News in brief | Drobe.co.uk archives

News in brief

By Chris Williams. Published: 31st Jul 2004, 12:10:19 | Permalink | Printable

New and updated software

And now, a summary of this week's software related news.

Kees Meijer has developed a new application called nzb-grab, which uses .nzb files to find and download other files from binary newsgroups. VirtualAcorn have updated and released a new version of the Internet plugin for VirtualRiscPC. No fuss POP3 based email client Tapirmail has also been updated and now includes new features, such as signature and "Graphical emoticon (smiley)" support.

Chris Terran, maintainer of the Smartgroups hosted Photodesk users' mailing list, has emailed in to say his list is suffering at the hands of spammers, and has therefore made the mailing list invite-only and private for now. Chris commented, "In the past couple of days, I've had to remove over 50 successfully joined spammers, and about 1000 unsuccessful attempts. They're coming about every ten minutes currently. Obviously I can't keep on top of this for long." Other Smartgroup hosted mailing lists for RISC OS users have reported that they're having no spam problems, however.

OreganoUK is having a new office built this summer and will also be taking on one new member of staff. OreganoUK's Richard Brown explained, "This then means that I will be able to have more time to dedicate to all matters RISC OS especially Oregano2. Whilst the new emloyee does not know about new RISC OS matters he has spent sometime on the older versions circa A3000. I am sure he will come to appreciate our superb computers."

And finally, Thumbcat, Shortcut, Beebit and Graphite have all enjoyed updates, plus there's a new app from Kevin Wells called FormFiller.

Links

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Discussion

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I have to wonder how OreganoUK is a viable company. It was formed after the release of O2, so I doubt they had many sales from that, and users still await any updates. :| Maybe I'm wrong, someone please enlighten me.

AndrewDuffell on 31/7/04 12:25PM
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Oh, oh - time for me to drop in my own plug! I've also released two new programs this week: eBayTools and CaretChase: [link]

Thanks, Adam

adamr on 31/7/04 1:25PM
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Tough luck Chris - look forward to seeing this useful resource back in action. I won't express my view of the people who do these things, just to say that it's pathetic vandalism.

TonyStill on 31/7/04 3:26PM
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I don't know any of the details of Oregano UK's income, but I understand that Richard has a very strong business case for making it work.

mrchocky on 31/7/04 4:41PM
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AndrewDuffell: "I have to wonder how OreganoUK is a viable company."

Setting up a limited company isn't terribly expensive. Richard Brown doesn't only do RISC OS related work.

As for sales, there are still plenty of people still using Oregano 1, or older browsers like Fresco. So these are potential upgrade customers. In addition to that, there are all the copies supplied with Iyonix systems.

dgs

dgs on 31/7/04 4:56PM
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Are castle selling so many iyonix systems that the Orgeano licenese costs can pay for the new building?

sa110 on 31/7/04 5:36PM
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sa110: I think that's a question you'd have to ask Richard's accountant. Thus far, we don't know how large the new building is, anyway :-)

dgs

dgs on 31/7/04 5:41PM
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Could be a garden shed

Gulli on 31/7/04 6:41PM
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I was gonna post exactly the same but thought it would be modded down. I am sure that over the next few years we will see how sucessful OreganoUK Ltd becomes, especially with the development of NetSurf which is a major rival to Oregano2... and it's faster.

AndrewDuffell on 31/7/04 6:52PM
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Andrew:

Whilst I wouldn't knock the excellent work of the NetSurf team, I don't think there is any plan to implement javascript.

Oregano2's javascript is nowhere near perfect, but for some sites, this means it still has (and is likely to retain) the edge on NetSurf.

flypig on 31/7/04 8:18PM
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Fair point. I suppose most of the browsers complement each other. I use O1 for general browsing, NetSurf if the page displays badly in O1, and O2 for flash/javascript. The way to make O2 my primary browser would be to speed it up, stop it crashing so often, and make it more RISC OSy

AndrewDuffell on 31/7/04 9:04PM
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To Gulli: We could quite truthfully announce that Finnybank Ltd is building new warehousing facilities...

