That old problem, work, has gotten in the way again, not helped by the lost weekend trying to get my Phoebe case to accept my RiscPC motherboard - there's so much metal chopped out so far that I've blunted one hacksaw and had to buy two buckets of Lego to shore things up. So anyway, here's an eclectic collection of bits and pieces for this month...

Birmingham show heads up
It's 1st December folks, put it in your dairy. More details from The ARM Club website. One interesting nugget of info is that John Cartmell will be selling board games produced using RISC OS machines.

Acorn User: the saga continues
Tau Press has moved, which it seems to do about once a year now:
  28a Middle Hillgate, Stockport SK1 3AY, UK
  Tel: (+44/0) 161 429 8902 Fax: (+44/0) 161 429 0685

Apparently January 2002 (February edition) will see a new look AU with more articles and a new viewpoint. Discounted prices and better WHSmiths distribution are also promised. However, they are still looking for a dedicated (yet part time) editor. They're looking for comments, and I'm sure you'll be happy to oblige...

Michael Stubbs almost as persistent as Andrew Rawnsley
The persistence award is in danger of passing from R-Comp, who usually post at least one message per product around show time, to Melotech, who don't seem to need a show to shout about their services. Although I don't generally use the news page as an advertising forum such doggedness surely deserves a little something, so go to Melotech's website for special Christmas prices and free delivery on hardware and software, including reconditioned StrongARM RiscPCs. You can even download EasyGCC, a freeware GCC compiler for those of us not overly familiar with C.

Software roundup
New and improved software not (yet) added to the list on the right hand side of the TIB index page includes:

Image Software (insert RG's usual disclaimer of semi-affiliation) have released Money Manager 2001, which looks like it's an MS Money-like personal accounts manager. It'll even import QIF files, so you can import bank statements etc. without resorting to MS software. It costs just shy of thirty of your earth pounds inc. VAT and UK P&P. There are also updates to the Posum/EBMS total business management software; and to Nutmeg, the Oregano cache.

Amongst the freeware there's Phil Hardy's MSN Messenger beta (http://www.phardy.karoo.net/MSNMess/); The PDF viewer by Colin Granville (et al) has been updated (http://pdf.iconbar.com/); the WebJames web server has had some security fixes; and slightly specialised but pretty cool, there's LanMoC, for using a 3-Com LAN modem under RISC OS (http://melhuish.info/simon/projects/index.html#lanmoc).

And that's it for this update. No doubt you non-graphical types will welcome the break with tradition - no mention of any ArtWorks modules or Vantage upgrades. Although Vantage 1.02 is imminent...