, most email clients and other internet tools.
I have a few presents for everybody!
Note: These are only source changes, and the application is unchanged. The exact changes are where '#include "C:stdio.h"' would work in GCC 2.95.2, '#include <stdio.h>' is needed to work in GCC 2.95.4. This is due to the integeration of the SharedCLibrary library with GCC.
Have a very happy and peaceful New Year
I've uploaded !RiscSearch V0.8ß to its homepage at www.riscsearch.de
The main changes are:
For all of you, who don't know about !RiscSearch:
!RiscSearch is meant to be a meta-search engine, and AFAIK it is the only one available for RISC OS anywhere. It helps you to find web-pages about a certain topic by asking different search engines about the keywords you supply. It collects results from (at the moment) 9 different engines, filters out duplicate matches and then presents all links in a window of your web-browser.
!Acronyms 5.50 is now available from my homepage at <http://homepage.eircom.net/~lrtc>
What's new in version 5.50:
For those not in the know:
"If you don't know what 'IMHO you should RTFM, but YMMV' means then this program will be of use to you. It allows you to enter an acronym (abbreviation) into the top icon (pressing Ctrl-U will clear it), press return and it will supply you with the meaning. It's as simple as that."
The webpage <http://homepage.eircom.net/~lrtc/computers/software/acronyms.html> has also been updated to the GUI changes.
This release is also a RFC (Request For Comments) so if you have suggestions or comments please contact me.
!Jess version 1.00 (Sun 23rd December 2001) is now on my website
http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/free/
!Jess can extract multiple JPEGs embedded in other files such as some Windows screensavers
(e.g. at http://www.traveltex.com/screen.asp?SN=1203087&LS=0&SS=2)
or RISC OS Drawfiles.
!Jess is not extensively tested so use with caution and let me know of any problems.
OSLib, the type-safe, comprehensive Interface Library for the RISC OS API is now available at version 6.31 from http://www.mk-net.demon.co.uk/oslib.
This version corrects a bug in the (x)os_change_dynamic_area_no_fail(), and (x)osheap_resize_no_fail() functions.
The help archive is unchanged from V6.30, so don't bother downloading it if you already have it.
Updates to WebJames (an HTTP server for RISC OS), and the RISC OS port of PHP (an interpreted language for dynamically generating web pages) are available from http://www.alexwaugh.com/. Changes to PHP include:
Updated to PHP 4.1.0
Updated GD functions so it is now possible to create JPEGs and PNGs (but not GIFs anymore).
The mail() function can now be used to send email from PHP scripts.
MySQL client functions enabled.
WebJames 0.33 contains one bugfix to enable nested SSI files to work correctly.
Additionally, a version of WebJames is now available with a built in handler for PHP. This gives much greater speed as the PHP interpreter no longer needs to be loaded from disc for every page.
I've put a new version of !FontMgr2 up unto my website (http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/ttehtann) with several bug fixes, a few tweaks and a major improvement - it now supports Messages files within groups. This means that, if you have a group with a messages file, you can delete / rename / copy font families using their extended (i.e. readable!) names. Startup is faster if you have messages files as well.
I thought about releasing it yesterday, but my children said I had to install all their computer games first.
After nearly a year of development, MonSetup version 0.05, is ready for release. MonSetup is a monitor plug and play application which communicates with your monitor using the DDC bus to generate a monitor definition file. The current version is available for RiscStation computers only. The RiscPC and A7000 series machines do not have the necessary hardware for the tool to work correctly.
Full source is included, and the software is released under the GNU General Public License. Please note, however, that it requires the latest version of the Desk library.
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~jamjars/
GCC is a free collection of compilers that provide the user with a powerful tool for translating C, C++ and Fortran source into fast ARM assembler that is suitable for execution on RISC OS.
GCCSDK is a portable build environment for creating ARM executables to be run natively on RISC OS. The build environment is designed to be hosted on a Unix-like system, such as GNU/Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris.
This is the first proper release of GCC since 2.7.2.1 back in 1997 though there have been experimental versions of 2.95.2 available since 1999.
The compilers are large programs and will require at least 6Mb of free memory to execute, so you will either require a RiscPC or a an 8Mb machine. See http://hard-mofo.dsvr.net/gcc for download information.