...and in this case your guess would be very close to the truth. ;-)

Q on 31/7/04 9:32PM
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It would be nice to have O2 speeded up. I have noticed that the more links and images displayed on any web site the slower O2 takes to complete downloading. Google seems to be a clever web page design, hiding most of the adverts and links and this seems to be why the front web page of Google is quick to appear. Quite different to the clogged up MSN site. Do the web pages poorly designed contribute to the speed, or could O2 overcome this by better development?

As for the spammers, what are some of the best measures to take to avoid them? I have not experienced any attacks or had to worry about such a problem yet. When you get spammed, do the spams have any sender email addresses attached? I was thinking of sending heaps and heaps of useless "No Thanks" replies to overwhelm the spammers Inbox, is this worth doing or not? A friend of mine who runs a water pump business would get spammed occaisionally in the middle of the night on his home fax machine with advertising from companies selling beauty products, furniture, and many products that have nothing to his pump business. When he wakes up the next day he replies to each one with 50 pages of the same 2 BIG words on each page "No Thanks" to their fax machine just to waste their paper in return for wasting his time. Cheers, Steve.

Sawadee on 1/8/04 9:38AM
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Don't reply or in any way try to contact the e-mail spammers, unless you have an e-mail address that you don't care about because that e-mail address is guaranteed to fill with spam as soon as you respond to anything from these idiots. Most likely though the sender's (sp?) e-mail address and most relating info will not exists.

The best way to fight the spam is never to post your e-mail address on any website (including Drobe), never subscribe to any mailinglists with your primary address and NEVER EVER reply or in any way respond to spam - clicking on "Remove me" links included!

What I have done and has worked quite well is I have my own domain name (cheap, $9 a year at www.goddady.com) and whenever I signup for a newsletter or any mailinglist or have to register at a website, I create a new e-mail address with the name of the website or newsletter as the address (i.e. drobe.co.uk@mydomain.com). That way if any of the companies/organisations/websites sells their e-mail list to a spammer I will know immediately who's to blame and I simply close the relevant e-mail address.

Gulli on 1/8/04 10:16AM
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Of course that contradicts the laws about having a real working remove-me address, which makes them pointless.

Back on topic, re nzb-grab, there is an unrar port, I expect only v2 though, at [link]

mavhc on 1/8/04 7:38PM
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Q: LOL, missed your comment previously

mavc: Laws forcing the "opt-out" lists are incredibly naive anyway and were never going to work, it actually gives the spammers reassurance that your e-mail address works and therefore you are added to a load of spam-lists. BTW - the news also covers spamming so we're actually still on topic, though only just I'll admit.

Gulli on 1/8/04 9:28PM
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sawadee: Please don't respond to the 'from' address of any spam you receive. If it is valid, it's probably the real address of some poor swine like myself. I get enough bounce messages including copies of the spam, so I'd rather not have people deliberately trying to mail-bomb me (that's the term for trying to fill up someone's mailbox or crash their mail-server). If you're getting sent spam then there's the spammers can just as well use your address as the 'from' address. Tends to be more of a problem with the new generation of viruses though, to be honest.

ninja on 2/8/04 12:40PM
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Yeah. banners.iconbar.com addresses were used a while back. I got 1000s of bounced messages, and then a few grumpy people blaming me for it. I ended up blocking the catchall address.

AndrewDuffell on 2/8/04 1:21PM
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I have since yesterday spoken to a couple of people here about spammers and they advised me how they work and how best to deal with spammers. :devil: They simply said avoid them at best and never attempt to contact them, as I understand why now. Regards, Steve

Sawadee on 3/8/04 12:30AM
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At the risk of tempting fate, the degree to which I suffered from spam changed radically - and for the better - after I changed to broadband via an ADSL router. My isp also changed (from UKGateway to Tiscali, who took them over) which may have had something to do with it. I get about 10-15 spams a day now, which at broadband speed is simply not a problem - I tried the various filters but the size of the problem did not warrant the extra complexity. I use my 'real' address, and don't take any particular precautions apart (obviously) from instantly deleting, unopened, any email I don't recognise the sender of. Not a feasible strategy for a business user, I freely admit.

George

bucksboy on 5/8/04 6:04PM
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