British Mac Show Notes

Episode BritishMac027

				NEWS

				Headlines

					Expo London free tickets, but be quick!

				Hello Will. Hope this e-mail finds you well. I was wondering whether you felt inclined to visit the Mac Expo being held in London. I've registered for free entry in advance......been for the last two years and love browsing around the stands to ogle the new stuff. I leave the credit cards at home to avoid impulse buying! If you cannot get there, I wonder whether you would be interested in having a report on the event by avid subscribers to your podcasts?

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				Apple admits excessive iPod hours The iPod is the world's most popular MP3 player Apple Computer has said a report of labour conditions at its iPod plant in China found workers did more than 60 hours a week a third of the time. Staff making the world's most popular MP3 player also worked more than six consecutive days 25% of the time. Apple said the hours were "excessive" and said its supplier would now be enforcing a "normal" 60-hour week. The California-based firm said its report found "no evidence of enforced labour" or use of child workers. The computer firm sent an audit team to its unnamed plant in China after a British newspaper published a story alleging poor working practices.

				Apple iTunes movie plans confirmed By Jonny Evans Apple seems set to launch movie downloads through iTunes US - at least if a senior movie company executive can be believed. The CEO of Canadian movie studio Lions Gate Entertainment, Jon Feltheimer, spoke with analysts during the company's financial earnings conference call. He confirmed an iTunes deal has been reached. "We also have digital delivery deals in place with Cinema Now, MovieLink, and iTunes, with upcoming announcements with at least two more major industry players," he told analysts, according to /Film magazine. Company president Steve Beeks added: "In terms of iTunes movie downloads, I think most likely some time before the end of the year. We know when they are planning on launching, but since they have not announced it publicly, I do not think it is our place to say anything more about that." The report claims that Apple will be offering movies on a rental basis, rather than for sale. In July the magazine reported that Apple has secured deals with Walt Disney, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros.

				British Mac to go Enhanced and MP3!

				Quick but dull

				And finally

					Virus program incurs church wrath Many vicars use Visual Liturgy to plan church services Vicars in the UK are up in arms after parts of a program they use to organise church services were branded spyware. Many users of the Visual Liturgy software rendered the program useless after deleting a file wrongly identified as spyware. The creators of Visual Liturgy criticised anti-virus firm Symantec for the time it took to fix the bug. Symantec said the mistake had been fixed and users could avoid the problem by updating their anti-virus software. Unholy row The row between Symantec and Church House Publishing, the creator of Visual Liturgy, blew up on 8 July following an update to the Norton anti-virus software. More than 4,500 Church of England parishes rely on Visual Liturgy to help them plan and prepare church services. As Christians, we're used to not always getting answers to our prayers immediately, but this seemed to take the biscuit Church House Publishing The update identified a file called vlutils.dll as being part of a keylogging program called SniperSpy. In fact the file was an integral part of Visual Liturgy. Many people who reacted to the warning by deleting the files crippled the program. As a result Church House Publishing was inundated with calls from users trying to find out why the software had stopped working. In a statement, Church House Publishing said it reported the mistake to Symantec on 10 July and then made repeated attempts to get the problem corrected. While waiting for a response it made a copy of the vlutils.dll file available so users could download it and get Visual Liturgy working again. A spokesman for Church House Publishing said an investigation confirmed that the problem had been fixed but criticised the way Symantec handled it. In particular, said a spokesman for Church House Publishing, it proved hard to get confirmation from Symantec that the mistake had been corrected. "Whilst we are very glad that this issue has now been fixed, the issue at stake here is that there will be parish churches who rely on Visual Liturgy to create their service sheets who have been severely disrupted," said the spokesman. "The time taken to run the update and then re-download the deleted files is time that could have been spent on much more important things," he added. "As Christians, we're used to not always getting answers to our prayers immediately, but this seemed to take the biscuit," said the spokesman. Symantec said it resolved the issue soon after the first complaint and advised people to update their anti-virus software so the problem would not happen again.

				Widget Special and introducing new feature!

					Darren Davies' Widget Obssesion

				Hi Will, Love the show, but you are plainly mad - not finding a use for dashboard! Whatever next! If I want my scientific calculator press f12 I may want to check the weather - press f12 I want to look up a dictionary entry or maybe wikki pedia - press f12 I chat to someone in San Francisco, its useful to tell the time there - press f12 I'm listening to an awesome track in iTunes and want to sing along ;) - press f12, the lyrics are grabbed and placed into iTunes and displayed ready for my interesting singing voice ;) The Mac has the most elegant layered desktop implementation for small software components of any computer! You can drag and drop, plus cut and paste between widgets and desktop applications allowing you to drag and drop a file to upload to an ftp server with incredible elegant ease. How could you look through the list of 2,500 widgets and not find anything useful, almost all of them are free as well! Plainly mad I say ;)) -- Darren J Davies

					Be careful of Phil and his Met Widget!

				*NOTE: While these Dashboard widgets are free to download, a small donation of $5 is greatly appreciated: About DeathWatch Widget Simply plug in your date of birth, gender, and personality type on the flip side and Deathwatch will display your remaining time on this plane of existence. Note: This is just for entertainment and we are strongly against anyone taking serious actions based on this result. Date of birth, gender and personality. Normal, Pessimistic, Sadistic, Optimistic.

