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  | New Glasgow Apple Store Thanks to Will from The D I G I T O G R A P H E R http://web.mac.com/digitographer
iPod maker Apple will open its Glasgow store on Saturday Scotland's first Apple store will open its doors to shoppers and enthusiasts on Saturday at 0900 BST. The firm behind the iPod has chosen a listed building on Glasgow's Buchanan Street as the site of its first UK venture outside England. The company is understood to have spent more than £1m converting the Category A property which previously housed a home furnishing store. Fans have camped out prior to store openings around the world. It is reported Apple will employ 59 staff in Glasgow, which will be the company's 10th UK store. Plans for the 600 square metre outlet were said to include a new stone floor, stainless steel walls and ceilings and a glass spiral staircase. It will include a Genius Bar, where customers can go for advice and hands-on technical support for Macs or iPods. Shoppers can also "test drive" new products. Three days after the opening, The Dykeenies will kick-off the first of a series of live shows from the store.
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  | New iPods due soon
August 24, 2007 - Think Secret sources expect new iPods to be delivered in the first week of September, echoing recent published reports.
ArsTechnica reported Friday that Apple will hold a media event September 5 to announce the new iPods. While Think Secret sources have as of yet been unable to confirm that Wednesday media event, they have privately relayed for some weeks now that new iPods will be in consumer hands by September 7.
Apple last revised its iPod line-up September 12, 2006 when the company unveiled the second-generation iPod nano and iPod shuffle models, as well as the 5.5G iPod.
A substantially revised iPod nano is expected in September, and a new iPod is also likely to be announced but could very well not be available at launch. Sources say Apple has wavered between releasing a touch-screen iPod this year or waiting until next-year, and while as recently as July the consensus was that Apple would hold off until 2008 to avoid facing component shortages, the slower than expected sales pace of the iPhone means those parts may be available in sufficient quantity to roll-out a touch-based iPod this year.
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  | iPod Hi-fi going bye-bye?
Meanwhile, Think Secret sources believe Apple's stand-alone iPod speaker system, the iPod Hi-Fi, is slated to get the axe in the near future.
Apple launched the $349 speaker system in February 2006, going so far as to devote one of its rare media events to the accessory, which was seen as another means for Apple to tap into the lucrative iPod economy,
While the Hi-Fi has received generally favorable reviews, sources say sales of the speaker system apparently haven't materialized to an extent that justifies keeping the product in Apple's rotation.
It's uncertain whether Apple will replace the Hi-Fi with another speaker solution or simply exit that segment of the market.
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  | TIme Machine Featured in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard 9A527
Just days after pushing out build 9A500n as an update to developers who have installed 9A499, Apple has released an entirely new build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: 9A527.
Sources say Apple has included a new intro movie to Leopard with the build, removing the Spotlight-like movie from 10.4 Tiger and instead providing a sci-fi space theme one. The default desktop picture is also space themed, making Time Machine's roll in Leopard's feature set apparent.
While sources say the new build feels considerably more stable and polished than previous one, notes accompanying the release point out about a dozen known limitation, including Cisco VPN not working, slow font validation, installation failures when SCSI dries are present, and Address Book syncing not functioning.
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  | Google Earth looks to the stars Take a look at the universe through Google Earth Jeremy Kirk
Google has introduced a new add-on for its Google Earth software. Called Sky, the software lets users explore space and see photos of the precise star formation above them. Users can peruse satellite images of such astrological wonders as the Crab Nebula, an expanding remnant of a supernova 6,300 light years from earth. Markers within the star photos pull in explanatory text from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. Overlays outline constellations such as Leo, illustrate phases of the moon and show how the planets visible from Earth orbit over two months.
Google Sky uses high-resolution imagery from the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Digital Sky Survey Consortium, CalTech's Palomar Observatory, the UK's Astronomy Technology Centre, the Anglo-Australian Observatory as well as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The imagery covers 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies, Google said. While much space imagery is already available online, Google's goal was to make it more accessible by wrapping it into its Earth program, which previously focused on satellite images of earth. The project came out of the Google's engineering team in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "Zoom in to distant galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away, explore the constellations, see the planets in motion, witness a supernova explosion; it's like having a giant, virtual telescope at your command - your own personal planetarium," wrote Lior Ron, a Google product manager on the Google Earth and Maps team blog. Using the service requires a new download of Google Earth. While Google Earth is free for regular users, it also offers a commercial version, Earth Enterprise, that lets businesses attach their own data to satellite imagery and host the information on their own server.
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  | Steve Jobs joins California Hall of Fame California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger names Jobs a 'great Californian' Jonny Evans
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is one of the latest inductees to the California Hall of Fame. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced the inductees for the 2007 California Hall of Fame last night.
Jobs joins a list which also includes former governor and supreme court chief justice Earl Warren, photographer Ansel Adams, comedian Milton Berle, winemaker Robert Mondavi and actresses Rita Moreno and Elizabeth Taylor. The California Hall of Fame formal induction ceremony will take place on December 5 at the California Museum in Sacramento.
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  | Macs speak with a British accent New text-to-speech Peter English voice pack ships Jonny Evans
Acapela Group and AssistiveWare today announced that the new Peter text-to-speech voice that will be available as part of Infovox iVox's British voice pack. Infovox iVox provides naturally sounding voices that work with virtually any Speech Manager compliant Mac OS X application, including Preview, TextEdit, AssistiveWare VisioVoice, ConvenienceWare GhostReader, and Adobe Acrobat.