We consider this to be the best version of GCC for RISC OS and recommend that all existing users upgrade to it. The compiler toolset should be considered stable.
Future development will be directed towards improving UnixLib's conformance to the C99 standard and upgrading the compiler to GCC 3.1.
For full download instructions, mailing list information and bug reporting instructions, please visit http://hard-mofo.dsvr.net/gcc - The main distribution for GCC.
GCCSDK Developers, 2001.
The latest application from 'Fortran Friends' is !CallChnge. This allows you to hear the sound of church bells while simulating the operation of ringing 'Call Changes' in a church tower and see up to 16 animated 'stick people' ringing their bells. A brief explanation of the mechanism of call changes is included together with a few suggested interesting sequences for you to try such as 'Whittingtons', supposedly heard by Dick Whittington, which made him turn back again to try making his fortune in London.
This is freeware, if you like it you are asked to send the authors a minimum donation of £5 which will be donated to funds for bell restoration in their local Guild. The application can be downloaded from the website:
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/fortran/Hobbies/Bells/change.htm
Other RISCOS bell ringing progams are listed on their site at
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/fortran/Hobbies/Bells/index.htm
if you know of other programs please send details by email to
fortran@argonet.co.uk
The authors 'home tower' details are at:
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/fortran/Hobbies/Bells/chbell.htm
where there are links to images of the tower itself, pictures of the bells and the story of the village millennium project which raised money to restore and retune the bells after a silence of some 40 years.
I have posted a new version of !NurseW, the Dr Wimp macro inserter, to my website. This version fixes a small bug in the Menus menu (if that is not too confusing).
http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/riscos.soft.html
Today's topics:
The Crystal tool will open up a whole new world of design opportunities previously only available in bitmap-oriented design packages.
To subscribe, send an e-mail to artworks-subscribe@smartgroups.antispammeasure.com or go to http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/artworks/
If you want to access the web interface of the group (e.g., the voting mechanism), you have to join via the web. Of course, you are still welcome to e-mail me directly with your requests, suggestions and bug reports, but if you have a question about ArtWorks that might be of interest to others as well, please use the mailing list in preference.
Alternatively, in the main group display, click on the "Vote" link in the navigation bar at the left-hand side of the window.
The list of proposed features can also be found on my web site:
http://www.mw-software.com/software/awmodules/projects.html
If you have AutoSave installed, no matter whether you use it or not, you are strongly advised to upgrade to AutoSave 1.01. Please bear in mind that AutoSave is ShareWare. Registered users who have opted for automatic e-mail upgrades have been sent this new version automatically. If you are not a registered user, you might want to consider registering your copy or deinstalling AutoSave (registration costs just 10 Pounds).
AWRender, the ArtWorks file rendering module used by many third-party applications, has been updated, too. The AWViewer 1.35 update can be downloaded from
http://www.mw-software.com/software/awmodules/awrender.html#download
Finally, I would like to wish all RISC OS users a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Announcing LanMoC version 0.3
http://melhuish.info/simon/projects/index.html#lanmoc
LanMoC is an application for RISC OS, allowing the user to control a 3Com ISDN LAN Modem (it may also work with the dual 56k analogue version, but I have not tested this).
New version: Added recognition of multi-link status, IP number detection, and a !Help file.
[Since LanMoC can now determine the IP number assigned to the link, in principle it could contact, for example, dyndns.org, to update a dynamic dns entry. But would there be sufficient interest in such a feature? Would dyndns.org be a good choice, or would people rather use another site? Please email your comments.]
The LibXML & LibXSLT tools xmllint and xsltproc, as well as the RISC OS source for libxml 2.4.12 and libxslt 1.0.9 have been updated at:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/justin.fletcher/XML/
This update follows the release of the libxml 2.4.12 and libxslt 1.0.9 sources whilst I was on holiday.
XML is a structured description format used in many modern applications. XSLT is a mechanism for transforming data in XML-based formats to other formats (most usually HTML or some similar markup).
Recent changes are almost all internal, but this is the first release with full source for both libxml2 and libxslt released for RISC OS. Primary change to xmllint is that of output files, rather than requiring redirection.
