@Troels

Documentation on OS4 Depot says its a RSS News Reader it doesn't say someone can actually create a news feed with it. Can you confirm whether it can or not? Many thanks.

I hope to make that proposal soon yes.

Hmm it shows my bad spelling/editing history now. =p Damn I've been found out. Haha.

Question: Does the Amiga platform have a simple RSS Feed Creator such as 'Feed For All' (http://www.feedforall.com/)?

If no, that would be a nice software app to have and I wouldn't imagine it would take forever to make one as a RSS Post itself is very simple - ie. an image in the top left and a paragraph of text with an url linking to something.

Update: As per ChrisH's request I've made the Black bar headings a little more interesting by adding the Badge thumbnail to the left of each text. Next I'll add some social bookmarking tools in footer.

@khu

Thanks for the detailed reason of why you feel that way. ^.^

I don't know if its the website or my email idea =p - an aggressive marketing strategy is required on a shoestring budget to push the X1000 into the spotlight and that requires almost immediate action.

In the case of UK and European law as long as personal email addresses contain an Opt-out link - any company can send them advertising emails, when someone opts-out you must comply. Administrating Opt-outs falls into the same topic as do we chose to add tracking urls to an email so we can see which things in a newsletter people are clicking. Such services like DotMailer exist for providing such a service, contacts can easily Opt-out, but they can also handle Opt-in (ie. join your list) from a suitable web form. Of course they also have some novelty features like Forward to a Friend etc.

Of course such a service is not free, but in my humble opinion such a service is not necessary from the beginning and can easily be integrated later as necessary.

Aside from personal email addresses, there are Shared Email Addresses, examples are info@, developers@, press@, marketing@ etc... these are pretty useful as mail sent to it often gets sent to multiple-recipients elsewhere in the business - this in particular makes it difficult for someone to unsubscribe a shared email address; of course you would have to honour any new requests to opt-out from personal email addresses you may get as a result of this.

And also under the same law a company or individual is not compelled to unsubscribe a shared email address; most companies would choose to impose a temporary block/pause block on that account. This is because who is to say the person at the other end had the authority to unsubscribe? Also is this same person still employed with the company?

--

In short, having news posted on the web on such sites as OS News and Slashdot is not enough you must target people in their homes and businesses.

Personally I wouldn't worry about the release date Helgis, it was clear to me being there at the show that Trevor was just being cautious given all the variables. Lots of companies no matter what size or in which industry they specialize nearly always skip key dates when releasing a new product/service.

If you want to keep sane, enjoy the summer and in the back of your mind - think Mid-Autumn.

@all

Thanks for the feedback.

I have also designed an email newsletter to go along with this, a few million email addresses would be cool though. =P

At present I have a database of 4,000 email addresses, but none are software developers it would be great if people could or would be willing to do some market research into this and build up their own individual databases with the intent of bringing it into huge email database that A-eon/A-Cube/Hyperion could spam *cough* I mean showcase their hardware to a wider audience as possible.

I would really like to know how or what is already being done by all those involved in advertising their hardware.

PS: Few more changes to the site, mostly making sure the html syntax is more adherant, but also started on the Developer menu option.

www.uploads.beaverpromotions.co.uk/x1000/index.html

Hey all,

Got back from the festival a couple of hours ago, very busy venue. All Bletchley Park car parks were full when I arrived at just after 11:15. So I have to use the recommended nearby train station. Speaking with Mikey C in the marquee I was told they expected between 5,000 - 7,000 at the park over the week.

Of course not everyone came to the Amiga marquee there was lots of true-geeky activities going on inside the Mansion - I had a go on a few games like Bomb Jack on the Acorns there a played a game on some Commodore machine that had a Guitar hero-esque guitar attached to it - was good for 5 seconds (I can't play to save my life).

Had a laugh on the ZX 48k Spectrum playing manic miner and this black and white Pong bat and ball style game on this Plastisomething system with twiddly controllers... what a blast from the past.

But by far the busiest place was the Amiga tent with a steady stream of people taking a look at everything Amiga.

Stephen Jones showed me around his iMica, and introduced me to Aros which was a bit of an eye-opener as the vanila iCaros Desktop install I have running through VMWare on my Mac looks crap in comparison to what he was showcasing - loved the look of the custom case and silent drive - just cool.

Had an albeit brief chat with Max Treton of Acube System's who english wasn't that great - maybe it was my Grimbarian accent haha. The Sam 460Ex looks pretty decent - much bigger than the photos of the similiar 440Ex posted on AmigaKit .. but all the same very sexy. The Sam 460Ex is expected final week of September/Early October. ?600 euros Max told me. He said he doesn't fear the X1000 release and that he was pretty hopefully that both Acube and A-Eon would both see an increase in sales - increased choice for the customer is good.

13:30 Trevor gave his speech on the X1000 and yes couldn't hear a word he was saying - AmigaProductions has posted videos on YouTube, search for 'Amiga X1000'. Didn't manage to find a moment to speak with Trevor as my dad wanted to have a look around the rest of the museum. Any unanswered questions I will probably send via email to A-Eon. Trevor was sporting a great Boing ball tie throughout the event - he was not hard to spot! Seems like a nice chap and I can tell he is passionate about the Amiga platform. He has 150 Commodore Amigas (of various models) in his basement? o.O

I found Trevor's answers to questions from the audience to be very sincerely and honest (just wish there was more questions posed) and the only thing he was hiding was the CPU and the '$64 million dollar' question - how much will it cost? :D
Which I believe he said was below the ?1500 mark, but subject to change.

