|-------------------------- Acorn News Service --------------------------| | http://www.ans.org.uk/ | | ISSUE 250 19 April 2009 | | | | An independent monthly newsletter for the Acorn world. | | Send your news items or comments to ans@acornusers.org. | |------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Featured site this issue: http://www.wakefieldshow.org.uk/ | |------------------------------------------------------------------------| Contents -------- 1) General News 2) Commercial News 3) PD/Shareware News 4) Club news 5) ANS information General News ------------ 1) 8 bit World at the Wakefield Show At the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Show on 25th April, enthusiast and collector Joel Rowbottom will be displaying an interactive museum of Acorn hardware from the 1980s; giving you the opportunity to play the games you remember, on the machines you once owned. The centre-piece of the exhibition is the BBC Domesday Project, a rare interactive snapshot of life in 1985 compiled by schools across the British Isles. It is one of a handful of surviving laserdisc systems, incorporating photos, video and narrative to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book. "The Domesday Project is always popular with visitors," says Joel. "Frequently we find contributors who were 7 years old when it was written, who can now finally see work they participated in over 20 years ago." Also on show will be a working Acorn Econet network and a selection of BBC computers from 1981 through to 1988. For more information visit the show website: 2) RISC OS Computer Show Wakefield '09 The 2009 Wakefield show will be open from 10am to 5pm on Saturday, 25th April, at The Cedar Court Hotel, Wakefield. Full details of exhibitors and the theatre programme are available from: Commercial News --------------- 1) Veneralia celebrations at STD STD announced Vpod : Ok, so we're not Roman, but when have we ever let a small detail like that get in the way of a good party? And, if we're talking of partying, who better to show us the way? Ave Caesar! It's been exactly V years since we last marked Veneralia with a product launch so we thought that it was about time that we did it again. Last time it was our unique UNIpod hopping onto the stage that caused the uproar and has proved incredibly popular ever since. This year we're hoping our vibrant Vpod will spring forth to a similarly vast audience. UNIpod: the only podule you'll ever need Vpod: the only other podule you'll ever need ;-) It's early in the season and Vpod is still a little bud, full of potential and vitality, verging on blooming but not yet bearing fruit. We expect them to ripen by the 25th of April and to have a bountiful crop in time to produce stunning displays at the Wakefield flower^H^H^H^H^H^HRISC OS show. So come along and share our vivid Vpod vision! Venus Verticordia, the guest of honour at our celebration, had this to say about the Vpod: "I love it already and so will you!" Adjusting her myrtle wreath vainly, voluptuous Venus voiced, "Vpod is such a fantastic product, I'm glad you named it after me." Sorry, no pictures are available yet. Our artist has run out of #ffcba4, he expects to be able to pick some more up on his way back from lunch. He dithered about mixing #ffcda3 and #ffc9a5, but he likes his pictures perfect. 2) R-Comp release SafeStore backup system 1.20 R-Comp have released version 1.20 of their popular SafeStore backup system for RISC OS machines. This will be the "Wakefield Show" version, and has been sent out to existing SafeStore customers as a free upgrade. The new version has many enhancements for anyone using network-attached hard drives. These enhancements come as a result of weeks of testing with a variety of such drives, which showed up many issues that prevented RISC OS data being correctly copied to the drives. Version 1.20 also includes improved logging, especially if problems are encountered during the "scanning for changes" phase, and improvements in working with VirtualAcorn and HostFS. Obviously SafeStore 1.20 contains lots of updates for network users, but SafeStore is perfectly at ease backing up files within the same machine, to external drives, or via FTP. SafeStore is available on its own for GBP35, or bundled with a wide variety of external drives. PD/Shareware News ----------------- 1) New software summary * MPGTX, MPEG audio/video/system file toolbox The first release of MPGTX version 1.3 for RISC OS platforms. MPGTX is a command-line MPEG audio/video/system file toolbox, that slices and joins audio and video files. This is a beta release. It includes documentation and the mpgtx executable, but no front-end application launcher or resource folder. 2) Updated software summary * FFmpeg v1.02 A versatile, open-source, multi-platform video and audio converter. Release 1.02 (5 April 2009) of the FFmpeg package for RISC OS includes build 18169 of FFmpeg for StrongARM Risc PC and newer RISC OS platforms. Through the use of FFmpeg, it is now possible to play a large number of audio-visual formats for which there are no native RISC OS players. Some major advantages of this release over the previous one include: partial support for AAC decoding (for some internet radio streams); full support for AC3 decoding; debugged MPEG 2 encoding; setting the audio sample rate in the front-end's conversion panel. * SiteMatch v2.39 A utility which synchronises remote web sites to local copies on your filing system using FTP or portable media. It can also be used for making incremental backups of directories. This version adds support for psftp. Club News --------- 1) Upcoming meetings * ROUGOL (London), 20th April - NetSurf2 presented by John-Mark Bell * SAUG (Southampton), 21st April * Wakefield RISC OS Show, 25th April * WROCC (Wakefield), 6th May * LAUG (Liverpool), 12th May * RONE (North East), 12th May - More networking * RISC OS eXperience 2009 (Netherlands), 16th May * MUG (Midlands), 16th May * ROUGOL (London), 18th May ANS Information --------------- 1) Contact ANS To send in your news items e-mail or use the form on the ANS website . More information about ANS and other contact details are available on the ANS web site . 2) How to subscribe to ANS If you are reading this on the ANS web site, or have received a forwarded copy of ANS and would like to subscribe to the mailing list, simply send a blank e-mail to . Alternatively use the form on the ANS web site at . For details of other commands e-mail . ---------------- Acorn News Service, http://www.ans.org.uk/ ----------------