"Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, [...] but it was not a bad system".

Not a bad system, indeed. So without further ado (and considering I am already running late for dinner at Alasya's, which is a sin in and by itself, especially after quoting Hobbit customs:), take a peek at this.

At http://maug.org.au/umilator.html, MAUG (the Melbourne Amiga User Group) is running a poll to gauge the level of interest in Umilator.

This poll came about because at the AUG meeting last Sunday, I made a comment along the lines of "underwrite X copies, and I can release the thing, and have the money to deal with anything that will be thrown at me".

It is important to note that this is quite different from "If X people commit to buying a copy, I can release it", for several reasons, the main one being that I won't take anyone's money until I am absolutely sure that I can give them a product in return, can't be sure of that until things have gone through courts, and can't drag things through court until I have money....

Of course, there is also the issue that names on a web form don't actually equate to guaranteed sales... so even if I could somehow work around the first problem, I'd probably still look for at least 2*X, rather than X (and to be honest, I'd be surprised if the count reaches X).

That being said, the poll is genuine. It's not some scam, or an attempt to gather personal info for spamming purposes. And while, for the stated reasons, I can't and won't make any promises one way or the other, I will most certainly watch the results with a lot of interest. One can never have too much information...

One last request --- please be honest about filling in the poll. If you would buy a copy, fill it in --- but if you wouldn't, then please don't! I understand and appreciate some people's desire to "show support" that way.... but the idea is to come up with some number gauging the potential sales. So if you don't want Umilator, and yet want to show support --- just drop a comment here on the Umiblog :)

At amiga.org there is a story (warning: 200kB HTML) about Harald threatening Wayne with initiating legal action over the "illegal misuse" of his trademark.

Funnily enough, the news story he objects to doesn't even contain the word "Amithlon" at all.

Unfortunately, the mail Wayne received is about par for the course for Harald. It certainly wasn't exceptional in any way.

And yet, Haage and Partners does not, apparently, see any need to distance themselves from such behaviour, thus implicitly condoning it.....

Seems nobody else noticed that, as of February 5th, it has now been a year since the "latest" (aka "only") AmigaOS XL update from the good people at H&P.

Update 2003/02/07: Seems like I hid my cynicism too well... So just to clarify --- the message here is "It's been over a year since H&P have released anything, and look at what crap they released back then". Just one more piece in the whole why-I-don't-like-H&P mosaic...

Somewhere in the 2.5.50-something range of linux kernels, the nVidia framebuffer driver added support for a whole bunch of GeForce4 models, including the GeForce4 Ti4200/4400/4600. So much for the good news.

I just realized that the stereo-capable version of PuhDerBaer (the Paula-to-AHI redirector) never made it out to the users. Well, it's never too late --- download the archive and please make sure you read the included README.

Please note that I packed this up under linux, rather than under AmigaOS. So it is possible that permission bits may not be set correctly --- so if things don't work, look for that first.

Seems liike today is the day for posting feature lists --- see OS4 feature list at Amiga.com, and MOS feature list v1.2 by the MorphOS team (strictly speaking a month old, but just rewarmed on www.ann.lu). And people have been asking for a feature list for Umilator.

Well, who am I to argue? So here it is. Have a look if you feel a tad masochistic....

Extreme Computing has today put up the http://www.amigax86.com website.

Alas, for obvious reasons, the site only explains what could have been. It's really sad that not only users, but also companies who are so entusiastic about things suffer from this mess.

After the moderators of the H&P-run amithlon mailing list recently removed me without comment or reason, things have gotten even more ridiculous today. This morning (well, noon :), I received the following instant message:

Message 3: Sat Dec  7 13:19:19 (read)
From: XXXXXXXXX [To: umisef]
now I have been unsubscribed from amithlon aswell..

I guess it was only a matter of time --- at around 10pm AEST on December 5th, 2002, I had a look at the web page for Yahoo's "amithlon" mailing list, and noticed that I no longer had access to any of the "Members Only" features. I also noticed that "amithlon" no longer appeared in the list of groups I am subscribed to.

I then ran a subscription check, which confirmed that I was no longer a member of the "amithlon" group. You can see the screenshot here.

I also attempted to send a test message to the group, only to receive a reply from Yahoo to the effect that I could not post to the group. It can be seen at the bottom of this page.

I guess it is safe to say that, for all intents and purposes, I have been removed from the "amithlon" list run by Haage&Partner. I did not receive any communication to that effect from anyone, much less an explanation for it.
Of course, I am still subscribed to the "amithlonopen" list...