Episode BritishMac039
The News
Big Cat Mac
Uncle Mac's Mac Moment
St. British Mac
Advertise the new Annual and Mike's review of the new MacBook Pro.
Hi Will,

I want to buy a copy of the Mac Annual but don't know how to make the payment to this address.

I've got a paypal account.

Cheers

John

PS. Enjoying the podcasts from down here in Macae, Brazil
Your computer is the centre of your digital life. Your TV is the centre of your entertainment life. But what if you want to watch music videos, movie trailers, video podcasts or photos on your TV? At £199 (UK) / €299 (Ireland) including VAT, Apple TV gives you more to watch on the big screen.
1. Will stream standard def over 802.11g - should be ok
2. Will stream Hi-Dif on 802.11n
n will be slowed down if you have a g router

Will only work with ED or HD TV's.
SDTV=704x480i 4:3 ratio
EDTV=852x480P (DVD quality) 16:9 ratio
HDTV=1280x720p 1920x1080i 1920x1080p 16:9 ratio

My MacBook 17" is 1440x900 so it should support 720p HD.

Near DVD quality from iTunes Store videos = 640x480

4:3 Ratio or 12:9
H.264
http://handbrake.m0k.org/


http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/118003.html
HDMI Connector

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302719


Component video connector -
1. Progressive needs that to connect to Apple TV
2. Interlace

USB for service
Rob's Question:
Frankenwidget
Ye Olde Mac & Mouse
Mike's iCal problem...

Hi Will just a follow up email to say I have sent a order for the annual looking forward to reading it etc
Glad you had a good time over Christmas new year if a little busy !!!.
I know this may be a little cheeky but can you or one of your listeners’ tell me  how to change the start and end of day on Ical  I am a shift worker so some weeks my day starts at 1600 (4pm) finishing the next morning at 0200 (2am) and 2 weeks latter my day is 2am to 10am this I can set and the shift from 10am to 1600  so its 2 problems
1 getting the day to start in the afternoon
2 getting the start of day to change every 2 weeks
I don’t have that much hair and I am getting less by the day trying to sort this.
Many thanks to you and all listeners.
Mike
Ps this weeks show notes page has a problem it returns error message page not found keep up the good work
Office Musings from Darren:

Hi Will

Just listening to bm 38 on my ipod and writing this email on my palm.

First can I say a big thank you. Lots of us have busy lives, and I find myself not having enough time to read lots of Mac and Apple news.

Without podcasts such as yours, I would certainly be less well informed. So keep up the good work.

On the subject of MS office for the Mac, I have heard rumours that Microsoft are cutting down it's features almost trying to marginalise it.

What am I talking about? Office has a development environment called visual basic for applications. This is rumoured to be missing on the new version of office for the Mac.

This means that users could no longer develop professional business applications based on MS office on the Mac as they used to in the past.

Is Microsoft trying to keep the best version of office for Windows only? This might be a response to the fact that the Mac is making inroads on lots of traditionally Windows areas, including business.

Is there any truth to this rumour? If it is true then I don't see the point in paying the premium for MS office. NEO office is here now, free, and it is universal.

--
Darren Davies
CDO-IT Services
iTV
Darren Davies: Hard Drive Size
Jason's new podcast....

Hi Will.
First I've been listening to your podcast for ages... Good work!
 
Anyway I'm dropping you an email to be a checky git, I'm just starting my own podcast... TechNow.info I've just finished the first show, it's a little crap but hay it's my first one. ;-)
 
Is their any chance that we could swap some ad's to go at the end of our podcasts? Just once. You slap my audio ad at the end of your podcast and you could stick an ad at the end of my cast (You could do it for the next show or wait till I'm a little more popular, your call?)
 
Sorry to just drop you an email like this, but as they say 'Shy Kids Go No Candy'... Plus us brits need to stick together. hehe.
 
Cheers!
Jase.
 
 
Regards
Jason Etheridge
 
--
 
www.TechNow.info
The web’n technology podcast with balls!
Fixing an iPod...

Dear Will,

I don't know if this is any use to your listeners but I've recently had a problem with my 4th Generation iPod and managed to fix it, more by luck than judgement.  I pass this on to you as a possible solution for an iPod that seems dead.