More information about libxml2, libxslt and the related tools can be obtained from http://xmlsoft.org/.
As in the past, I intend to keep RISC OS libxml2/libxslt releases within 24 hours of the base unix source release; this release missed that, but future ones should be better.
My homepage and email addresses are in the process of changing. From the 1st January 2002, my current web site and email address will no longer exist.
My old homepage address was: http://www.voyager.co.nz/~mikef/ and my old email address was mikef@voyager.co.nz.
My new homepage address is: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mjfoot/ and my new email address is mjfoot@paradise.net.nz.
If you have a link to my homepage please update it to the new address. All the html files have the same paths and names as before except acorn.htm is now riscos.htm.
If you wish to put my email address on your page, I would appreciate it if you could spam proof it.
Version 0.32 (16 Dec 2001) of BeebIt has now been released. BeebIt is a freeware BBC Micro computer emulator for RISC OS versions 3.00 and above. It emulates an Acorn BBC Model B computer with 32K RAM.
The following improvements have been done since 0.30.
Also released is a new utility from James Lampard called BBCFiles. BBCFiles is a BBC file converter that converts between some of the various types of files used by BBC emulators on Acorn & PC formats. It supports 6502Em style applications & scripts, /ssd dfs disc images (supporting watford double catalogue), vanilla directories, /zip of bbc files with /inf files (with limitations) and directory of bbc files with /inf files.
Both of these releases can be downloaded from:
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mjfoot/ under the BBC Emulator section.
Now that things appear to be back to normal again I'd like to take this opportunity to mention a couple of small points:
Finally, I'd like to wish all readers a very merry christmas - thanks for reading.
http://rox.sf.net/rox_download.php3
It's a developer release, so you may wish to stay with the current stable version. Quite a lot has changed this time.
Please report any bugs found.
Changes since 1.1.8:
New features:
Internal changes:
Bugfixes:
Translations:
SOAP RPC (communication between other programs and the filer):
The filer is distributed under the GNU General Public License, which means that anyone can modify it, use bits of it in their own (GPL) programs, etc. Indeed, many of the improvements made to the filer were added by other ROX users and posted as patches to the mailing list.
The filer comes with translations for Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Russian and Spanish.
http://rox.sourceforge.net/install.php3
http://rox.sourceforge.net/guide.php3
You can read more, download ROX-Filer, read the comments people have made, and look at some screenshots here:
http://rox.sourceforge.net/
http://rox.sourceforge.net/comments.php3
http://rox.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php3
There are two mailing lists; rox-users and rox-devel. You can subscribe here, or look at the archives:
http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=7023
A selection of tutorials on writing ROX applications is available on-line:
http://rox.sourceforge.net/tutor.php3
ROX-Lib, the python library for creating ROX applications easily, has been updated in various ways, including better drag-and-drop intergration with KDE's Konqueror and GNOME's gmc.
ROX-Filer is now available from the OpenBSD ports system (ie, it's part of the distribution).
'pythontheater', a Replay-like video player for ROX is now available:
http://xtheater.sourceforge.net/pythontheater/
As always, we're looking for more developers and users to join us!
Basil is a BASIC shared installed library manager. BASIC libraries are installed into the relocatable module area and can be used transparently by multiple programs.
From version 1.30 Basil supports multiple independent library lists. There is also a change in the recommended API to *commands and support for library resource applications.
This is a major development and makes Basil a lot more flexible and removes problems with conflicting routine names and the undefined order in which libraries appear in the single list. Any maintainer of a library system should be urged to make it a shared one.
It is still not widely tested, so might be considered a beta version for the time being.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/kappa/Software/
After encouragement and help from Ralph Corderoy and others, I've just got round to putting up the text of my 1987 book 'ARM Assembly Language Programming 'on my Web site. It's currently available in HTML and PDF formats, as well as the original MacAuthor files for anyone who wants to really go back to the source documents. Ralph has an idea to bring the text up to date to describe the many revisions of the ARM architecture that have appeared since the book was published. I'm rather out of the ARM loop myself nowadays, but if anyone's interested in taking this on, feel free to contact me or Ralph (email addresses on the Web page).
http://www.peter-cockerell.net:8080/aalp/
Have an early Christmas present!
