Author: VinceH

VinceH, aka Vince M Hudd, owns and operates Soft Rock Software, providing services and software to not only the RISC OS market, but also to the wider world. RISCOSitory and its associated sites and services are provided for free as a result of that - so buying his stuff is probably quite helpful.

RISC OS Awards: Deadline, and an overdue look at the alternative suggestions

The annual RISC OS Awards poll has now been open for just over two months, and is due to be closed fairly soon.

Shortly after the poll began I moved home and didn’t properly set up any computers for quite some time, so the planned occasional review and post of the ‘alternative’ entries didn’t happen, other than one quiet afternoon when I scanned through the votes that had been received at that point and tweeted those alternative entries.

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Netfetch 5.50 lands safely and securely

I could’ve made a joke about safety nets, couldn’t I? Oh well.

Now available from R-Comp is the latest version of the NetFetch internet suite, which contains a bundle of software including, amongst other things, Hermes for transporting emails and a version of Messenger so you can read and write those emails.

The update to version 5.50 includes two headline features – support for the very latest SSL/TLS standards, and an easy ‘quick-fetch’ function for individual mailboxes.

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News nybble: ROUGOL to discuss how to widen interest in RISC OS

Tonight’s meeting of the RISC OS User Group of London will be a discussion, with Bernard Boase taking the lead, on how to encourage others to take an interest in, and use the operating system. The discussion will cover everything from the highlights of the RISC OS GUI, through to its flaws and missing features; from the RISC OS publications, to quality or state of RISC OS-related websites.

To participate in this discussion, which will kick off at around 7:45pm, head for:

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

Time to get ready for your trip to Wakefield

It is time once again for RISC OS users to make their annual pilgrimage oop north!

This year’s Wakefield Show will take place on Saturday, 27th April – a day shy of two weeks from now – so as I type this, all the exhibitors will be heading into their final fortnight of relaxation, able to put their feet up having prepared everything for the show long in advance.

No, of course, they won’t! For most exhibitors the next couple of weeks will probably see them at their busiest, adding the final touches to the latest versions of their products, discovering problems and making more final touches, before finding even more problems that need fixing, frantically working into the night and not getting enough sleep, as the clock counts down until the point where they have to head for:

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News nybble: Save your bus route timetables

Following a similar facility being added recently to TrainTimes, Keven Wells has added a save facility to BusTimes – which performs a similar timetable look-up function as the first application, but for buses and stops rather than trains and stations. Kevin has also uploaded a short video demonstrating the new feature.

Both pieces of software use wget to draw the required data from the TransportAPI website – and also like TrainTimes, BusTimes has been updated to keep up with an API change.

News nybble: TrainTimes updated to avoid crashes

No, no, not train crashes, you fools – application crashes!

Kevin Wells has released an updated version of his TrainTimes application, which can be used to look up the trains due at a given station, to help planning any upcoming trips. Version 1.10 benefits from a bug fix that prevents it crashing when first run if a station had more than ten trains.

The new version has also been updated to comply with a requirement of the Transport API website, which it draws upon as a data source using Wget.

News nybble: Southampton meeting, 9th April

The Southampton RISC OS User Group will be holding its next meeting from 7:00pm until 9:00pm on Tuesday, 9th April. As ever, the meeting is free to attend, and there will be a small network of RISC OS computers, hopefully with an internet connection.

The place to head for is the Sports Centre of Itchen College, Deacon Road, Southampton. The car park entrance is accessed from Deacon Road, opposite Whites Road, and once in the college you need to head for the College Centre – an open area with tables and chairs next to the Sports Centre Reception.

News nybble: Wakefield pot-pourri, 3rd April

The next meeting of the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club takes place tomorrow evening, and will feature a mix of topics including Ian Stanley talking about using an IDE hard drive on a Raspberry Pi, running Mike Cook’s oscilloscope on under RISC OS, and using the RDSP module from AMCOG Games to produce sounds on the Pi. Peter Richmond will also take the floor to discuss TV video output and Gen-locking.

With free entry for members, and a £3.00 charge for non-members, the meeting will take place at 7:45pm at the West Yorkshire Sports and Social Club, Sandal Hall Close, Off Walton Lane, Wakefield, WF2 6ER.

News nybble: Time to update your phone book entries for CJE Micro’s

If you have CJE Micro’s old number (ending 666, which I’d make a joke out of if this was a full post), it’s time to replace it with the correct one – (0)1903 523 222 – which has been their main number for some time. The line carrying the old number will shortly be disconnected.

In addition to which they are also discontinuing their fax number because it has been some years since anyone contacted them that way.