| Best commercial product |
| A9home | AdvantageSix's ARM9-powered computer went on general sale in May |
| ArtWorks 2 | This year saw ArtWorks 2.6 released, and users described the software as "indispensable." |
| Grapevine | Grapevine 2 was updated in 2006, and several readers agreed with this user's view: "Chatting to my friends via MSN and ICQ is an essential requirement for me, and so the continual development of Grapevine is part of what keeps me using RISC OS as my primary OS." |
| Impression Publisher | No news on a 32bit Impression-X but this dinosaur package was still nominated. One punter said: "After 10 years, it still is the most easiest DTP going - even my girlfriend, who has never used RISC OS, produced a professional looking university essay within three hours." |
| Messenger Pro | Messenger Pro 4 updates saw support for HTML and Unicode, and other enhancements. One reader said: "Recent improvements in version 4 have really enhanced the use of this software, which has been excellent right from the free version onwards." |
| MoreDesk | A utility that expands the virtual size of a desktop. One user asked: "Probably the best multi-desktop manager on any platform. How did I manage without it?" |
| Ovation Pro | Now available on Windows, this DTP package is still a RISC OS favourite |
| RISC OS 5.12 | Supports newer PCI Nvidia graphics cards |
| RiScript | The PDF authoring package relaunched in 2005 |
| Select 4 RISC OS 6 Preview | A pre-release version of the hardware abstracted RISC OS from RISCOS Ltd. One punter said: "ROL has made mistakes in the past, but they have recently improved and this should be recognised. The work on ROS 6 lays the ground work for future developments of RISC OS." |
| TechWriter and EasiWriter | Many updates including PDF export, and a planned Word 2K export. One user said: "Mainly for the excellent PDF export facility, and for Martin's excellent support." |
| Textease Studio Plus | Still has a strong following from some corners, as one reader gushed: "I can't live without it. It does everything I've ever wanted in a DTP package, it gives me virtually complete control of the page." |
| VirtualRiscPC-SA | The definitive RiscPC emulator now provides StrongARM-specific features |
| Best non-commercial software |
| Avalanche | An effective remote desktop client that uses VNC |
| Director | A popular toolkit of desktop utilities and enhancements |
| Firefox | The RISC OS port of the mammoth open source web browser. One user said: "This browser is the main reason why I still rely on RISC OS for my daily home computing needs." |
| FTPc | An FTP client that gained secure FTPs this year |
| GCCSDK with autobuilder | Various improvements were made to this essential development environment |
| Ghostscript | Version 8.54 was ported to RISC OS in August |
| Islands | A new and fun Risk-clone strategy game |
| KinoAMP | This video player earned Iyonix-hardware acceleration this year and other updates |
| Moonfish | The NFS server for RISC OS |
| NetSurf | The constantly evolving native open source web browser for RISC OS that managed to spin off several sub-projects and libraries. One user noted: "NetSurf is a definite example of what can be achieved when RISC OS users work together." |
| Organiser | The popular desktop diary organiser, which one reader admitted: "This has seen no recent development, but how can you improve on perfection?" |
| Pic_Index | A web gallery creation tool |
| PicoDrive | A Sega Megadrive emulator ported to RISC OS with a CPU emulation engine geared towards the ARM platform |
| PrintPDF | A handy utility to lessen the burden of creating PDFs using the PostScript printing system |
| RemotePrinterFS | Send documents to printers connected via a local network |
| RPCEmu | The open source RiscPC emulator for Windows ported this year to Linux, Mac OS X and RISC OS itself for bonus irony points |
| Sargasso | The RSS client rewritten in C from python, resulting in a huge speed boost |
| Smartmenu | A handy new utility that opens sub-menus to the left if the parent menu is too close to the right-hand side of the screen |
| StrongED | A text and source code editor that's been revised and updated this year |
| Sunfish | The NFS client for RISC OS |
| Tau | A powerful graphing program that one user described as "an easy to use application that produces presentation quality graphics. It's easy to use, and the most powerful app of its kind." |
| Variations | Not updated this year but still a favourite in many users' hearts. One testified: "The most useful application for playing around with images. I love it." |
| WIBLI | The flexible toolbar for TechWriter, ArtWorks, RiScript and other desktop packages |
| Best RISC OS event of 2006 |
| Euro 2006 show | Hosted in The Netherlands and organised by RISCOS Ltd |
| GAG meeting | The German Archimedes usergroup's annual get together |
| Midlands show | Near Wolverhamptons and organised by The ARM Club |
| MUG founding meeting | The new Midlands usergroup |
| ROL northern roadshow | RISCOS Ltd's tour of Glasgow and Newcastle |
| South east show | Held in Guildford and organised by SASAUG |
| Wakefield show | The WROCC's annual event |
| Best ingenious project or idea |
| ARMv5 emulator | This module was developed to allow A9home users to run the 'Iyonix-only' Firefox 2 port. One reader said: "Although it's probably not the ideal way of running Firefox on an A9home, it still is an impressive achievement." |
| Atom tape player with AMPlayer | Software tapes, stored as MP3s, were loaded into an Acorn Atom via AMPlayer and an A9home |
| PostScript 3 driver | A new PS 3 driver is being considered by two leading RISC OS programmers |
| RISC OS Now | The new bi-monthly A4 colour magazine launched this year |