Version 1.10 of the Audiogalaxy Satellite for RISC OS is now available and is awaiting your download!
The main changes between this and the previously released 1.05Alpha are:
You can get it at http://www.alpha-programming.co.uk/ in the Software section.
(information from the Audiogalaxy website)
Merry Christmas!
EasiFiler 1.10 can now be downloaded from <http://homepage.eircom.net/~lrtc>
Whats new:
For people not in the know, EasiFiler is a replacment for the Resource filing system. EasiFiler is an application which is designed to make launching and using applications much easier. Documentation can be found at <http://homepage.eircom.net/~lrtc/computers/software/easifiler.html>
New web page for downloading Holy bible resources from. If you have a need for any resources, please come and have a look If you have any resources you'd like to be shared, please, give me a copy to upload to the site.
Visit:
www.holybible.baptistch.net
As the Usenet archive Google Groups have released their 20-year timeline celebrating 20 years of Usenet, I done some digging and come up with a 20 year timeline of Acorn/ARM/RISC OS
The page can be found at:
http://www.spellings.net/memory.php
Events such as the first mention of the Acorn Risc Machine (ARM), the birth of ARM Ltd, first ever comp.sys.acorn posting and the beginning of The End for Acorn..
Relevant submissions for the page also welcome.
Users of Acorn/RISC OS machines who have or are connected to PC nets by Sambaservers, LanManFS, etc are notified that their machines may be attacked by the above-named virus.
While the code is not, of course, ARM code, it is known to affect the following RISC OS applications
b. Riscript - After loading, displaying a banner and the icon on the icon bar, the program brings up a window which says merely 'stopped' and then quits.
The file is 107251 bytes long, looks in a text editor as if it is some weird Mime multi-part file - the last section of which calls itself 'readme.exe' and thinks it is a wav file!
It produces a copy of itself in every directory to which it has access - and has, I am told, much more serious problems for PC users. The file type seems to be fixed at &003 - but I have no guarantee of this as I wasn't going to check each of the 850-odd copies I had to remove from my machine!! Each file seems to have a different random?? name - for those with long file names some of them seem to end in 'eml'.
YHBW
http://www.mikejs.com/riscos/amplay.html
The main download includes the app itself and text documentation. HTML documentation and the (WIMPBasic) source are also downloadable.
This release fixes a couple of non-fatal error messages, some other minor bugs and adds a couple of minor improvements (notably adjust-clicking on the Defaults button in the options will update the options window with the currently active options).
Also uploaded just now is a small archive containing the AMPlay button sprites in a number of different colour schemes - this is just palette changing rather than proper skins, but it makes things a little easier if you don't happen to like the default green button set.
We would like to announce txt2pdf 5.4 version.
http://www.sanface.com/txt2pdf.html
txt2pdf is shareware; it is a very flexible and powerful PERL5 script that converts text files to PDF format files, so you can use it in every operating systems supported by PERL5, including RiscOS. Joern-Erik LEO Burkert developed !txt2pdf: a txt2pdf RiscOS GUI (http://www.burkert.org/leo/acorn/). If you prefer we also distribute executables for Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and FreeBSD. Inside the Windows version is Visual txt2pdf, a VB GUI.
What's new in this version
Two new options: ViewerPreferences and fit
Test txt2pdf 5.4!
You can find it at http://www.sanface.com/txt2pdf.html
Further to a recent posting, can I just bring it to people's attention that there already exists an Education Discussion list for RISC OS users!
Details to be found at:
Users of RISC OS in schools remain among the most knowledgeable and successful of all. To enable communication between them, I have set up an email list or group called RiscOS-Schools-UK.
It is on the lines of the successful suse-linux-schools-uk group, which helps subscribers with mutual advice on every aspect of the use of their OS and the hardware and applications associated with it, within education.
My object is to do the same, or better, for RISC OS.
If you would like to subscribe, send an email with the word 'subscribe' somewhere in the subject line or the body, to:
mailto:admin-riscos-schools-uk@stonar.wilts.sch.uk
To send a mail to everyone on the list, simply email to:
mailto:riscos-schools-uk@stonar.wilts.sch.uk
Compliments of the season to all, and let us look forward to a brilliant 2002.