Great days was had by all.

PS: MikeyC has a few copies of Descent Freespace 2 at the show if anyone is interested in purchasing this game - looks good to me.

PPS: http://www.uploads.beaverpromotions.co.uk/x1000/index.html

A few updates made to the site, might do a few more like change the <TH> rows to some sort of gradient or pattern background.

Updated Mock-up A-Eons website.

Some requests for improvement have been made.

To the person who said you only got one picture of the X1000? Yes, I have how many have you seen posted across the internet?

www.uploads.beaverpromotions.co.uk/x1000/index.html

@Daniel

Its not showing up in Latest Listings... perhaps I should wait for it to be moderated if such a system exists. :D

Well night all, see you guys at the show.

@all

Well so far I've got questions for Trevor @ A-Eon or Andrew Korn if they have time to talk to me.

Also questions for Thomas or Hans-Joerg Frieden or whoever is representing Hyperion.

Quick questions for AmigaKit, I don't know who I should ask for, play it by ear.

And some questions for Max Tretene representing Acube Systems - I do wonder on the day whether they will all have time for questions I suppose it will just depend on how many show up on the day.

If there are any questions you would like me to ask post here before I go ahead and print them off.

@djrikki

Yeah I think its just the hardware atm. Like I said already, the web site is pretty work in progress and on hold. ^.^

@AJS

Gonna be weird all I know is people's forum names. =P

@djrikki

Ah I heard it was Samwise Gamgee.

Hi all,

This week I and others will be attending the Vintage Computer Festival at Bletchley Park and as you all will probably know their will be a fair few prominent people their answering our questions.

For the people who can't attend this weekend what outstanding question would you like an answer to and who from at the show?

Leave your questions here, I will select some of your questions and report back on Monday with my findings.

Try and keep your questions short, direct and to the point.

@All

Yeah lots of shortcomings and things to do on with it, but I just felt I had spent enough time on it - especially as A-Eon are very unlikely to use it.. although they are welcome to the source code. I'll address some of the individual posters this evening after I return home from work.

Hmm strange... thought this will appear at the top of new posts lists. :s

Perhaps its because its in Free For All?

Maybe I should move it elsewhere. :S

Hi all,

A few weeks if not months ago now, the talk on Amigans was about the quality or lack thereof A-Eon's website.

Many stated it was only temporary, many said it was here to stay ha. Many grumbled and said 'if you think you can do better let's see you do a mock up instead of constantly nit-picking'.

That last comment or words to that effect inspired me to do exactly that, see if I could do better so rather than sit on my laurels I had a go.

So I thought what the hell I could do with brushing up my CSS and HTML skills so last sunday (6th June) I began to do exactly that make my own mock copy of their site.

The link below are the fruits of my labour, some may say its waste of time, I say well it was fun making it!

But at least I have done something which I believe is productive and shows what can be achieved and could appear on any future A-Eon site.

Thanks to the few who kindly uploaded random images here on Amigans I still need(ed) more, but what the heck without an Amiga anymore myself its hard to finish what I had set out to do.

I hope you enjoy the following effort and have positive comments for me. Of course I do listen to constructive criticism as well.

I would love to see some of the content appear on their website, chiefly a Download section of popular software, user themes and backgrounds and an introduction to AmigaOS.

In closing, I wish the A-Eon's web design team well on re-designing their site ready for the X1000 launch this summer and hope they have listened and taken in many of the positive and also negative comments of the whole Amiga community.

Here is my mock-up of the A-Eon website.

Enjoy.


http://www.uploads.beaverpromotions.co.uk/x1000/index.html


PS. I designed the website with my screen resolution at 1680 x 1050 (I have a wide-screen iMac) I fully expect there to be some layout issues on lower resolutions. I freely admit I am not proficient when it comes to ensuring consistency at different screen resolutions. Some tips and tricks wouldn't go a miss.

PPS. Yes some pages are incomplete, I felt I had spent enough time on it already.

Stood on a few feet it seems, yes most are okay, but something special for x1000 would be cool. Foreinstance AmigaKit.com could easy have a dedicated section/folder for the x1000 separate to the rest of their site so A-Eon could easily point to it. Just an idea.

And yes frames on websites is very old hat and no-one seems to use it anymore - I just couldn't think of a third technology =P

Perhaps HTML5 when finalised will hold something special aside from platform-independent video playback.

At least I got you guys talking about it and kas1e's know why I brought up at this time as I am actually working on a html project website atm which for me is just to brush and refresh my HTML skills. Talking of which at work today I worked out how using Javascript I could have a different selection of url images shown in the browser depending on which option was chosen from a drop-down menu - I was quite happy with myself that I managed to work it out. *pats own back*

@djrikki

Which of these are part of the OS/Installation CD?

YAM or SimpleMail?

@jackepc

Is AmiUpdate part of the OS now? If yes does this update itself or do you have to visit a website to update the updater?


AmiUpdate isn't on the installation CD, so it's not a part of the OS. Even so, I consider it to be very useful if not essential. Yes, it does update itself automatically.

Hans

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Well thats something of a surprise, thought it sounded like an integral piece of software.

@jackepc

Is AmiUpdate part of the OS now? If yes does this update itself or do you have to visit a website to update the updater?