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Home > Archive > Issue 151 Current Issue: No. 260 (28 March 2010)
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Acorn News Service Newsletter

Issue: 151 (8 February 2004)

Featured site this issue: http://users.argonet.co.uk/acornshow/

General News

RISCOS Expo 2004

The Big Ben Club, the national Dutch Acorn User Group, will be holding its annual show on 19th June.

RISCOS Expo 2004 offers exhibitions by various companies, including Dutch, German and British Acorn dealers, as well as demonstrations by club members, etc. There will also be a theatre next to the Expohall for demonstration purposes.

Show date: Saturday, June 19th, 2004
Venue: Expohall, Hotel Mercure, Buizerdlaan 10, Nieuwegein (near the city of Utrecht)
A first class location, with restaurant, parking garage (free)
Open: 10.00am to 5.00pm
Admission: members free, non-members EUR7

In time there will be more information on the web site: <http://www.bigbenclub.nl/>

Gimp-Print for RISC OS released

The release of Gimp-Print for RISC OS brings the full power of Gimp-Print, the most popular photo-real printer driver for Linux, to RISC OS and with it an impressive list of supported printers: many popular HP and Canon printers (eg the BJC 7100 and the S800) and the latest Epson models (eg the Stylus C84) - the complete list of supported Epson printers has more than 140 entries!

Gimp-Print supports high-resolution, high-quality, photo-real printing (eg up to 2880 by 1440dpi with the Epson Stylus C84) on many media types from plain paper to glossy photo paper and offers extensive control over the printout (brightness, saturation, contrast, print density etc).

Gimp-Print for RISC OS is compatible with all applications that are able to print through the standard RISC OS printing system (Printers). The RISC OS release consists of three major components:

  • the GemPrint printing layer that allows you to use Gimp-Print through the standard RISC OS printing system
  • the multi-tasking GPDriver that is based on Gimp-Print and does the actual work of generating the data for the printer (GPDriver is open source software that has been released under the GNU Public Licence)
  • and the GPSetup application that allows you to control the advanced features of Gimp-Print.

Thanks are due to the many supporters of the project who made this release possible by pledging a donation to help funding its development. Now that the project has been completed, all supporters have been asked to send the promised funds. It is possible that all the software will become freely available at some later time, but for the time being, the full Gimp-Print for RISC OS release is only available to supporters of the project. Details of how to donate money can be found in the "Donation" section of the Gimp-Print for RISC OS home page: <http://www.mw-software.com/software/gimp-print/gimp-print.html>

Further information to be found there includes a list of supported printers and some screenshots of Gimp-Print for RISC OS in action.

Credits are due to the Gimp-Print development team who did the main work of creating this excellent high-quality printer driver. The official Gimp-Print home page can be found at: <http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/>

Risk game web site update

The RISC OS Risk game web site has has been updated to include new maps and enhancements by Martin Dann, Thomas Rankin and others: <http://www.maxandanna.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/risk.htm>

Risk is a desktop version of the classic strategy board game.

Simple RISC OS - XP networking guide

A new RISC OS to Microsoft Windows XP networking guide is now online: <http://www.archez.co.uk/networking/riscos/riscos.htm> <http://www.archez.co.uk/networking/xp/xp1.htm>

Commercial News

APDL looking for programmers and writers

  • Programmers with C experience
    APDL are looking for a number of enthusiast programmers to assist with their current development projects. APDL have a number of applications for which they are looking to release newly IYONIX compatible (and improved 26-bit) versions.
    If you are comfortable with coding in C under RISC OS and feel that you have something to offer please e-mail David Bradforth at <david.bradforth@apdl-proaction.co.uk>, providing a sample of your work (ideally as a link rather than an attachment) and details of your experience and how much time you would be able to provide. Payment would be either as a royalty or per project.
  • RISC World needs new writers
    RISC World, published by APDL, is a bi-monthly CD-ROM based magazine covering the full range of RISC OS computers. They are looking to recruit enthusiastic writers to join the current editorial team and hence broaden the views offered through their virtual pages. They need new contributors who can offer: reviews, features, beginners pieces, and ideas for other articles. Please e-mail <editor@riscworld.co.uk> or call Aaron Timbrell on 01344 452868 during office hours. RISC World pay GBP50 per article for all contributions.

Hard Disc Companion is now 32-bit friendly

An IYONIX-compatible version of Hard Disc Companion is now available, incorporating all of the functionality offered by the RISC OS 4 release plus a number of bug fixes.

Features introduced in the last major release included:

  • Full support for long filenames and F+ format disks.
  • Logfile construction is 2-3 times faster.
  • Unattended operation has been improved.
  • You can now double click on a file in Restore or drag it to an application to view the file.
  • Restore's appearance has been updated to match recent versions of the Filer (as supplied with RISC OS 3.5 - 4)
  • PC partition contents can now be handled as separate files, ie the whole partition need not be backed up.

Existing users of an APDL/ProAction version can upgrade for just GBP6; users of a BEEBUG/RISC Developments version can upgrade for GBP10.