| RISC OS Open | A bold and ambitious project to open source RISC OS 5. One punter said: "The decision to open source RISC OS will hopefully mark a turning point in the platform's fortunes." |
| riscos.info | A wiki-powered website to encourage everyone to document the ins and outs of the RISC OS platform |
| RPCEmu for Linux and Mac OS X | The emulator was ported to the Linux desktop, shiny PowerPC Macs and little PocketPC gadgets |
| South East show videos | The more interesting key-note presentations at the show were filmed and broadcast online after the event. One punter said: "This was great as even though I attended the show, I missed all of these talks as they were either too early or I was helping out exhibitors whilst they were on." |
| Best overall contribution to the platform |
| Adrian Lees | The Aemulor and Geminus developer |
| AdvantageSix | The people behind the A9home |
| Alan Buckley | He continues to port various fun little games to RISC OS |
| Alex Waugh | Responsible for Sunfish, Moonfish and WebJames, and ports of Perl and PHP. One reader said: "I think he's one of the most important people in RISC OS in the last few years." |
| Chris Evans | Boss of CJE Micros and retailer of A9homes. One customer said: "He's at every show with every product, or at least it feels like it. The last real RISC OS retailer." |
| Colin Granville | Current developer of Messenger Pro as well as FTPc |
| Dave Higton | Running a one-man campaign to improve Castle's USB while working on various drivers |
| Dave Ruck | ARMalyser and Discknight author, who as one reader put it, "is always quick to help with good quality ideas, even if he is Mr Grumpy sometimes." |
| Fred Graute | The current maintainer of StrongED. One fan said: "Fred's a great guy, and StrongED has been really neat'n'tidied up with bug fixes and improvements like bitmap fonts in 24 bit and 32 bit colour modes etc." |
| John Tytgat | For his work for various projects, including GCCSDK and Select |
| Martin Wuerthner | Continued development of the TechWriter family and ArtWorks. A user said: "For continuing to upgrade EasiWriter TechWriter and his efforts with ArtWorks. I also looking forward to seeing what he will be able to produce when RISC OS Open release code in to the wild." |
| NetSurf developers | Unpaid but much loved, the programmers behind NetSurf and many other subsidary projects |
| Paul Vigay | The original and untouchable RISC OS advocate. One user said: "I chose Paul because of his software support at Orpheus Internet, and general encouragement." |
| Peter Naulls | For his Firefox porting work |
| Ray Favre | The author of several applications and tools which were updated through out the year. One user said they nominated Ray for "Dr Wimp and all the applications by him and others which have resulted." |
| RISC OS Open and Castle | For pursuing the seemingly impossible goal of opening up the blueprints of RISC OS for everyone else to improve and contribute to |
| RISCOS Ltd | The Select technical documentation for programmers was published for free online this year |
| The Rawnsleys | The R-Comp team continue to provide a high level of support and push forward development of their software |
| Top own goal |
| Castle and ROL fall out | The rift between the developers of RISC OS 5 and 6 will always touch a nerve with sane RISC OS users |
| John Cartmell and Qercus | Two issues in roughly 12 months is bad enough, but John posting hundreds of messages to usenet and mailing lists in the meantime instead of editing a magazine broke the camel's back and demolished its stable. One subscriber said: "Until a few months ago, Qercus would have fit neatly into this category. Now it seems that the magazine is back from the dead, but it's still on the critical list." |
| Oregano 3 | Users have decidedly had enough of this vapourware |
| Paul Vigay's OSNews article | Paul tried his best to put a positive spin on RISC OS in a series of articles, but instead made even the Linux fanboys on OSNews cringe. One of Paul's close pals said: "His articles on RISCOS.org were subsequently posted on OSNews and were quite flamed in the comments." |
| Peter Naulls | For slipping unnecessary Iyonix-only code into Firefox 2. One user also added: "Every time I am tempted to give him money, he puts me off by abusing potential customers on either drobe article comments or the Iyonix support mailing list." |
| RISC OS Open | Other ends of the RISC OS market are unimpressed with this vapourware project |
| ROS fan loses Acorn domain name | A RISC OS fan lost acorncomputers.co.uk in a domain dispute with a new company using the old Acorn brand to sell Windows laptops. One user said: "All the guy had to do was keep his domain's Whois details up to date - doh." |
| Select 4 RISC OS 6 Preview | While some were glad to finally see a release after months of silence, others were gobsmacked by the lack of printing and Viewfinder support, and the vacuum of non-technical documentation. One said: "If ROL had run a regular newsletter, including interviews with programmers and updates on what they re doing, then they would have garnered a lot more understanding support. As it is, I can't help but feel they shoot themselves in the foot with their public relations. And still no proper Select 4 release." |
| Select for Iyonix | Noone really knows who to blame for this debacle - Castle or RISCOS Ltd, but it's probably both |
The shortlist for the Best of 2006 drobe.co.uk awards has been drawn up, and voting has opened. Following hundreds of nomination submissions from readers, the final top 80 are listed below, ready for you to vote on. In previous years, the drobe.co.uk team have ransacked the news archives from the past twelve months to produce the shortlist; this time we've left it to you.