Following on from the news that Pipedream is now free to download, Gerald Fitton has announced that Fireworkz for RISC OS is also now free to download. Fireworkz is an integrated word processor and spreadsheet package, with some very powerful and useful facilities, which works in a fundamentally different way to PipeDream. Both are very powerful and useful pieces of software and, if you haven’t used them before, they come highly recommended. A mailing list has also been set up for the software on Google Groups by Stuart Swales, the programmer responsible for updating the software. Continue reading »
Nov 192011
Feb 282011
Following the success of the first meeting of members of the Bristol RISC OS Users mailing list, a discussion list formed to support the possible rebirth of a user group for the area, a second meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday 16th March, 2011, and is therefore an ideal opportunity to discuss anything of interest from the RISC OS South West Show, which takes place on Saturday 5th March, 2011. Continue reading »
Following on from discussions that began about a year ago and which led initially to the creation of a mailing list to bring together RISC OS users in and around the Bristol area, an initial meeting has been announced for those users – so if you are a RISC OS user in that area, the date to note in your diaries is Wednesday 26th January, 7:15pm for 7:30pm, and the venue the Air Balloon pub in Filton, Bristol – which is very easy to find. The following is the announcement that has been posted to comp.sys.acorn.announce:
Oct 212010
According to Jim Nagel of Archive Magazine in a post to the the Bristol RISC OS Users mailing list, he received news today that a date has been pencilled in for the South West Show in 2011 – 5th March. No further details are available as yet, and given that Jim used the words ‘pencilled in’ this date is presumably not definite and could be subject to change.
The South West Show has traditionally been held in mid to late February, at The Webbington Hotel, Loxton, and although Jim didn’t mention the venue, that is where it will most likely be held since it is such an easy location for exhibitors to get to, being just off the A38 and very close to the M5.
Oct 192010
The date and location for a Wakefield Show for 2011 have been announced. Comments last week on the Archive-online mailing list indicated that the Cedar Court Hotel, Calder Grove had been booked provisionally for 16th April, 2011, but an email received today from Rick Sterry, WROCC‘s assistant show organiser, confirms that the show is going ahead on that date.
Booking forms are yet to be sent out to potential exhibitors, banner graphics have yet to be made available – the purpose of the email was to get the word out as early as possible; the more publicity, the better in this small RISC OS community.
Jan 302010
Updated 31/1/2010 with a fourth idea and altered to use a vector based acorn.
Updated 1/2/2010 with a new version of idea 4, but with better colours, and a few others.
Following the initial comments made earlier this week about the possibility of starting a new Bristol based RISC OS user group if there is enough interest, Trevor was able to find a copy of the old BARUG (Bristol Area RISC OS User Group) logo:
Bristol Area RISC OS User Group Logo
To my mind, there are a small number of issues with this. First and foremost, it’s a bitmap which means it can’t be easily re-sized (upwards) without a loss of quality. Somebody, somewhere probably does have it in a vector based format – but it matters not, because of the remaining issues. The second is that it uses the word “RISC” instead of “RISC OS” – the former term encompasses a great deal more than just RISC OS (although the flaw with both is their apparent exclusion of, say, 8bit users of old Acorn kit). And the third most obvious issue is the use of the acorns to represent the towers of the Clifton Suspension Bridge; representing the bridge encompasses a well known Bristol landmark in the design – which is great, given that it’s a Bristol based group – but the acorn is somewhat out of date in that it associates the group (and RISC OS) with Acorn Computers Ltd, who are long gone. There may also be trademark issues with the use of the acorn.
Following the initial discussion Trevor Johnson and I had, as summarised earlier this week, I have now set up a mailing list for RISC OS users in Bristol and the surrounding area – this being the first planned step in order to try to guage interest in the possibility of a renewed Bristol based user group.
The easiest way to subscribe to the list is by visiting http://riscository.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/bru-list_riscository.co.uk and filling in the very simple form on that page – email address to be subscribed, your name, and a password (entered twice) – and clicking the ‘subscribe’ button.
Soon after doing that, you will receive an email at the address you entered – this email will contain instructions on how to confirm and complete your subscription. And once that’s done, you will be able to post to the mailing list by sending your emails (from the address with which you subscribed) to bru-list@riscository.co.uk
I look forward to seeing you on the list!
Unfortunately, the riscository.co.uk domain is currently unavailable, and therefore the mailing lists provided at that domain are not at this time functioning.
The problem was called by a renewal issue with the domain registration; specifically that I was blissfully unaware it was due for renewal, having received no notifications or requests for payment from the registrars. As a result, the domain has been suspended.
Steps have now been taken to rectify this and, provided nothing else goes wrong, things should return to normal soon.
Littered around the country, and possibly overseas as well, there are a number of RISC OS user groups, who meet up on a regular basis, discuss RISC OS issues and have developers and other guests pop in to demonstrate their latest software or give a talk on some aspect of what they do or have done. There used to be such a group for Bristol and the surrounding areas, which I never bothered to join (so in a way I’m partly responsible for what happened next). That group closed down in 2006 due to declining numbers. When its demise was announced, I figured there must still be quite a number of users in the area, so I set up a mailing list for Bristol users.
A mailing list to which nobody subscribed, so after about some time I quietly removed it – there was no need to announce its closure, since it wasn’t going to affect anyone.
A few days ago, though, I was contacted by another Bristol user, Trevor Johnson. He had read of the Bristol user group’s closure on Drobe, and of my setting up the mailing list – and had tried, unsuccessfully, to subscribe. The general point of his email: Is there perhaps any scope for starting a new Bristol user group? Continue reading »
