Synchronise those directories with DirSync 1.10

Jan-Jaap van der Geer has released the latest version of DirSync, an application that allows two directory structures to be compared visually, enabling you to filter the differences you see in several ways so that it only shows you newer files, for example, or only files that appear in one of the two directories, and so on. The software then allows you to specify which files should be the same in both places and, where necessary, which version should be copied to the other location, and then synchronise the two…

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R-Comp Interactive announces ARMini software scheme for BeagleBoard users

With the BeagleBoard forming the heart of R-Comp Interactive‘s ARMini computer, it’s easy to see that some of R-Comp’s developments and releases for their computer might be relevant to those people who have put together their own RISC OS computers using the board. Well, now those “DIY” users have a way to access those developments: R-Comp have announced an annual subscription based scheme whereby users of home built RISC OS computers based around a BeagleBoard can receive the software* and support enjoyed by ARMini owners.

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Snippets – 9th October 2011

Pi in the sky – or, at least, near Heathrow Airport For those interested in the Raspberry Pi, the RISC OS London Show (29th October, 2011, St Giles Hotel, Feltham) will be well worth a visit, since the tiny, low cost computer is set to make an appearance. It’s not known at this stage if it will be running RISC OS by the time of the show, but it seems likely that it will be on the RISC OS Open Ltd stand, judging by comments in their forum. Speaking of…

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Snippets – 10th September 2011

QuadDioph is a new piece of software from Martin Carradus. It’s an application that solves or finds “solution of certain Quadratic Diophantine Equations, of the form x^2 + B.x.y + A.y^2 = z^p, (e.g. x^2 + y^2 = z^2, two squares adding to a square, or x^2 + y^2 = z^3, two squares adding to a cube).” The application is free to download from Martin’s website. Martin Wuerthner has announced that an ARMv7 compatible version of InterGif. Version 6.18 can be used on the BeagleBoard, ARMini, etc. InterGif is an…

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Snippets – 29th August 2011

Christopher Martin has announced the availability of version 1.20 of FFmpeg and FFplay. FFmpeg is a versatile, open-source, multi-platform video and audio conversion system and FFplay is a very simple media player built upon FFmpeg and SDL. Christopher has also released a new version, 2.13, of Murnong, an application for fetching and decoding videos from YouTube, this update having been made necessary due to changes implemented on the video sharing website.

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Snippets – 6th August 2011

Dorian Computing have made available from their website one updated and one new piece of software. Originally written by Philip Macfarlane in 1991 and “released into the public domain,” DragCom is an application designed to provide a desktop front-end for star commands, making it easier to specify arguments (often files) by allowing them to be dragged onto the main window. This not only reduces the potential for errors when typing the path and filename, but it also removes the need to repeatedly type it if a series of commands needs…

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Making a jclean jcut

Posting to the ARMini support mailing list, user Ross McGuiness asked a little over a week ago about the application JCut, and whether there was any chance of it being made ARMini (and Beagleboard) compatible. The software is part of a small suite of programs written some years ago by J. David Barrow for manipulating JPEG files without re-sampling them, and thus without causing any reduction in the image quality that normal editing can cause. The software does this by way of the Independant JPEG Group utility ‘jpegtran’, providing a…

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Blog it to me, baby

Hot off the virtual press, the RISC OS community now has another source of news and opinion in the form of The RISC OS Blog. The emphasis, states the blogger, will be on “modern RISC OS”. He (or she) intends to write “the occasional snippets of news regarding the RISC OS operating system and all that surrounds it, and just generally [write] about the platform as a whole.”

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The boot’s on the other foot

As sold by R-Comp, the ARMini comes shipped in much the same way any other computer running RISC OS has done – you connect it up, switch on, and moments later you are presented with the familiar RISC OS desktop. For many users, this is what they want – that’s why they’ve bought the ARMini, an out of the box solution, rather than the more DIY approach of a Beagleboard-xm and the necessary bits and pieces to get it up and running. That doesn’t mean users have to stick with…

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ARMini on the bounty

ARMini Computer from R-Comp Interactive

As the 2011 Wakefield show creeps ever closer, Andrew Rawnsley of R-Comp has initiated a discussion on the RISC OS Open Ltd forums regarding some areas they’d like to see addressed in RISC OS before their ARMini computer goes from being a ‘coming soon’ to a current machine. Andrew is quick to point out that they “can’t afford to throw mega-bucks at anything” (an understandable position, given the size of the RISC OS community) and that they’re “basically budgeting money from the ‘pre-order’ pot for dev work.” In some cases,…

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