From comp.sys.acorn.announce...

Paul Vigay has fixed a bug that causes marcel to display blank messages.

Read on for full details.

As webmaster of acornuser.com I would like to begin by apologising for the lack of a link from the web site to the location of the CDs which have been there since the beginning of the week. Unfortunately the upload of these CDs coincided with me having to wade through a lot of paperwork regarding personal matters and so links to the CDs were not made until last night. However, I accept no responsibility for the good or bad quality of the structure of what would have been on the CD. Any broken links within the contents of the would-be CD are dealt with by a third party. I was only asked to link to those CDs as soon as they were uploaded. Again, I'd like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by this and will endeavour to avoid this problem again.

[A link to The CD's]

The time has come to get the definitive RISC OS Glossary moving...

• Heard a term that relates to RISC OS but you're not sure what it means?
  
• Used a RISC OS term and had to explain it to someone else?
  
• Invented a RISC OS term and want to give the definitive explanation?
  

Then submit your terms/comments/interpretations with this article and we'll see how far it grows.

Acorn User has decided to drop the regular issuing of its front cover CD which was due out this month (October Issue).
Seemingly we've all to download the 100's of Megabytes of programs, etc. off their web site.
Or as Acorn User calls it 'An exciting new scheme'. Exciting for whom?

(http://www.acornuser.com/)

Note: There is a reader poll attached to this article.

David Pilling, the man behind SparkFS, Twain and OvationPro has released a pile of updated software for his products.

Software updated (new version bracketed)

• Ovation Pro (2.66)
  
  
• CrossStar (2.11)
  
  
• Snapper (1.06)
  
  
• ImageMaster (1.15)
  
  
• Freshen (1.06)

All except Freshen & OvPro are available at www.davidpilling.net/up.html.

Freshen can be found at www.davidpilling.net/soft.html with the OvationPro upgrade being directly available here

Also available....

OvationPro Script Language Reference Manual

A manual version of the Script document on the OvPro CD. A5 sized, wire bound and costs a fiver (includes p&p)

Epson scanner drivers

Support is now available for the Perfection range. To obtain this, send back your original Epson TWAIN disc.

In an important step forward for RISC OS, Justin Fletcher has released several XML tools for our favoured platform.




Tools released thus far are:

• xmllint - an XML file tester
  
• xsltproc - an XSLT processor
  
• libxml2 sources
  
• parsexml module useful for other applications
  
• !RSS - a Rich Site Summaries reader application (& can therefore be used with My RISC OS as well as many other sites!)
  
• Example C code using the ParseXML module
  

For further details visit the temporary home of these tools http://homepage.ntlworld.com/justin.fletcher/XML/




For more details on XML see http://www.w3.org/XML/ and for XSLT see http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/


Note: XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language and is a simple standard way to interchange structured textual data between computer programs, one of its major advantages is that it is still readable and writable by humans!




XSLT stands for eXtensible Stylesheet Language and is designed for transforming one XML documant into another - it an also be used to transform XML into many other formats such as HTML




RSS stands for Rich Site Summaries, RSS files are an XML document that describe the changes to a web site, saving you having to visit the site in question without missing for example new article updates.

Following the release of a Rich Site Summaries (RSS) reader for RISC OS by Justin Fletcher it has been tested with My RISC OS and works well. Thanks Justin!


In order to use !RSS with My RISC OS, you will need to set it to fetch http://www.myriscos.co.uk/myriscos_news.php


!RSS can be downloaded, however you will also need a copy of JFShared also by Justin Fletcher.


Note: RSS are XML files that give descriptions of website changes (often news feeds) that allow you to keep up to date without having to re-visit the site. RSS are widely used with the Netscape & Mozilla browsers.

The September MAUG (Manchester Acorn User Group) meeting is on Wednesday 19th September and will include


1. an introduction to the new OS by John Cartmell who has written the articles about RISC OS 4+ for My RISC OS, and


2. an update to the My RISC OS portal (and its phenomenal success !) by Jeremy Coates.


As usual the meeting will start at about 7.30pm but members will be at the Metrovick Rugby Club venue from about 6.30pm


There are no membership fees for MAUG


http://www.acorn.manchester.ac.uk


for map to venue and other details

Note: Important update: The above meeting has a revised speaker list: Paul Middleton MD of RISC OS Ltd will be in attendance, showing off RISC OS Select (4+) himself.

