Profile for epdm3be

Contact	About me
Email: manu-t@easynet.be ICQ: 28219507 AOL: Yahoo:	Username: epdm3be Realname: manu timmers About me: Former (and last) official Acorn dealer in Belgium. Into computers since the early 80's. Used to do Design work on RISC OS machines, became dealer and official dealer by circumstances. Nowadays into IT-technical services for various platforms including Windows,Mac OS and RISC OS. Homepage: www.starlightcorp.com Face/Logo: Comments posted: 25 (show all)

Recent comments

On Sibelius flogged to US software giant:

Good for you Steve. IN my own case Sibilius' asshole attidute COSTED me valuable RISC OS clients. So in my opinion they can go to hell. They wanted big bucks , they now have big bucks and soon Sibilius will be forgotten. Except by Us RISC OS users will still crave on on how excellent that program ever was. In the early days the FORCED ppl to go for the expensive RISC OS platform with an already expensive program and when they saw the light in the USA they turned 180. Instead of introducing the RISC OS platform as forcefully on them like they did in Europe on us. They completely abandonded us to quickly release Windows and Mac OS versions at significantly lower prices. Hell, they didn't even want to get out minor updates!!! Now they have enough money to never have to work again. Glad that they can "retire" and enjoy their (albeit small) fortune. But I hope I never meet such assholes ever again on this platform nomatter how great that program was. epdm3be on 12/8/06 11:47AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On Could public cash save our software?:

First of all. The comparission to the cars is not very suited since the affordmentioned "small US cars" are in essence re-badged cheapo Korean cars. These are build by (a few) underpaid workers under control of one rich bastard and his (literally) robots. So in that respect "the remaining developers need appropriate level of investment to enable them to hire the necessary programmers" is stupid because these "necessary programmers" want bucks for their efforts. I doubt that UK software developpers are as underpaid as korean factoryworkers. You simply can't compare this. Besides all the electronic gimmicks don't make up for a bad ride. Japanese cars are still way better than cheapo korean s*** (even after all those years). So the only reason ppl buy these cheap cars and computers is that they simply don't have the money anymore to buy a decent stuff (but still don't want to loosse on so-called luxury). No wonder if you see the wages of ministers and politicians. As for the office. It'll NEVER work because Windows (because of Microsoft cut-throught mentality towards competition) Office has one tremendous advantage nowadays.... Universal compatibility. The only thing we have that is universally compatible is bitmap-formats and draw-vectorimages. Thanks to AW-viewer AW-vector format is at least viewable by more users than the few Artworks owners but IMHO its still a wrong move. CC should have worked with Acorn to adapt the draw format as basis for Artworks files (and Acorn should have been more open towards CC to assist). Documents are NOT exchangable between RISC OS programs at all. This is a complete dissaster. The same applies to database and spreadsheet formats. And NO I'm not happy with "RTF" as an exchange format, because it's useless. A fact I have mentioned YEARS ago (along with other things). The problem is that a lot more ppl at the sideline see this too. But they are not in capacity to actually do something about it. In fact those "leading" the RISC OS community should rather pay US, users/customers/whatever, consultancy fees. What we need is a clear standard way of developing things. To define OWN standards and STICK with them. Make these universally exchangable on RISC OS machines (at least) and THEN we can start building applications around them. THEN and ONLY THEN you can mix match applications and talk about an "suits". Once that is accomplished you can target the outside as a unified platform with an internal universal exchange file format amongst ALL applications. Then at a later stage we can adopt alien file formats to exchange data to alien platforms. Or use these alien formats as basis for our own for all I care. But we URGENTLY should clean up our mess before attracting anyone else! Regards, EPDM P.S.: I undoubtly stepped at someones toes. Appoligies for that. This is NOT a personal attack so don't "act" being offended. epdm3be on 9/7/06 12:18PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On Who are RISC OS Open Ltd?:

Probably yet another "consulting" company. Usually with no ties with RISC OS whatsoever. Or they start up something in timber. Doors, windows, wooden furniture, car ports etc... It would be stupid to do anthing with computers now since in a few months Microsoft will once again fire up the big media cirus and Windows Vista will sweep away ALL attention from other technologies. Regards, epdm3be on 9/7/06 11:38AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On ROL: Giving Select 4 date is tricky:

The problem with ROL is that they are indeed doing stuff. In fact I heard (and saw) some interesting things at the expo regarding RISC OS. E.g. Paul told me that out o/t +65 bug they knew when Acorn turned over RISC OS about 11 still remain. Also over the years they added (a few) extra features, made it microkernel instead of macrokernel, fine-tuned performance a bit and have it allmost completely made 32-bit. This is a major effort for which i have deep respect. Commercially however... Oh boy. Instead of increasing the market by decreasing prices they're doing it all-around. The problem is that nobody will spend 200euros just to "support a guy doing some programming work abroad". In that respect I think Chocky is doing it much better. Chocky's support costed only me about 20 euros a year which I could miss. In fact I never downloaded or wanted anything from his website (though I could since I payd a "subscribtion fee"). I just supported Chocky his idea and had no expectation as to what I'd really wanted to get ported. And I could afford to miss a few euros (even if he'd just go to the pub with it I wouldn't have mind). Untill I got out of job again unfortunatly. But Paul is asking too much. That way ppl will undoubtly have high expectations and will regret when these expectations are not met. For 200 euros I too would one at least 1 cd with "some good stuff" at least a year. I think if ROL would just ask 20UKP a year, open a website for downloads and send a mug or a pen (or a bloody T-shirt for all I care); it wouldn't be as painfull as it is today. Ofcourse I understand that for a few thousand UKP you can't hire full-time programmers. But perhaps Open-sourcing the kernel and driver-support might be not be bad idea after all. epdm3be on 23/6/06 2:28PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On Euro 2006 show report:

Wow. We need a +500MHz PDA to run RISC OS like a 50MHz desktop. Natively running this thing would beat the crap out of a A9Home, wouldn't it? To stay in topic. It appears that there were more ppl attending the show this year than the previous year. It's still not much but at least it's better, right. I totally forgot it last year and by the time I remembered the Expo it was too late. There where less stands. At the door there was Paul Beverly but the 2 major attractions was STD/CJE and ROL whom had the largest stands as well. Frank o/t RISCOS.BE-club had his dutch translation of Ovation Pro at the show had also some succes both with that and a project to drive electric stuff from his A6 using a Velleman kit and an USB port. It was interesting but in a few hours and a chat with Paul Middleton later I was back on my way home. Hopefully there will be another one next year. I noticed some ppl from the HCC (big dutch computer club). Perhaps they'll get themselfs more involved next year. epdm3be on 23/6/06 1:58PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

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