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 | Apple forced to ditches Airport Extreme and iSight in UK & Europe.
A new European directive thats restricts the use of lead, cadmium, mercury and several other harmful chemicals in new electrical equipment has reached its 1st July deadline.
Apple products that do not meet these levels are the eMac, the iSight camera and the Airport Extreme, and Apple has had to remove these products from its European product line.
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 | BBC TV Archive Online
The BBC has been cataloguing and indexing its programmes since the 1920s. The development of the programme catalogue has reflected the changes in the BBC and in broadcasting over the last seventy five years. For example, in the early days of broadcasting, for both Radio and TV, the majority of programmes were broadcast live and were never recorded. There was therefore little point at the time to do extensive cataloguing and indexing of material that did not exist. As you will see, the number of catalogue entries for a day in the 1990s, far exceeds the entries for a day from the 1950s.
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| iPod over the Radio in UK OK with the suits!
Devices can transmit an iPod's music over FM radios
Gadgets which transmit MP3 players' output so they can be heard on FM radios may become legal in the UK.
Communications regulator Ofcom is holding a public consultation over the issue until September.
Using iTrips and other "low-power FM transmitters" is banned in Europe as their low-power transmissions can, in theory, interfere with legal stations.
The devices and other similar MP3 player accessories are popular abroad and widely available online.
The Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949 forbids the use of radio equipment without a licence or an exemption.
But the gadgets are now expected to become legal to use - without a license - by 2007.
This decision... will not only regulate a booming black market and provide the country with valuable tax revenue, but also enable the iPod generation to enjoy their music using the latest gadgets
Liberal Democrat culture, media and sport spokesman Don Foster
Liberal Democrat culture, media and sport spokesman Don Foster said: "I am delighted Ofcom have ended this ludicrous ban, based on 1940s legislation... which threatened two years imprisonment to music lovers using iTrips.
"This decision... will not only regulate a booming black market and provide the country with valuable tax revenue, but also enable the iPod generation to enjoy their music using the latest gadgets."
Gadget magazine T3 deputy editor Jason Jenkins also welcomed the proposed legalisation.
"They are nifty little things and an easy way to listen to your iPod tunes in your car," he said.
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| Pages 3 super new features!
Apple's Pages software is set to receive a number of significant improvements when version 3 rolls out early next year as part of iWork '07, sources have told Think Secret. Among the most notable will be the introduction of two new modes, Word Processing and Layout, that will each be optimized for their respective tasks as opposed to Pages' current handling of both types of documents with one common set of templates and tools.
Apple hopes the new Word Processing mode will better position Pages for day-to-day document creation. A number of convenient features catered to writers and typists will also be wrapped into Pages 3, including a thesaurus and integration with Spotlight, Wikipedia, and Google. Apple is also said to be looking to build a robust grammar checking engine for Pages that could find its way into other Apple and Cocoa applications.
The jack-of-all-trades Inspector, which currently controls settings for everything from text and object spacing to hyperlink integration, will be joined by so-called "Mini Inspectors," which will give users one-click access to frequently accessed settings. Font and styles settings will include a WYSIWYG font menu, greatly expediting font browsing and selection compared to the current "Show Fonts" window.
Apple is also beefing up Pages' collaboration capabilities, sources say, enabling any object in a document to be commented on and tracking changes from multiple users. A more robust Mail Merge functionality should also at last support mail merging to email.
iWork '07 is expected to be released in January 2007 and will include Pages 3, Keynote 4, and a brand-new spreadsheet application.
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| John Lennon Songwriting Contest.
The John Lennon Songwriting Contest is an international songwriting contest that began in 1997. The Contest is open to amateur and professional songwriters who submit entries in any one of 12 categories. The JLSC is open year-round and features two Sessions -- with 72 Finalists, 24 Grand Prize Winners, 12 Lennon Award Winners and 1 Maxell Song of the Year.
