Profile for Smiler

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Email: Private ICQ: AOL: Yahoo:	Username: Smiler Realname: Alex Melhuish About me: Been seriously into RISC OS for about four years now, been using since primary school (although didn't take much notice; too ignorant!) Currently 17, check my homepage for more info. Homepage: http://www.spunge.org/~smiler/ Face/Logo: Comments posted: 125 (show all)

Recent comments

On NetSurf on RISC OS faces axe:

Perhaps ROL/ROOL would be interested in producing a front-end that uses NetSurf's core? RISC OS has long needed an up-to-date native browser (like the 21st century Browse). They have experienced WIMP developers I presume? Just a thought. Smiler on 14/8/09 10:29AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On What should be the platform's priority for 2009?:

I voted for 'Port the OS to new hardware', but I'd rather it were 'Reimplemented for new hardware'. What most users love about RISC OS is its essence; the way it works and feels. I don't think anyone really likes its foundations though. I think Castle's gone some way to doing this already, but let's throw away the underlying decrepit mess, keep (and maybe modernise a little) the UI, and give it a nice pre-emptive multitasking x86 base to work on. Basically, what Apple did to the Mac between OS9 and X (though I realise that was a little more convoluted). With application-level emulation, existing applications could still run whilst new more advanced applications could be written/ported from other platforms. In the meantime, ROX is a nice approximation to RISC OS on Linux, but still not enough like it for me to use it. Mac OS X has proved an admirable alternative for me =) Smiler on 8/1/09 3:09PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On How to convince more websites to work with the RISC OS Firefox port:

I've used 'Bon Echo' builds to access NatWest on other platforms before. I suspect Mozilla might allow the UserAgent to contain 'Firefox' for this reason. Perhaps this could be fixed for future RISC OS Firefox builds? On another note: secure sites (banks in particular) use this method as they see it as a least-worst approach to protecting their customers from fraud. It shouldn't really be used at all though. Banks claim to test each major browser version for immediate security holes (mainly phishing/malware I suspect) before allowing access to their site. I wouldn't be surprised if some banks exclude IE6. Certainly IE5 and NS4 wouldn't be permitted now, as they no longer receive security updates. Provided the bank can test a given browser, they have no excuse not to add it to their white list. Smiler on 8/1/09 3:00PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On New USB radio driver developed:

ksattic:Modern graphics cards have MPEG decoders built into them - what about the Nvidia card in the Iyonix? Also, there are the modern alternatives - DVD-T USB sticks, which are the same size as this radio. They output an MPEG stream, although it's likely to be packaged differently (in DVB format). I suppose there's potential! Smiler on 21/2/06 7:41PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On Could A9 be a digital oasis in a desert of PCs and Macs?:

As much as I'm a fan of RISC OS, let me just check that this is right... I can have either an A9home, which is just a computer with no monitor, keyboard, mouse or even CD-ROM drive for £499 *ex. VAT*, or I could have an Apple Mac mini, which a 1.3GHz G4, including a CD-RW drive, and wireless networking, for £349. Yes, it's good to get RISC OS into the normal press world, but is anyone really going to miss this rather major sore thumb? Smiler on 22/11/05 10:04PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

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Today's featured article

Click right on with RISC OS
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 16 comments, latest by Anon on 26/3/09 1:01PM. Published: 22 Mar 2008

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