Two weeks back I had been listening to my iPod in the gym (trying to get rid of Christmas excess!) all was going well.  One track had just finished and I was waiting for the next to start, it didn't.  The screen was frozen, displaying the last track details and would not respond to any of the buttons.  When I got home I connected to my iBook but iTunes did not mount it and it did not appear on the desktop.  I could now hear the iPod's hard disk whirring for a few seconds followed by a clunk!  It would repeat this several times then display an unhappy iPod icon.  What ever I tried it made no difference.  iPod restore initially seen it but could not complete a full restore and would hang after about 5 minutes.  Eventually restore was even aware of the ipod, even after rebooting the iBook.  I spent the whole weekend working on it and looking up web pages but was fairly convinced it was fubar and that I would need to go on a diet on Safeway savers beans and toast to afford a new ipod.
On the following Monday I had a cunning plan!  As far as I was concerned the iPod was broken, therefore I couldn't make it any worse.  I decided to open it and found that two Nuttela spoons (the little white ones) when sanded down could actually be used quite successfully to open up the iPod.  With the iPod opened I disconnected the hard drive and tried to charge it.  No charge icon appeared though and after an hour the battery was still cold so I decided that it wasn't doing anything.  I could at this stage still switch it on but it was now coming up with the folder icon.  The iBook could still not see it though.  I then disconnected the battery and walked off in disgust.  It was maybe 30mins before I reconnected it.
On returning I could now access the Diagnostic Mode on the iPod which I had not previously been able to do.  There are various references on the Net about activating this mode but none really telling you the result of each test.  I blindly went through each of the tests and at the end I tried running system profiler I could now see a "unknown device" connected to my FireWire port!  Believe it or not this was progress.  With the iPod switched off I re-connected the hard drive and switched it on but my ears were greeted with the same whir clunk as before, however system profiler was now showing a 37.8 GB hard disk connected to the FireWire.  I started Restore and this time it seen the iPod but initially all I got from the iPod was whir clunk, whir clunk and then whir no clunk!!!  The restore finished and iTunes opened up.  I had to name the iPod again but it then uploaded all my music and it now works.  I took the opportunity to change the battery while it was open although I did have it running using its own battery after the restore.

I'm not sure at what stage things started to go right but if anyone else has a similar problem I would suggest opening there iPod, disconnecting the drive and the battery and leave it for 30 mins or so.  It may be that something was latched high and by removing both the battery and external power it was forced to go back to factory settings.  Who knows?

The moral of the story is don't go to the gym!

Paul
Hi Will,

    I thought this was something that your listeners might have find useful:

    When I plugged my tear-old 5th gen. iPod into the dock a couple of days ago the “Sync iPod” was greyed out in the iTunes File menu and the iPod had been renamed as “1010” I did a restore and it worked okay. 

    However, the next night it gave an error message and showed the contents in iTunes as being all orange for “Other” rather than blue for ”Audio”. So I restored it again but this time I enabled disk usage and ran Disk Utility. It showed errors but couldn’t repair them so I ran Drive Genius and repaired the iPod disk with that, and so far it’s been fine. 

    Love the show!

    Take care

    Peter:-) 
 
Peter Williams
Livingston
Scotland
p.williams@blueyonder.co.uk
Cheap MP3's...

Hi Will,

    I recently found this music subscription service that might be of interest to you (being a musician) and possibly the rest of your listeners: 

    http://www.emusic.com/?fref=700434

    I have absolutely no connection to them, but I recently discovered the site. You get 25 MP3s of your choosing free of charge, just for trying it and if you do subscribe there are three different plans. I pay £14.99 for 90 tracks a month: that’s less than 17p per MP3! 

    As I say, I have no connection to the site, just thought to might interest you. 

Take care

Peter Williams
Livingston
Scotland
p.williams@blueyonder.co.uk
Hi Will,

In that massive brain of yours I don't suppose you know of a back up system i can use for my G5's 400 gig hard drive and whether if i go out to buy a hard drive i should make sure it is usb 2 or fire wire.. what would you do? Ideally i want a system i can leave perpetually plugged in and it will back up by itself but i don't mind if i have to press a few buttons.

Thank you as ever,
Christian

p.s. I also have a spare firewire 800 port..
British Icon
Bottom - Guest House Paradiso
Guest House Paradiso is a 1999 comedy slapstick movie, starring Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, and directed by Edmondson. It is based on their comedy television series Bottom. The key difference in the characters is in their names: Rik's character, known as "Richard Richard" in the TV show, is here referred to as "Richard Twat" (although he regularly and angrily insists on the pronunciation "Thwaite"). Eddie's character changes from "Eddie Hitler" in the TV show to "Eddie Elizabeth Ndingobamba".
The film was made on the Isle of Wight.