The Icon Bar: Article

Orpheus launch crowdfunding campaign Posted by Jeffrey Lee on 19:40, 6/8/2018 \| RISC OS, Internet, Activism RISC OS friendly ISP and hosting provider Orpheus Internet have recently launched a crowd funding campaign, with the goal of helping to raise the funds needed to set up a second data centre in a new location. This new data centre will act as a mirror of their primary data centre, providing some much-needed redundancy for when things go wrong - like the incident early last month that left all of their servers unreachable for several hours, and left some systems down for a couple of days. Setting up a second data centre is something that Orpheus have been planning for a while now, but have been struggling to find the funding for - the business doesn't have enough capital to spare, and despite recognising the plans as being sound, banks and other lenders have been unwilling to offer up any cash of their own. Last month's incident - Orpheus's only major outage in the past ten years - was enough to convince Richard that the plans for the second data centre should be kicked up a notch, hence the launch of the crowdfunding campaign. So far the campaign has received donation pledges and long-term loan pledges totalling £3,950 out of the £15,000 goal. This is good progress, but that progress will only continue if new pledges continue to be received. If this is something you're interested in supporting, please contact Richard on 01702 462385 or via the email address crowdfunding@orpheusnet.co.uk. 5 comments in the forums
Disappearing websites Posted by Mark Stephens on 06:38, 9/6/2017 \| Activism, Opinion In the last few weeks some websites of interested to RISC OS users have disappeared. riscoscode.com used to be great list of interesting snippets from the RISC OS and software world in general selected by Martin Hansen. It now returns a domain expired blank page, although the twitter account is still online. It also looks like piLEARN and Mathmagical have also gone. Another site which has dropped off the radar is the Pandaboard.org, which was the official home for the Panda. The Panda is still a great RISC OS machine, especially as a compact solution - I use mine at work as my secondary machine to my home Titanium. Even if these sites are not being updated, this is a loss because they contain lots of useful content is lost and the search links all break. There are still ways to see these sites (here is an old version of riscoscode). But these version are not always the latest and the links across the internet (and for search are broken). It does not have to be this way. The old Computer Concepts page has been kept up on there internet by Xara, riscos.org and all its links are still online, APDL has a new home, and we host several sites on iconbar. Comment in the forums
New bounty scheme launched Posted by Jeffrey Lee on 23:00, 31/3/2011 \| Activism, Advocacy, RISC OS, Site, April Fool As you know, over the past few years there's been a general downturn in the number of articles appearing on The Icon Bar. In response to pressure from our readers, we've come up with a radical new stimulus package designed to combat this issue. Starting today, the author of any new article posted on the site will be rewarded with a bounty, which they will receive within 10 working days of the article going live. For full details about the different bounties that can be awarded to each article, please see our sponsor's site. Don't delay; submit your article today! ^* Continue reading "New bounty scheme launched" \| 11 comments in the forums
RISC OS on OMAP - the future? Posted by Jeffrey Lee on 11:00, 19/5/2009 \| Activism, Advocacy, Hardware, IYONIX, Linux, Programming, RISC OS, RISC OS Open Ltd, Technology As most of you probably know by now, a few months ago I started work on porting RISC OS Open's RISC OS kernel to TI's OMAP3 platform - a group of SoC's (Systems on a Chip) which use ARM Cortex-A8 cores. To date, OMAP3 SoC's have been confirmed as being used in various products, including the Pandora handheld gaming console, the Touch Book convertible netbook/tablet, and the BeagleBoard development board. For years RISC OS users have been asking for a new portable RISC OS machine, and soon they may find that they have several available. Continue reading "RISC OS on OMAP - the future?" \| 26 comments in the forums
Pirates of the Multiplex Posted by Phil Mellor on 12:00, 15/2/2007 \| Activism, Copyright, Internet, Video The latest issue of Vanity Fair carries an interesting article about sharing TV programmes and movies using BitTorrent. Refreshingly fair and honest, it features an interview with The Pirate Bay, a popular Swedish torrent site (who, revelling in their reputation for flaunting their legal threats, recently launched OscarTorrents.com, containing links to torrents for all the 2007 Oscar nominated films.) Meanwhile, more music execs are following Steve Jobs' lead in moving away from DRM. Daring Fireball examines the strategy behind Jobs' memo and its criticism. (Yep, it's another annoyingly brief update, but dammit there's new episodes of 24 to watch!) Link: Pirates of the Multiplex 1 comment in the forums
Act now! Grassroots action! Etc! Posted by John Hoare on 13:59, 2/2/2007 \| Video, Sound and music, Windows, Activism Whatever Your Favourite Platform™ is, it might be an idea to listen to Boing Boing and take part in this questionnaire about the future of the BBC's on-demand services. When one of the questions is "How important is it that the proposed seven-day catch-up service over the internet is available to consumers who are not using Microsoft software?", I think it's important to let them know "very". Even if you personally use Windows, the BBC shouldn't lock down its services to one vendor. 16 comments in the forums
ART thingy - Who are these strange people? Posted by Tim Fountain on 23:00, 6/10/1998 \| Acorn, Activism, RISC OS, Hardware Following the leaking of a legal document last week which indicated that the steering group were well on the way towards coming to an agreement with Acorn over taking hold of the reins with regard to Phoebe and all things desktop, a rather blank posting has appeared in comp.sys.acorn.announce today... The Steering group have 'reluctantly' withdrawn from their negotiations with Acorn upon discovery that Acorn were involved in direct negotiations with a technology company from the Netherlands concerning the future of the Acorn Product business. The Steering group say they are pleased that another company has taken over their quest since the new firm have financial backing and also technical and manufacturing experience which would come in handy should they ever end up producing our favourite desktop machines. The identity of this new company is unknown but your Acorn Arcade news editor is doing his best to find out for you! It is not known whether or not this new company is interested in producing/selling desktop RISC OS based machines to the consumer market in the UK but the Steering Group have said they will endeavour to persuade them should they not see the benefits of producing the much talked about RiscPC 2 Phoebe. Although the un-named company remains that way, all the evidence, at this moment, points to Tulip, a Computer company of yesteryear that has recently reformed. But please note this is pure speculation on my part at this point!. Comment in the forums
ART Attack Posted by Alasdair Bailey on 23:00, 6/10/1998 \| Acorn, Activism, RISC OS, Hardware This legal document is believed to have been 'leaked' to the media by Peter Bondar, a prominent member of one of the groups which was setting out to take over the production of Acorn desktop machines following Acorn's pulling out of the market some weeks ago now. We have been forced into removing the actual contract since it would appear that it was accidentaly given to the media. However, not being partial to censorship, Acorn Arcade now bring you a nice detailed run-down of the major points of the contract... A new company, Applied Risc Technologies Ltd (ART) is to be set up. ART and Acorn both agree that it is advantageous to get the changes over with as soon as possible. ART will gain the use of the former ART logo from when it was under Acorn control. Acorn will allow ART to sell all existing Acorn software and hardware with the exception of the new generation of set top boxes. ART will do its best to sell existing stock and to push such projects as the RiscPC 2 (aka: Phoebe) See also: The Register - an IT industry news WWW site. Source: Acorn Cybervillage Comment in the forums