I have moved the site to http://riscos.f2g.net/banners/ due to F2S.net ending their free hosting.
Hi,
As many of you will have noticed, there has been a lack of postings to this newsgroup throughout the past few days.
This has been due to a number of problems:
I believe we've now caught up with all O/S articles. I apologise for the delay, especially where the delay has meant some specific articles now have little meaning - I have still approved them for completeness.
THE FOLLOWING IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ALL THOSE WISHING TO SUBMIT ARTICLES TO ANNOUNCE:
Please send all submissions to csaa@spidersoft.co.uk. Articles sent either directly to the group, or to any of the previous addresses will not get seen, and thus will not be approved. I have submitted the group alias change so posting directly to the group will soon automatically forward to the new address, once this is active I will post an announcement. Queries should now be sent to csaa-request@spidersoft.co.uk.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
DiscImage version 1.01 is now available for download from
http://www.sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk/software/
DiscImage is for producing disc image files from floppy discs. Image files can be produced from any floppy disc recognised by the operating system, and also Amstrad CPC and some Einstein disc formats. The image files can be produced in several different formats, including DSK and EDSK.
Image files are popular for use with computer emulators. DiscImage will allow you to produce images of standard RISC OS discs for use with RISC OS emulators, and also images of "foreign" disc formats for use with emulators of other computers running under RISC OS.
Future versions of DiscImage may be extended to allow images to be written back to floppy disc. If you are interested in this feature, let me know.
The LibXML & LibXSLT tools xmllint and xsltproc, as well as the RISC OS source for libxml 2.4.11 have been updated at:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/justin.fletcher/XML/
This update follows todays release of the libxml 2.4.11 and libxslt 1.0.8 sources.
XML is a structured description format used in many modern applications. XSLT is a mechanism for transforming data in XML-based formats to other formats (most usually HTML or some similar markup).
This release skips a version of libxslt and libxml. Rather than producing another version of the libraries and tools within 48 hours of the prior release, I decided to wait a while and see how things went. The changes in this version are mostly to accommodate the XSLT debugger which I've ported, but needs more testing before release.
More information about libxml2, libxslt and the related tools can be obtained from http://xmlsoft.org/.
As in the past, I intend to keep RISC OS libxml2/libxslt releases within 24 hours of the base unix source release.
Bob was the Chief Programmer of Icon Technology and was the Author of TechWriter and EasiWriter.
He leaves a widow, Reena.
Mike Glover, Icon Technology Limited
For those who don't know, !BlastOff is one of five educational programs available free at:
http://www.narrator.demon.co.uk/senssoft
Clozeword: a program to develop reading skills using cloze procedure.
FullMarks: a program to develop correct use of punctuation
Password: a program to develop spelling using Look Cover Write Check
Fuzzword: a program for developing letter sequencing skills.
!Whois, a DDE-based front-end to the internet utility Whois is now available from my servers at <http://homepage.eircom.net/~lrtc> and click on downloads.
For those not in the know, Whois will display server and registeration details for a named server/website. An example of the output by Whois would be something like this:>>
Whois Server Version 1.3 Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information. Domain Name: EIRCOM.NET Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC. Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com Name Server: AUTH01.NS.EIRCOM.NET Name Server: AUTH02.NS.EIRCOM.NET Name Server: AUTH03.NS.EIRCOM.NET Updated Date: 05-nov-2001
<<
Whois can go into more detail is wanted too.
Documation will appear on my Computers->Software section on my website soon now, but the application should be straight foward.
To use !Whois, you will need a copy of the binary Whois which Peter Naulls recently ported and can be found at <http://www.chocky.org/unix/>
GedcomWeb 2.02 is now available for download from
http://www.sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk/software/
This contains a few improvements over 2.00 including better support for files exported from !Family, people without surnames, and warning for overwriting files.
GedcomWeb is a program for genealogists. It converts GEDCOM files (as exported from Family, Roots, Ancestor etc.) into JavaScript-based Web pages.
Even if you don't want to display your family tree on the Web, the output is still very useful for sending to relations who may not have genealogy software, as it will work with any modern web browser on any type of computer. It's also very handy for printing family trees.
See the web page for further details on how to purchase a full copy and for an example of the output which can be viewed online.