				St. British Mac

				Quicksilver

				Uncle Mac's Mac Moment

				Dave's Tip2

				Ye Olde Mac and Mouse

				Fappr hellos

					MP3 British Mac request

				Hi, I'm a Mac user (located in Essex, UK) and have just come across your podcast, it's nice to hear a British voice after all the American Mac-related podcasts! While I'm a Mac user, I don't have an iPod. Instead I use an alternative MP3 player which does not support AAC (like most non-iPod players). I wondered if you had considered producing an MP3 version of your podcast on an alternative feed for those of us not using iPods? If that is already available or you could organise it, it would be greatly appreciated here. Thanks again and keep up the good work show, Robert

					Stuart Walton and Macintosh Folk Law

				Will A small suggestion for a topic in Ye Olde Mac & Mouse. There is a fantastic podcast called Macintosh Folklore Radio (http://www.macfolkloreradio.com/ ) by a Canadian called Derek Warren. He narrates these very short stories on the personalities and drama behind the development of the original Apple Macintosh computer. These stories are based on the website http://www.folklore.org/index.py which was created by Andy Hertzfeld (Mac pioneer) to store anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it. "Folklore.org is a also web site devoted to collective historical storytelling. It captures and presents sets of related stories that describe interesting events from multiple perspectives, allowing groups of people to recount their shared history in the form of interlinked anecdotes." The first "history" being shared is the birth of the Macintosh. The anecdotes are wonderful to hear & give a real feel of the excitement of those early years. Also, if you forgive me Will, Derek does have a fantastic "voice for radio". Fantastic podcast as ever All the best Stuart

				I Bought this off a bloke in the pub

				Apple Cube Features This diminutive 8" x 8" x 8" cube suspended in a 10" tall Lucite enclosure, housed a PowerPC G4 processor running at 450 or 500 megahertz, and had an unconventional top-loading slot loading DVD-ROM drive. A separate monitor — either digital or VGA — is required for the Cube, in contrast to the all-in-one iMac series. Also unlike the iMacs, it had an upgradeable video card in a standard AGP slot. However, there is not enough space for full-length cards. The Cube also featured two FireWire ports, and two USB ports for connecting peripherals. Sound was provided by an external USB amplifier and a pair of Harman Kardon speakers. Although the USB amplifier had a standard mini-plug headphone output, it lacked any audio input. The Cube also used a silent, fanless, convection-based cooling system like the iMacs of the time. [edit] Design The Power Mac G4 Cube with power supply, mouse, keyboard, speakers, and a Studio Display. Apple Designer Jonathan Ive won several international awards for the cube's design. The cube can be found in many publications related to design and some technology museums. It was also featured as noted Mac fan Drew Carey's computer on The Drew Carey Show.

				History & Sales Apple targeted the Cube at the market between the iMac G3 and the Power Macintosh G4. Despite its innovative design, critics complained that it was too expensive. It was initially priced $200 higher than the comparably-equipped and more-expandable base Power Mac G4 of the time (450 MHz CPU, 64 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive) and did not include a monitor, thus leading to slow sales. Additionally, early Cubes suffered from a manufacturing defect that led to faint lines in the clear plastic case. After seeing low profits, Apple attempted to increase sales by bundling more software with the cube, lowering the price of the base model, incorporating a CD-RW drive standard for the 500 MHz version, and offering an improved NVIDIA graphics card as an option. These efforts could not offset the earlier perception of reduced value compared to the iMac and Power Mac G4 lineup. In July 2001 Apple issued a short and slightly unusual press release announcing the product was to be put "on ice". Although not "officially discontinued", this was seen as a way to quietly terminate the Cube product line. As a result of the failure of the G4 Cube, Apple Computer's stock (which had risen to a high based on the success of the iMac G3) had dropped back to the low levels from before the iMac was released. It was not until the introduction of the iPod MP3 player that Apple shares would recover. Apple's previous statement indicated that there was a slim possibility of Cube production being resumed in the future, and it would appear that the Mac mini has succeeded the Cube as a small, screenless computer. If this is true, it would be another example of Apple creating a product before its time like the Newton PDA.

				Dave in Oz 8

				British Icon and British Brand

					Brand - Lyle's Golden Syrup Our story goes back to 1883 when Abram Lyle, a Scottish businessman, sent his five sons from Greenock to London to build a sugar refinery. Lyle's Golden Syrup was first filled into tins in 1885. Today nearly half a million tins leave the Plaistow factory on the banks of the River Thames each month. In 1921 the business started by Abram Lyle merged with Tate, a sugar refining business started by Sir Henry Tate in 1859. Henry Tate who, as well as a sugar magnate, was also a major collector of Victorian academic art, offered to fund the building of the gallery to house British Art on the condition that the state pay for the site and revenue costs. Henry Tate also gifted the gallery his own collection. It was initially a collection solely of modern British art, concentrating on the works of modern—that is Victorian era—painters. Launched in the 1880's, the Victorian-style design has altered little over the years and its enduring image has now earned cult status in the design and packaging industries. During World War 1 the 'tin' was even made out of thick cardboard as metal was being used for the war effort! Lyle's Golden Syrup was awarded a Royal Warrant in 1921 and it's been proudly displayed on the tin ever since. The "lion and the bees" trademark Abram Lyle had strong religious beliefs, which is why the Lyle's Golden Syrup trademark depicts a quotation from the Bible. In the Old Testament (Book of Judges 14:14) Samson was travelling to the land of the Philistines in search of a wife. During the journey he killed a lion, and on his return past the same spot he noticed that a swarm of bees had formed a comb of honey in the carcass. Samson later turned this into a riddle: "Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness". However, no-one knows why Abram chose the wording 'Out of the strong came forth sweetness'. Was he referring to the tin holding the syrup - or the company producing it? Captain Scott next week!

				Icon - The Fast Show