August News Round Up

Everything you wanted to know and we're brave enough to report

Tough talking but no sign of anyone walking

John Kortink of Windfall Engineering, who produces the Viewfinder graphics card for modern RISC OS machines, has again asserted today his disapproval of Windfall customers using the Viewfinder mailing list. In July this year, after what John sadly described as "grief from and disturbances caused by specific customers, crippling further Viewfinder development", John created a new general moderated Windfall mailing list and insisted, read demanded, that the original Viewfinder mailing list (hosted by yahoogroups) be shut down.

"I'll stress once again that the Viewfinder mailing list needs to disappear", writes John in an email to the Windfall list, "since it serves those that have been, are, and will be greatly frustrating Viewfinder support and have caused the, until then, regular free software updates to be put on hold indefinately, pending shutdown of the Viewfinder mailing list. New free software, having been quietly improved in the meantime, is still waiting in the wings."

That is fair enough, as developer of the Viewfinder, John is entitled to recommend that users use the official mailing list for support. However the tough talk doesn't stop there. "Users found to support the Viewfinder mailing list will henceforth be denied support either via the Windfall Engineering mailing list, or from Windfall Engineering direct", John continues. "Subscribing to the Viewfinder mailing list, and especially posting messages to it, will be considered to constitute support."

Cough. Here's to a happy resolution.

Over looking the dunes

We first heard about Vermilion Sands when the Photodesk resource website released its Paint Shop Pro brush converter. Now, the tutorial site for users of the graphics editting beast Photodesk can enjoy new recently published guides, such as a barrel distortion tutorial, and resources like the new human skin texture tiles. Vermilion Sands, hosted by the iconbar.com empire which is suffering downtime at time of writing, can be found at photodesk.iconbar.com. Don't forget to drop Chris and Lee an email to say thanks.

Reading between the versions

Alex Waugh has announced his port of Subversion, a version control tool for programmers designed to superceed the established CVS system. "Subversion is currently alpha", Alex explains, "so some features may not be fully implemented, or may contain bugs. This port can only access repositories via http, and not (currently) local repositories." Don't forget to drop Alex an email after you visit the Subversion RISC OS port website.

A Royal inspection

Sadly drobe.co.uk couldn't make it to Microdigital's recent press meeting regarding their Omega hardware but never fear, ARM Club's Dave Ruck has written a nice report on what he saw of the Omega computer at the European Expo2002 show, held earlier this year. Which is nice.

No, your Honour, we use RISC OS

Here's a cool project that involves RISC OS. JusticeFM is a short term FM radio station that uses RiscPCs lent by Castle Technologies, the machines are used in a number of administration and internet-based roles apparently. The station, run by young people for a London community, can even be listened to over the web via !Stream but you'll have to hurry as the station broadcasts only from the 26th August to 1st September.

Update Adam Shailes, one of the station techies, got back to us and pointed us at this page of computers to show the role of RISC OS at the station. See, RISC OS can be cool.

Freeware for me, freeware for you

Monitor the weather from your RiscPC with Simon Helhuish's updated Oww 0.67.13 interface software. Maarten Bezemer's Netwatch 1.62 promises to keep you you up to date by letting you know when your favourite websites are updated or otherwise altered. The RISC OS Bible project sends word of version 4.4 of their Bible study software, LogosWord as well as their Bible trivia quiz game. Popstar users are treated to an updated PSC 1.4, the funky and friendly Popstar configuration tool by David Thomson. Another treat for RISC OS coders, Erik Groenhuis has released his very useful Malcheck library, which monitors memory allocation in a similar fashion to the Fortify library.

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Discussion

does anyone know, how long iconbar will stay down? crow on 1/9/02 8:48AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

But drobe.co.uk has all your news needs! mrchocky on 1/9/02 11:20AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Tsk; the draconian Viewfinder stuff has put me off buying one. And that JusticeFM site is really nice! Anyway, who cares that TIB is down? It's playpen.iswe.net that really matters moss on 1/9/02 12:10PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I think you should still buy a ViewFinder if it interests you. It's a mature product which needs very little support, and there remain a variety of avenues if you really do need support. Check out my previous articles on drobe on VF. And the drobe comment entry box is way too small :-| mrchocky on 1/9/02 12:36PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I suppose so; I suppose it would make me as bad as the rest of them if I got involved in the politics. Hmm; the way this drobe comments form works has given me an idea for my own site moss on 1/9/02 1:08PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I will try and setup a chat room for the playpen somewhere... Andrew Duffell on 1/9/02 5:12PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

...I have failed to do this because I don't have a current version of the chat room Andrew Duffell on 1/9/02 5:15PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I'm sure Knox will be up in a couple of days moss on 1/9/02 6:03PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

UUnet have problems with DoS attacks afaik, noone seemsw to know how long it's down for I have my dev chat room. I'll see if I can make it work. -- Andrew Poole, andypoole on 1/9/02 7:40PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Bollocks. moss on 1/9/02 7:43PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

well, i like and prefer drobe as portal, but lotsa software is hosted by iconbar! how to acess that software sites, as long as iconbar is down? so, again, does anone know, what happened to iconbar, and, if we can c that software hosted there on the net again? crow on 1/9/02 7:43PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

This is why the OnePointNought empire needs mirrors, it hosts so much stuff that in the rare event that their server does disappear, people can still get at the software. Until the server recovers, I suspect that you won't be able to access any part of OnePointNought's websites. Luckily, there's other news sites to help spread information. Chris, we-love-late-nights department, drobe.co.uk diomus on 1/9/02 8:08PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Well, it's made me finally sort out my account here moss on 1/9/02 8:16PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

lol. I was in the process of moving my website ( www.midcheshirebells.org.uk ) to OnePointNought, and it's now on hold because I can't get in to it The problem is with UUNet, they have got lots of DoS attacks which is stopping us getting to the server. That's as much as I knew yesterday. When it's online again is anyones guess Andy drobe-needs-smilies department, www.malpasroad.force9.co.uk andypoole on 1/9/02 8:43PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

andypoole, please stop advertising. ian on 1/9/02 9:18PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Hey, when I checked out the JusticeFM website (using Oregano) it told me I was using a browser that didn't support web standards, and I should get a new one! Heh! -- Andrew Harmsworth, Cambridge harmsy on 1/9/02 9:19PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Hmm, I couldn't help but notice that too. It was nice of !Stream to work so well with the site though and was weird hearing Castle Technologies ads too Chris, drobe.co.uk diomus on 1/9/02 9:26PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Ok I've done a little investigating but I could be totally wrong. However bear with me. OnePointNought's server (Knox) is hosted, according to NetCraft, by AboveNet. Other sites hosted by AboveNet appear to be working. AboveNet were recently aquired by MFN.com. Now the last hop in a traceroute to iconbar.com, ends up as an MFN machine. I reckon that either a cable's fallen out or Knox has simply crashed. I can't believe that UUNet's been under a DoS for this long and no one else has said anything. Best thing to do is just wait for it to get fixed. Chris could-be-very-wrong-department diomus on 2/9/02 1:25AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I was just in the process of moving the RISC OS Banner Network to prowl.org - Looks like I was too late Andrew - Knox Recovery Departement Andrew Duffell on 2/9/02 8:07AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

1.0 do have problems with their servers too often Is it too soon to start getting excited again about my impending Omega? druck's article is very exciting... moss on 2/9/02 8:49AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Nobody I ask seems to have the slightest idea what is happening.. it's worse than Sky customer services andypoole on 2/9/02 9:18AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On the plus side... [link] andypoole on 2/9/02 9:43AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Yay! Brilliant! The stuff about the Henk Huinen exhibition closing was odd though; does that mean it's being taken offline? Why? moss on 2/9/02 10:18AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

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