Prune v.1.00 is now available from
http://www.sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk/software/
Prune is a program for genealogists, to cut out parts of GEDCOM files. It was designed for use in conjunction with GedcomWeb, to enable you to cut out living people or disreputable ancestors from your family tree before publishing the information on the World Wide Web. It is also useful for pruning GEDCOM files which your relations have sent you, to cut out people from their tree who are no relation of yours.
Introducing: Your new Editor for Acorn User Magazine - Mr Michael Stubbs...
Hello,
We have a lot of exciting times ahead with big changes in the market coming. I am delighted to be the Editor of Acorn User and I wanted to let you know about me and the plans for Acorn User. I have been involved in various aspects of the RISC OS market for many years, ranging from maintaining Acorn computer suites; providing user support; creating user guides and worksheets; to working in the field of RISC OS technology solutions.
My background has given me a sound knowledge of RISC OS and I've seen what it's capable of at its best. I am actively involved in a RISC OS-based business, so I am tapped into what is happening and what needs to happen for a successful future. Because my work requires me to keep up-to-date with developments and trends in the RISC OS market, I am able to use this to the advantage of the Acorn User readership.
Announcing - The Future
There is a future for RISC OS, and that future will be a very successful one. There is enormous potential for the desktop market to grow and once again be a large, thriving community.
The re-launched Acorn User will drive the way for this success with its new and improved range of news and articles. We will encourage software development with articles for complete beginners and more technical articles for the advanced user.
Improved content and increased promotion of the magazine will help retain and increase readership, which will have a direct effect on the userbase. Acorn User will highlight the strengths of RISC OS, while encouraging the few weaknesses to be overcome by the players in the market.
Already, a News Editor has been appointed to ensure that Acorn User carries a comprehensive and independently compiled News section. We've spent a lot of time carefully considering readers' comments for improving the magazine; we'll be implementing many of these, as well as a wide range of improvements that the Acorn User team have identified.
Let's work together toward this common aim - without you there is no future!
I welcome your comments, queries and suggestions on our magazine.
Please email me - editor@acornuser.com (Mike Stubbs)
Steve Langley, Marketing Manager, Tau Press
Following a thread on comp.sys.acorn.programmer, you may be interested to learn that the dead links on the PRM CD from RISCOS Ltd have now been corrected and that the *differences* are available to download now.
Note that you must own the complete CD already, since only the differences are contained in the ZIP file - courtesy of David Pilling's !Freshen. The full CD is available from RISCOS Ltd, sales@riscos.com.
Oh, and the files must be on a writeable medium!
Go to http://www.sprow.co.uk/bbc/riscos.htm
http://www.digitalcd.riscos.org.uk/
now points to my brand new homepage instead of the defunct geocities one. Thanks Michael.
New on the redesigned site are:
Fixes a few bugs and includes the latest versions of some modules:
I had unfortunately had not the time to fix the more recently reported bugs nor could include any change request.
New options mostly related to cope with the extensions made in DCDUtils. With the right options it can monitor at a decent speed MP3s with 600 points to cover for example the 0-3KHz range.
New option to display samples names/instruments names/comments in either the system font or a PC one.
For those who still don't know:
DigitalCD is a desktop music player compatible with RISC OS 3.1 or later (including StrongARM). It provides independent control panels for any connected CD drive and music files playlists. It's main features are:
ExpLAN have created a new set of pages for the Solo computer project, which are now live on http://www.explan.co.uk/solo/
This includes photographs of the prototype Mk II product, which looks more like the final production units.
Please remember that this is a development project and that the intention is to build these computers in the 3rd World, where solar-energy is an essential requirement. We are not in a position to respond to individual end-user enquiries at this stage.
Enquiries from potential manufacturers and their government representatives (esp in Africa) will be dealt with, and there is literature available to assist them in evaluating the Solo project. Please feel free to draw the attention of such interested parties to this new website, and to direct such enquiries for manufacturing licences to ExpLAN.
| 2003 | Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | 2003 |
| Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan | ||
| 2002 | Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | 2002 |
| Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan | ||
| 2001 | Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | 2001 |
| Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan | ||
| 2000 | Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | Jul | 2000 |
| Jun | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan |