Have you voted yet? If not, get voting – and here are some additional ideas!
The voting form for the 2015 RISC OS Awards poll went live three weeks ago today, and there have so far been just over a hundred entries – which is still a long way short of the first poll run by RISCOSitory two years ago, in which there were around 150 votes, but already a match for last year’s poll (in fact, it’s a very small improvement), which received around a hundred entries after being open for just over two months.
There is still a long way to go, of course – ideally, the number of votes needs to match the number received in the first poll, and preferably improve on it – but it’s pleasing to see the number received so far match (and marginally improve on) last year’s figure.
The method used for the polls has changed each year: The first poll was a straightforward form offering a number of options, and it was a matter of selecting one in order to vote. The second poll, however, offered no options at all, but a text field instead, so that people could vote for whatever they wanted – and I believe this was a big factor in why there were so many fewer votes.
This year, the poll is taking a hybrid approach: It offers a number of options in each category, along with a way to make an alternative suggestion. As suggested when the poll was launched, in order to provide ideas for those people who have yet to cast their votes, those alternative suggestions have been mentioned in the @RISCOSitory Twitter feed – and now it’s about time they were also summarised on the site.
What follows, then, is a simple list of those suggestions, broken down by category, with no further comment added – though in some cases, the reason given along with the suggestion has been included. They are in no particular order other than the order in which I found them as I scanned through the votes for the purpose of this article – and if a category isn’t listed, it has received no alternative suggestions.
Best commercial software
- Messenger/NetFetch
- Fireworkz Pro
- ROOL’s for the Norcroft development suite
Best non-commercial software
- rRaw
- Pluto
Best game or diversion
- Moonquake
- Hopper
- House of Cards
Best hardware
- Raspberry Pi Zero
Best show of initiative
- Pi-Top, for developing a laptop that runs RISC OS natively
Best website or online resource
- Arcsite.de
- RISCOS.fr
- riscosnews.wordpress.com
Most innovative or interesting project
- All those getting RISC OS to run on new hardware!
- RiscOSM
- Otter browser
Best overall contributor
- RISC OS Open Ltd
- Jeffrey Lee
- A4com
- Jon Abbott
- Martin Wuerthner/MW Software
- German Archimedes group
- Robert Sprowson
- R-Comp/Andrew Rawnsley
- 3QD (for the latest VRPC CD and resources)
- RISC OS programmers/community as a whole (for being exceptionally helpful on newsgroups/forums)
- CJE Micro’s
- Martin Avison
- Paul Vigay
Broken cog of the year
- R-Comp, for not updating their ARMini website for 14 months to reflect what is for sale.
- apdl.org.uk, because the site hasn’t been updated in a long time. (Note, however, that this suggestion came with a question: “help needed?”)
I should note that there were also suggestions in a couple of categories for either me, or this website. However, while those votes are acknowledged, and I am grateful to those who made them, they will not be counted.