You don't need a professional recording. Entries wil be judged on originality, melody, composition, and lyrics (when applicable). Your songs may be entered in any of the following categories: Rock, Country, Jazz, Pop, World, Rhythm & Blues, Hip Hop, Gospel/Inspirational, Latin, Electronic, Folk, and Children's. Instrumental compositions are encouraged.
D12, Al Jarreau, Bob Weir, Matt Pinfield, Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, Columbia artist Lyfe Jennings, Jesse Harris, Teairra Mari, The Black Eyed Peas, The Bacon Brothers, Ken Komisar, Jake Hill are some of the artists that help to judge the contest.
MEET THE JUDGES
Winners will receive EMI Publishing Contracts, Studio Equipment from Brian Moore Guitars, Roland/Edirol and Audio-Technica, 1,000 CDs in full color with premium 6-panel Digipaks courtesy of Disc Makers, and gift certificates from Musiciansfriend.com. One entrant wil be chosen to TOUR and PERFORM for one week on Warped Tour '07. One (1) Lennon Award winning song will receive an Apple Power Mac G5, Cinema Display, Logic Pro software, and $20,000 for the "Song of the Year" courtesy of Maxell.
Click here for a complete list of PRIZES.
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| iSync 2 has Blackberry Support
The new Blackberry 7130g is supported natively in iSync 2.
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| FileMaker Pro 8.5 upgrade, with new web interface
A new Learning Center feature appears in this iteration of the databasing product. Learning Center includes free video tutorials, how-to guides and other resources to help users learn the application.
The software has also seen a series of smaller enhancements, including new object and scripting capabilities: Layout Object Names, Go to Object script steps, Layout Object calculations, Set Web Viewer script step, and List function all feature.
Existing users of FileMaker Pro 8.0 and FileMaker Pro 8.0 Advanced may upgrade to FileMaker Pro 8.5 for £69 (U.K. suggested list price). FileMaker Server 8 and FileMaker Server 8 Advanced users can get Universal CDs that support Intel-based Macs for only £35. New users may purchase FileMaker Pro 8.5 for £219.
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| Nike+iPod system ships in UK
The solution costs £19 (including VAT). This doesn't include the Nike trainers, which are called the Air Zoom Moire and cost an additional £65. The system is available through Nike stockists, the Apple stores and Apple's online store.
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| Apple Rids Product Line of CRT Monitors
Apple Computers Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs unveils the the new iMac computer in a Cupertino, Calif. file photo from May 6, 1998. Apple Computer Inc., the first major PC maker to convert to flat-panel displays, has completely rid itself of bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors. The move is part of an industrywide trend both in computers and televisions toward the use of more popular, liquid-crystal display, or LCD, monitors, which are sleeker and more power-efficient than its older CRT counterparts. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)
SAN JOSE, CALIF. — Apple Computer Inc. completely rid its product line of bulky cathode-ray-tube monitors on Wednesday, becoming one of the first major PC makers to sell only flat-panel displays.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based maker of Macintosh computers introduced an $899 iMac specifically for schools and students, replacing the eMac, which was the company's last remaining CRT-based model.
The move is part of an industrywide trend both in computers and televisions toward the use liquid-crystal display, or LCD, monitors, which are sleeker, less weighty and more power-efficient than their older CRT counterparts.
Apple was among the first computer companies to bet big on LCD in 2001 when it used the thinner technology to replace all of its CRT displays except for its candy-colored, egg-shaped iMac line. By January 2002, Apple replaced those CRT-based iMacs with a revamped, space-saving design featuring a swivel LCD display.
Apple's new, lower-cost iMac for schools, students and teachers features a 17-inch flat-screen display and a 1.83-gigahertz Intel Core Duo processor. It's a substantial price discount from Apple's least expensive iMac sold at $1,299. That model has the same microprocessor and screen size as the education version but includes a larger hard drive and the ability to burn DVDs.
