R-Comp’s GDPR notification

Many RISC OS users will have noticed an email or two arriving lately from RISC OS companies about personal data, privacy, and communications. Those emails almost certainly mention something called GDPR – the General Data Protection Regulation – which comes into force on Friday, 25th May, 2018 – the day after tomorrow. Without going into any depth, the GDPR sets a new standard for protecting personal data, and giving control of that data to the people who actually own it – the people the data is about, such as you,…

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Final call for votes in the 2017 Awards poll

The annual RISC OS Awards poll is coming to an end. The voting form will be taken down at some point on Saturday, 26th May, which is just three days from now. The RISC OS Awards provides you with a way to thank those companies and developers who have provided a good service, or developed something – hardware or software – that you feel is worthy of note. If enough people feel the same way as you, those you vote for effectively receive some recognition for their efforts, with that…

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How to: Draw a glass button in eight steps

The following is a step-by-step guide to producing a glass-topped button, where a glassy surface covers the underlying button and any image depicted thereon. The steps are geared towards ArtWorks2, the premier vector editing package for RISC OS, and there is a supporting file on my website showing the full eight steps in ArtWorks format. The basic steps should be generally applicable to other vector graphics packages on other platforms, so there is also PDF version of the file.

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Review: 55 BBC Micro Books on CD ROM

Introduction Christopher Dewhurst, the Drag ‘n Drop Publications editor, has released an excellent compilation of 55 BBC Micro Books, all together on one CD ROM. For any RISC OS user who wants to have a go at BASIC programming these are an essential buy. Although biased towards the BBC Micro, quite a few of the programs will run on current RISC OS machines, or can be edited to do so quite simply. Some of the subjects covered in the books and programs are:

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News nybble: Final reminder – Andrew Conroy in London, 21st May

Also: Pictures and words from Clive Semmens’ recent talk now online. Announced a couple of weeks ago and taking place in two days time, Andrew Conroy will be the guest speaker at this month’s RISC OS User Group of London meeting. Regularly seen at shows with his CJE Micro’s employee hat on, Andrew exhibited at this year’s Southwest Show in his own right, exhibiting many interfacing projects using the Raspberry Pi and, of course, RISC OS. It is this subject that he will be talking about in London. For more…

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News nybble: Textseek bug sought – and dealt with

Harriet Bazley has announced the release of version 1.48 of Textseek, a multi-file search application that presents the results of its searches via throwback, allowing you to click on a particular result to be taken to the relevant place in the file. The main change – which was actually made in 2015, but due to an oversight has only now been released – is to address a bug whereby the application could crash or produce a corrupted filetypes menu, neither of which is ideal, if used on a system on…

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News nybble: Ident Computer returns to the Midlands, 19th May

The Midlands User Group will be holding its next meeting on Saturday, 19th May – tomorrow – and the guest speaker will be Tom Williamson of Ident Computer, with a talk covering the company’s recent developments, such as the Ident CE, the new arrangement with RISCOSbits acting as a supplier, and 3D printing. If you wish to attend, the meeting will take place from 2:00pm at The Methodist Church Hall, Greenhill, Blackwell, Bromsgrove, B60 1BL, and there is a small charge to cover the costs of the hall and refreshments.

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RISC OS Awards: Another look at the alternative options for 2017

If you haven’t yet voted, why not do so now? The RISC OS Awards poll for 2017 has been open now since mid-March and will be coming to a close in a couple of weeks time. As such, now is an ideal time to take another look at some of the alternative nominations people have made if they felt something other than the options on offer deserve to win in any given category. If you have yet to vote, please do so as soon as possible in order to your…

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Andrew Conroy talks to ROUGOL about Pi interfacing, 21st May

There will probably be flashing – but don’t worry, it’ll be LEDs rather than Andrew himself. The next meeting of the RISC OS User Group of London – ROUGOL – will take place two weeks today, on 21st May, and the guest speaker will be Andrew Conroy. Although Andrew will be recognised by many people as one of the faces of CJE Micro’s, regularly in attendance as one of the team at RISC OS shows, he also uses RISC OS in his spare time – and his talk in London…

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