Come and see the Easter Otter at ROUGOL on 17th April

The Easter Bunny has taken a year out to travel the world.

One of the most notable ‘problem areas’ for RISC OS is the web browser situation. NetSurf is an excellent piece of work, but it still has a long way to go to get us to the point where we no longer need to switch to another system in order to perform some web-related tasks, and the developers have to fit their work on the browser around their normal lives and commitments.

Step forward, then, Chris Gransden, who brought an initial port of Otter, another open source web browser, to RISC OS. And stepping forward is exactly what Chris will be doing as the guest speaker at the RISC OS User Group of London‘s next meeting, which takes place on Monday, 17th April.

Chris has ported a number of programs to RISC OS, and he will be talking to the group about how he goes about the task, along with what else he has been working on –  which will include a sneak peak at some hitherto unreleased items that use the Khronos OpenGL graphics library with hardware acceleration on the Raspberry Pi.

The official start time for the meeting is at 7:45pm, though some members can usually be found at the venue from around 6:00pm – and that venue is:

The Blue-Eyed Maid (upstairs, in the restaurant),
173 Borough High Street,
London,
SE1 1HR.

There is no entry fee, so anyone who is interested can come along and join in. The only thing you may want to spend some money on is food and/or drink – the Blue-Eyed Maid serves a range of hot and cold food, along with alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.

It is situated between London Bridge and Borough tube stations, with both being just a five minute walk away through well lit streets covered by CCTV, and there is ample cycle parking nearby, also covered by CCTV. Drivers should take into account that the meeting takes place in central London – so you need to take that into account, and allow extra time, patience and maps, and to be aware of London parking. Congestion charging usually ends at 6:00pm, and the meeting starts much later – but with Monday 17th April being part of the Easter weekend, it shouldn’t be an issue anyway.

Speaking of the Easter weekend, ROUGOL’s Bryan Hogan makes the point that with the meeting falling on a public holiday, it could be an opportunity to visit the group for those who are normally unable to make it because of work, or an unwillingness to face London’s rush hour traffic. And for those coming from slightly further afield, he notes that the Blue-Eyed Maid is only a short walk from a number of the city’s attractions – such as The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast, The Globe Theatre, and Tate Modern – so it could be an opportunity for a day sightseeing in the nation’s Capital, capped off with a bite to eat and a chat with some friendly RISC OS people.

For help reaching the venue, or for any other information, ROUGOL can be contacted by email at info@rougol.jellybaby.net, as @rougol on Twitter, or by telephone on 07970 211 629.

Looking ahead, the subject of May’s meeting is yet to be decided, but June 19th will see a visit from Dr Nat Queen, who will be giving a talk entitled Cryptography and Security – a subject area that is becoming particularly topical and mainstream, with the number of security threats on the rise, bringing with them more and more conflicting viewpoints on the increasingly widespread use of encryption.

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