The low-cost iMac is sold only to qualified education customers — mainly schools and colleges as well as individuals who are teachers or college students.
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| Apple gives up on hunt for moles
Many people are fanatical Apple watchers
Apple has ended its legal fight to make bloggers reveal who leaked secret information about its new products.
Legal action began in 2004 after details of an audio breakout box, code-named Asteroid, appeared online.
Apple won the first round of the legal battle but the order to unmask the sources was over-turned on appeal.
Now Apple has decided not to contest the appeal court ruling which gave net journalists the same protections as traditional media counterparts.
Watching brief
In 2004 Apple launched its fight to unmask the moles by filing a lawsuit against a company called NFox.com. This firm provided e-mail services to one of several Apple-watching blogs that published information about Asteroid and other forthcoming products.
In the lawsuit Apple also tried to make the blogs, Apple Insider and Power Page, reveal their sources.
Apple argued that the only way that someone could have passed on the information, which included detailed drawings, was by breaking a confidentiality agreement.
Apple is famously tight-lipped about future products but is such an influential firm that many keep a close eye on what it is working on.
In a legal decision handed down in December 2004, a Santa Clara Superior Court Judge sided with Apple and said that there was no legal protection for the bloggers who published the information.
The case went to appeal and the 2004 decision was over-turned in May 2006 with the help of digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The EFF argued that if Apple was successful the ability of all journalists to use information from confidential sources would be compromised.
While the appeal court did not agree with the EFF on this point it said that online journalists and bloggers deserved the same protections as colleagues who publish in newspapers.
Now the deadline for Apple to contest this appeal ruling has passed and legal papers filed by the computer maker suggest it will not pursue the matter any further.
A separate trade secrets lawsuit that Apple filed against another site - Think Secret - has yet to be resolved.
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| Douglas Adam's Mac found!
http://www.mandrake.demon.co.uk/Apple/iifx.html
At the end of 2003, I was looking to buy a Mac IIfx for some hacking. I needed a Mac with six NuBus slots and the IIfx is the fastest model that fitted my requirements. One turned up on eBay and I was able to win the auction at a sensible price. The seller was a computer scrapper who had no knowledge or interest in the history of the system.
The system was purchased "untested, as is" and the photo accompanying the auction (see opposite) indicated that it wasn't going to be in pristine condition. When delivered the case was filthy and the steel RF shielding inside had surface rust indicating that it had been stored in a damp environment for a couple of years. The side of the case (psu end) had four grubby chunks of Blu Tac attached. Obviously a previous owner had decided to stand the IIfx on its side as a tower case and used the Blu Tac to stabilise it. (If you try this at home with a IIfx, please stand the case on the other end so that the psu ventilation slots aren't blocked.)
I stripped out the components, scraped off the majority of the Blu Tac and dumped the bare case in the bath tub with some detergent. As the photos show, some of the Blu Tac is still lodged around the ventilation slots and the underside of the case has a peculiar sunburn pattern. My IIfx still looks a mess but I only bought it for hacking anyway.
When switched on for the first time, it was clear that the last user had little understanding of how to store files on the hard disk. The root directory contained hundreds of MacWrite documents. Scrolling through them was a pain and, as I have no interest in other people's private affairs, I selected the lot and deleted them. That was mistake number one. I left the applications folder intact to have a look at later.
In its day, the IIfx was Apple's flagship computer and a well specified machine would have left little change from £10,000. My new purchase had 20MB RAM, an A4 portrait display card, a 256 colour Toby video card and a very noisy Fujitsu (non-Apple ROM) hard disk drive running System software 7.5.5. All of the blanking plates for the NuBus slots had been removed and it is likely that any useful cards had been removed as the Mac descended the scrap chain; the Open Transport preferences contained a reference to an ethernet adapter and the control panel for a Radius display card was installed.