RISC OS's entries on the ODP (Open Directory Project) have grown steadily since Easter, when I became an editor for the category.




Earlier in the year, we overtook Apple (still languishing at 1,024!). As Autumn approaches - bringing the RISC OS 2001 Show, RUM and more surprises no doubt - I'd like to see users of MyRISC OS collaborate in checking to see whether their favourite RISC OS sites are listed, and if not, submitting them for inclusion.




http://dmoz.org/Computers/Systems/RISC_OS/




The site is so set up as to allow multiple submissions if, for example, you have individual pages for separate pieces of software.




What difference will it make to your sites? After a couple of weeks, you can expect your hits to have risen. In some cases, to have gone through the roof. Sites such as AOL use dmoz.org content as the basis of their "search" engine.




So - get submitting, and I promise to have them on the site within a week.

The deadline for codecraft #3 has ended.




Now it is up to you to vote the best entries!




See www.icebird.org for details.




30th September 2001 is the closing date for voting!

Note: Codecraft #3 is a RISC OS minimal coding competition split into 3 categories: 1k Game & Demo, 2k Tool & 4k Game & Demo

My RISC OS needs to develop to serve a wide range of RISC OS users, with that in mind, your help is needed to start writing a RISC OS Frequently Asked Questions list for users new to, or considering a move to, RISC OS.




There is a new forum section started for this called 'RISC OS Newbies FAQ' so if you have ideas for the FAQ or questions/answers to post then head on over and contribute. In time, I would envisage the forum forming the core of the FAQ.

This month at WACG it is the return of Mike Cook.





Mike is going to give us his views on how it all began, how Micro User
originally got off the ground, including the readers‘ letters, and how the
amateur micro computing movement grew, and then withered. Finally he will
give a look into the future — as he sees it.

Nettle, which aims to be the definitive telnet client for RISC OS, is now available. In addition to all the usual telnet facilities, Nettle provides an "ANSI Task" mode, opening the possibilites for a plethora of new programs to be run on RISC OS.




Nettle can be found at http://nettle.sourceforge.net/.




To complement the release of Nettle, Lynx is now available for RISC OS. Lynx is a popular Unix text-only webbrowser. In addition to Lynx, also now available (to name a few) are BitchX, ncftp2 and nano, other popular Unix ports.




Lynx and friends are available from:




http://www.chocky.org/unix/




Share and Enjoy.

<centre>UPDATE!!!!</centre>

We've just learned that Lynx has been updated to fix a problem and improve the overall performance of the browser. Well done!

Get the update now!

I'm about to redesign our website and was just wondering what screenresolution and bitdepth people use when browsing. I have found some global statistics, but they do of course not have to be representative of the RISC OS scene.



I would be most grateful if people could mail me at eli@dnd.utwente.nl with their screenresolution and bitdepth settings whilst browsing. No need to greet me in the mail or anything, just the data will be fine.



If I get enough replies to make me feel that they are representative of the RISC OS community then I'll also post back the results here and on csa.announce where I also made this request.



MTIA

CJE Micros have managed to find a small number of PRM 5 manuals, so if you want one, you'll need to be quick

These are NOT the PRM 5a manuals (the major difference being 5a had the internet stuff in it), but it is none-the-less a good investment.

Price : 20UKP (+5UKP P&P)

Simtec Electronics have a September Clearance Sale with lots of products for the older RISC OS machines.



Items include processor and memory upgrades, hard drives and interfaces, floppies and RISC OS 3. Everything on offer in the sale is under £100!

For all cubicle dwellers...

Scott Adams has partnered with IDEO to create the ultimate cubicle. The "kit of parts" allows employees to customize their workspaces according to their needs.

[I keep posting things you might find interesting, but am I right? Add a comment to tell me what you think - pjwerdna]

Cnet Reported : The new handhelds will be part of HP's Jornada 560 series.

Hewlett-Packard will soon announce two handheld computers that run Microsoft's upcoming "Merlin" operating system (Pocket PC 2002 possibly)

Both devices will use Intel's StrongARM SA-1110 processor and will have active-matrix screens that can display 16-bit color.

See their article for more info

The article also suggests that Pocket PC 2002 (if that's it's name) will eventually run on XScale