Editors Corner
Aaron Timbrells own bit of the magazine.
And yet another issue of RISC World lands on your door mat, and it is late as well. This is down to a number of factors, firstly the overdue need to clear and tidy my office after the transfer of iSV Products to APDL. The need to remove some items from the room was highlighted by the collapse of a set of shelves which meant you couldn't open the door to get in. This started as a simple tidy up, but then I thought to myself, well it could do with a new coat of paint. Mind you if I am going to do that then why not get rid of the horrid blown vinyl wall covering? Then the carpet could go as well, though to be honest having moved all the furniture out the carpet tried to escape on its own. However it was bought back under control with a carefully aimed bottle of Shake 'N' Vac.
Stripping the wallpaper revealed...er...more wallpaper. Under that was a delightful late 70's design with pink flowers. That went to reveal walls that had been plastered by a neanderthal. So after a lot of filling I gave up. And up went the wood chip. But not until I had tried lining paper to cover the mess.
I then painted the walls, and the colour didn't work, so I painted them again, then the ceiling had to be done again. In went new light fittings, and a new light switch, which I managed to electrocute myself on. Well then so far so good, but the floor boards looked bad, so in went the laminate floor. Well it sort of went in, but it wasn't easy. The laminate was on special offer from Homebase and although it does look the part it is made from low grade recycled chipboard mixed with thin air. So another couple of days wasted.
Now the room started looking quite good, apart that is from the motley collection of furniture, most of which even Mr Trebus wouldn't have stored in his garden. So off to price up new furniture, then back home again for a stiff drink. Going through all the office furniture revealed some that could be re-used. But the desk could not as I have always hated it, even though it is just the right size, it is also just the wrong colour.
So to cut a long waffling story short I have built a plush new desk, which is very large and can hold both main computers, the stereo and most other stuff. So I have a nice shiny new office, and RISC World is late. The annoying thing is that we had a load of excuses for the previous issue being late, such as dying computer equipment, lighting strikes, exploding washing machines, collapsing cars and more. But in the end we held the issue over until after the Wakefield show so we could include a show report, perhaps we could hold the excuses over as well?
Editors Rant of the month
I really can't think of very much to complain about this month. Handing over iSV Products didn't cause any real problems, the engine in my camper decided to die in big clouds of smoke, but then seemed to recover. The new office is mainly done, the sun is shining, and I have yet another heap of rust on four wheels to play with (a 1958 VW Beetle for the princely sum of £75 if you are interested).
Ah yes, there was something I was going to complain about, the new RISC OS Select scheme. However there are two reasons not to bother. Firstly Acorn User has had a damn good go at it, and secondly I can't be bothered. The weather is too nice to worry about RISC OS Ltd.
However I will complain about those really annoying Claims Direct adverts on the TV. They drive me round the twist, in fact I would like nothing more than to have the lot of them destroyed (along with Bains & Ernst). To vent my anger I rung Claims Direct and asked if I could sue them as their adverts made me sick, they hung up.
Printing RISC World
The new look of RISC World means that when you want to print an article on your printer it will have the light yellow background. However most web browsers allow you to turn off the background images when printing. The example below shows the print dialogue box from Fresco.
As you can see the option "No Background" is ticked. If you want to print out any of the RISC World pages then make sure you have clicked a similar option in your browser.
Aaron Timbrell