The applications software installed on the system didn't look very interesting. All of the files I had deleted were MacWrite documents and it appeared that the IIfx had been used as a glorified word processor. However Retrospect Remote was installed for backups so somebody had been using the Mac for serious work previously. The last backup was performed on 02-02-1997 but, according to the last modified file dates, the system remained in use until March 1999. Some power user utilities from CE and More were also installed.
I started up MacWrite Pro and noticed that it was registered to "Douglas Adams, Serious Productions Ltd". I paid little attention to this as I had seen warez copies of Claris software where the registered user was Douglas Adams. I then started Claris Resolve, ignoring a warning dialog (mistake number two), and noted that this software was also registered to Douglas Adams. The copies of Claris Works 4.0 and Now Up-to-Date were registered to Jane Belson; I was unfamiliar with the name but a quick web search determined that she is Douglas Adams's widow.
Deleting all those files suddenly seemed like a dumb thing to have done... To undo mistake number one, I popped an ethernet card in the IIfx, mounted an AppleShare volume and ran Norton Utilities to recover the files onto the server.
The results? I recovered hundreds of documents relating to Jane Belson's professional work and precisely two that bear the hand of Douglas Adams. I doubt whether the copyright lawyers would chase me for publishing his Idiots Guide to using a Mac but you wouldn't be thanking me either. For now at least, the draft of a TV sketch called Brief Re-encounter is strictly for my personal enjoyment.
And mistake number two? I should have paid attention to the dialog box when I'd started up Claris Resolve. In twenty years of Mac use working on literally thousands of systems, I've only seen viruses half a dozen times so I ignored the warning. How wrong can you get... A precautionary scan a few hours later using the old Disinfectant application showed that Claris Resolve had been infected by the MBDF A virus and that every application that I had subsequently run was infected too. Cheers, Douglas!
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| iTunes, a Power User's Guide by Mike Bradbrook. Part One.
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| Did you know that Calculator support RPN? RPN stands for Reverse Polish Notation and has been available on calculators since the seventies. It works by splitting complex formulae into small junks and can save both time and keystrokes. Goto wikipedia to learn more about this powerful way of using Calculator. Wonderful!
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| Hello to all new Frappr members. The 100 mark soon is here!
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 | Brian from Hereford questions answered...
How can I set up a video link with PC users abroad (wifes sister uses MSN Microsoft Messenger) that would be great.
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| Answer from Darren Davies for instant messaging
One of your listeners was asking about instant messaging between pc and mac.
He mentioned msn messenger, a mac version of which is available and works well. I used to use Yahoo messenger for Mac and PC, which was excellent.
I now use AOL instant messenger on the PC, there is a mac version but you can use ichat as it is compatible.
There are several advantages to using ichat.
1. AIM (aol instant messenger) is very popular on Windows.
2. A 'buddie' added to AIM on the PC is added to ichat automatically, and vise versa. This is because your buddie list lives on the aol server, not either computer you are using.
3. Both AIM for Windows and ichat use h264 video compresion, meaning that webcams are compatible and of the best quality.
AIM with ichat is in my humble opinion the best option for staying in touch with families abroad and means as a mac user you don't have to compromise and use an old ported windows messaging client.
We can use the excellent ichat, and still talk to Windows users.
I use AIM at work, and ichat at home to speak to both PC and Mac users.
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| Will from Scotland says:
Just finished listening to Episode 22 and someone had asked you about cam to cam between Mac and PC. Possibly the easiest solution is for both the Mac and the PC users to create Yahoo accounts, as this will already allow the two to communicate without needing to do anything more. Hope this helps.
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| No problem, Will. Oddly enough, there was a news story on the BBC news website the other day related to this, concerning the merger of the Yahoo and MSN messaging services. Since Yahoo IM is already usable between Mac and PC (bless them) users, I wonder what lies ahead with regard to MSN itself. Anyway you can read the full story at -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5176032.stm
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| Neil from New Zealand says
How can I set up a video link with PC users abroad (wifes sister uses MSN Microsoft Messenger) that would be great.