New users can buy Hard Disc Companion for GBP14.90 including VAT and UK post directly from APDL on 020 8778 2659, by post to APDL, 39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5RN, or e-mail <info@apdl.co.uk>.

Iyonix motherboard stability update via Stuart Tyrrell Developments

Due to a number of enquiries as a result of Castle's hardware fixes for the Iyonix <http://www.iyonix.com/updates/MB-Mods.shtml>, Stuart Tyrrell Developments are happy to announce a rework service for those Iyonix owners who are not confident of successfully carrying out the modification on their own.

Stuart Tyrrell Developments have arranged for this work to be carried out by Simtec and Advantage Six. Pricing, details of the work to be carried out, and booking information are all available at: <http://www.stdevel.com/IyonixFix.html>

Similar work is also available elsewhere, including direct from Castle.

IYONIX trade-in offer

Throughout the month of February 2004 Castle will be running a Trade-In Scheme for end users wishing to upgrade to an IYONIX pc. The scheme is available against any working, original specification StrongARM or ARM7500 based RISC OS computer. This offer is only available against the IYONIX pc max and can not be used in conjunction with any other IYONIX pc offer.

The IYONIX pc max (RRP GBP1399 plus delivery) specifications are: Intel 600MHz Xscale processor, 512MB DDR RAM, 120GB quiet hard disk, 52x Sony CD rewriter.

Trade in allowances (GBP) are as follows:

  • Castle Manufactured
    Kinetic Risc PC 250
    StrongARM Risc PC 200
    A7000+ 150
  • Acorn Manufactured
    StrongARM Risc PC 175
    Risc PC 700 150
    Risc PC 610 125
    A7000/A7000+ 100
  • Other RISC OS desktop computer manufacturer
    StrongARM 150
    ARM 7500FE computer 100

Depending on the Trade-In computer it means that you can purchase a top spec IYONIX pc from GBP1149 plus delivery.

How the trade-in scheme works:

  1. Establish what your Trade-In allowance is.
  2. Complete the Trade-In order form. <http://www.iyonix.com/orders/TradeIn.pdf>
  3. Send in the form and full payment to Castle or your preferred dealer.
  4. Castle will deliver your new IYONIX pc computer (either direct or to your preferred dealer).
  5. You deliver your Trade-In computer to Castle (or your preferred dealer).
  6. Castle checks your Trade-In computer and sends you a cheque for the value of your Trade-In allowance.

The IYONIX pc RISC OS computer from Castle features XScale processor technology with ultra fast 200MHz DDR RAM, UDMA100 hard drives, Gigabit networking, PC style graphics card, USB connectivity, a full software suite etc. The IYONIX pc is able to display up to 16 million colours and a wide range of screen resolutions of up to 2048x1536 pixels. The IYONIX also benefits from virtually silent operation due to the low power XScale processor, low speed fan and quiet specification hard drives. All prices include VAT.

<http://www.iyonix.com/>

PD/Shareware News

New software summary

  • puttytools, SSH clients
    A suite of SSH (secure shell) clients based on the Microsoft Windows client PuTTY. It contains:
    - psftp: secure FTP-like (sftp) file transfer
    - pscp: secure rcp-like file transfer
    - plink: run commands on a remote server with X11 and port forwarding
    All support SSH protocols version 1 and 2, with key authentication and key agent support with Maarten Bezemer's KeyGen and KeyAgent, and inline data compression. Several public key exchange (RSA, DSS) and private key session encryption (3DES, AES, Blowfish) schemes are provided.
    <http://www.markettos.org.uk/riscos/crypto/>

Updated software summary

  • Bogofilter v0.17.0
    Bayesian spam filter. It inspects e-mail messages and inserts headers that indicate whether or not the message is spam so that you can filter on them.
    <http://www.sbellon.de/sw-ports.html>
  • CryptRandom v0.12
    Module for generating cryptographically useful random numbers. This version contains security tweaks for its entropy gathering, which make its random number stream slightly more secure.
    <http://www.markettos.org.uk/riscos/crypto/>
  • DrW2HTML v3.70b
    Converts the text manual from the DrWimp programming suite into an HTML version allowing easier access. DrW2HTML should now be able to cope with any text manual from DrWimp version 3.90 onwards.
    <http://members.westnet.com.au/kwright/softw.html>
  • Locate v0.89
    Search for files, directories and applications meeting a given set of criteria. This version fixes a number of bugs that were introduced in the 32-bit versions, as well as some more long-standing ones. The main new feature is support for the small StartLocate program (supplied in the archive) which will open a search window.
    <http://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/software/locate/>
  • Printers+ v1.91a
    An open-source enhanced front-end for the RISC OS Printing system, providing support for remote network printers, and allowing access to some advanced printer features. This release fixes a number of bugs in the 1.91 release, and extends the support for external printer configuration applications allowing a greater level of integration.
    <http://roprinters.sourceforge.net/>
  • RiscSearch v0.94
    Meta search engine. New decoders and bug fixes.
    <http://www.riscsearch.de/>
  • Webgen2 v2.14
    A simple application that will take a directory of images (GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, Sprite or PNG), and turn them into a complete web site. Bug fixes and output formatting improvements.
    <http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/daves/software/index.html>

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