As we are now 12,000 miles from all our family and friends it's been a bit of an obsession of mine to get us all video chatting as easily as possible. One sister has a Mac, the other sister and parents have Windows XP machines. Here's what I've discovered over the last year.
iChat to iChat is by far the best video and audio quality and on full screen it's like the person is there with you. However iChat to AIM or Trillian Pro on the PCs doesn't work as well. Also, I've had to change broadband modem and router settings both here in NZ and back in UK before we could get a video picture, it gets very messy and not something who doesn't understand routers should tackle.
I've yet to find a way to video chat to a PC using MSN, there's nothing any good on the Mac to do that.
Last week we tried the latest version of SightSpeed which is good quality video and audio, not as good as iChat but very usable. Again though you may need to change settings in your modems and routers which is a pain.
Then this week someone leaked a version of Skype for Mac which has video and I managed to download it (search google for Skype_beta.dmg). We've been using Skype to call the UK and to call other Skype users for a long time and the audio quality is very good. Although there are problems with this leaked version it does work and we've already had a few video chats with Windows PCs in the UK using our intel iMac. The video quality isn't as good as either iChat or SightSpeed but the set up is very easy and it does just work.
My advice would be to start using Skype audio and hang on a few weeks when hopefully Skype will release an official version of Skype for the Mac with video support.
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| Will from Scotland hosts a podcast for those effected by Dementia.
Welcome to Dementia Scotland, the new dementia news and information resource and also the home of the UK’s first (and, so far, only) Dementia Podcast, available weekly either here on the website or through iTunes.
Dementia Scotland aims to provide you with a single resource offering information and education on dementia and with a particular Scottish feel.
At the present moment, around 64,000 people in Scotland are living with dementia - of these, 34,640 have Alzheimer’s Disease, 10,400 have mild Alzheimer’s and 14,600 have moderate Alzheimer’s.
Visit http://www.dementiascotland.co.uk/
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| New NeoOffice out, from Alan Vickers
By the way... did you notice that the Alpha 4 version of NeoOffice was released as a free-of-charge download on 1st July? NeoOffice is the OSX version of the brilliant OpenOffice suite.
The Alpha4 version works on Intel Macs as well as PowerPC Macs. It's amazingly powerful. No need to purchase Microsoft Office!
See here:
http://www.neooffice.org
http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/download.php
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| Gavin Hall and the .Mac alternative.
Anyway, following on from your comments on iCal XChange and alternatives to DotMac, I suggest you check out www.box.net
It is an online hard drive facility which could be used instead of the iDisk. You can get 1Gb of storage for free, or you can pay for more. It's all web based, but they seem keen to support developers wanting to write software compatible with this service. Maybe someone can write a widget that lets you upload to it.
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| Invention: Umbrella
The word "umbrella" comes from the Latin root word "umbra", meaning shade or shadow. Starting in the 16th century umbrella became popular to the western world, especially in the rainy weather of northern Europe.
The umbrella we no today was invented by in 1852 by Samuel Fox, and African-American inventor William C. Carter patented the first umbrella stand in 1885.
At first it was considered only an accessory suitable for women. Then Jonas Hanway (Born Portmouth, England 1712-86), carried and used an umbrella publicly in England for thirty years, and he popularized umbrella use among men. English gentleman often referred to their umbrellas as a "Hanway."
Hanway was an interesting chap, a traveler who was attacked by Pirates, he then found The Marine Society, carried his umbrella through the London streets and was attacked (and eventually triumphed over) London cab men, he attacked tea-drinking society and set to protect child chimney sweeps!
The first all umbrella shop was called "James Smith and Sons". The shop opened in 1830, and is still located at 53 New Oxford St., in London, England.
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| Ripping Yands with Michael Palin, written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones.
This episode is The Testing of Eric Olthwaite
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