The already available Graham and Lucy voices have also been significantly improved. Until the end of October, Infovox iVox with British voices is available for €99 excluding VAT. The updated British voice pack is a free update for existing users. More information and a fully-functional downloadable demo is available here.
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  | DoBeDo is a freeware Dashboard Widget for Mac OS X. The widget allows you to view, add, edit and delete iCal's todo items. Its tight integration with iCal make it an indispensable addition to any Dashboard lineup. You can display items from any one of your calendars, open multiple widgets each set to a different calendar, or list all of your tasks together in a single widget. If you are not an iCal user that's ok too, DoBeDo can still help you stay organized and on task.
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  | Operation Selecting a Calendar Calendars are selected by clicking on the calendar's title. The calendars are listed first in alphabetical order, followed by any groups you have defined in iCal or DoBeDo. Each item's priority indicator and checkbox will match the calendar's colors. Adding Tasks There are a number of ways to add a task in DoBeDo. • Double-click in the empty space anywhere on the page. • Press Apple-N or Apple-K. • Click the new item button (plus symbol). If the current selected calendar happens to be a group, you will need to select which calendar you want the new task to be added to. Type the text of your task into the edit box and when you are finished, click the Accept button or press the return key. Adding Clusters Click the second plus icon, which will drop down a list of clusters. Double click on the cluster you want to add. Editing Tasks Clicking on an task's text will drop down an edit sheet. From this sheet you can move the task to another calendar, or edit the task's title, due date, priority, url and note. You can also change both the task's priority and due date from the main list. For the priority, click on the indicator icon, and a option list will appear. As a shortcut, holding down the Apple key while clicking the indicator will increase the priority by one level. To change the due date, click on the due date to the left of the priority level, and select on a date from the popup calendar. Printing Press Apple-P or click the print button to print the task list from the selected widget. The list's sorting and calendar will be identical to the onscreen widget's. By default, the printout will open up as a PDF in the preview application. You can also have the page sent directly to a specific printer by selecting it in the "Printer" option. Deleting Tasks Hold down the Apple key while clicking on a task. Completing Tasks Single click the task's checkbox.
Options and Preferences The following options can be set on the reverse side of the widget. • Manage: • Calendars - This lists all the iCal calendars along with any DoBeDo lists. Click the plus or minus button to add or delete DoBeDo lists. You can not add or delete iCal calendars from here. Double clicking will bring up more information about the selected calendar or list. You can also change the name and color of a DoBeDo list from here. The visible option allows you to hide calendars or lists from view. Their tasks will still be visible in groups, but they will not show up in any of the select boxes. • Groups - This lists all the iCal and DoBeDo groups. You can add a new DoBeDo group by clicking the plus icon. Add calendars or lists to the group by dragging the from the left box and dropping in the right. To remove a calendar from the group drag it back from the right to the left. Groups can contain both iCal calendars and DoBeDo lists. Deleting a DoBeDo group will not delete its enclosed calendars. • Clusters - Clusters are kind of like favorites; tasks that you do all the time. Example: you could create a "wash clothes" cluster that contained the tasks "Wash clothes", "Dry clothes" and "Fold clothes". Each cluster can consist of a single task or many different tasks assigned to any of the calendars. Click the plus icon to create a new cluster. First give the cluster a name, then add each task to the cluster by clicking the plus icon located to the right of the task box. If you make a mistake, or want to remove a task from a cluster, select it in the list and press the delete key. • Schedules - Schedules are tasks that run at a defined time and repeat indefinitely. They will not fill up you calendar like repeating iCal events. They are added one at a time at the scheduled date. Both cluster tasks and schedule tasks can contain natural language due dates. • • Sort: Tasks can be sorted by task, priority, due date or list. If priority is selected, tasks are sorted first by priority, then sub-sorted by due date, and finally sub-sorted again alphabetically. If due date is selected, sorting is date->priority->task. Sorting by list is list->date->task. • Completed: Sets the number of days a completed item is displayed. • Future: Sets the number of days in the future to show due tasks. For example - say you have a task due in a month and you set the future option to 7 days, the task will remain hidden until a week before it comes due. The "Today" and "1 Day" options behave differently. "1 Day" will show tasks past-due or due within the next 24 hours along with any tasks that do not have a due date, "Today" will only show tasks past-due or due through the current calendar date. • Style: Selects the widget's skin. • Printer: Sets the printer. • iCal: Lets you choose how DoBeDo will interact with iCal. • Always Close - if iCal is running when DoBeDo is activated, it will be forced to quit. This option insures that DoBeDo and iCal don't interfere with each other. • Close On Edit - DoBeDo will close iCal only if you change, add or delete a task. With this option, some tasks created in iCal may not show up immediately in DoBeDo. • Leave iCal Alone - DoBeDo will never close iCal. A good option only if you intend to use DoBeDo as a quick, read-only reference. • Natural Language: Enables or disables the natural language processing of due dates. This only applies to new tasks, it is always turned off while editing an existing task. Understandable strings include dates ("03/15", "March 15th"), or days of the week ("monday", "tuesday", "next friday" ...) or ("today", "td", "tomorrow", "tm"). It is case insensitive, English only, and you must include the word "due".
Miscellaneous DoBeDo doesn't scroll, but instead uses multiple pages to display items. Clicking on the bottom right corner pages forward, while clicking on the bottom left corner flips backwards. Clicking the page indicator (e.g. "3 of 4") jumps to the first page. Key Shortcuts: • Apple-D: Toggles display of the due date and priority. • Apple-E: Emails the current list. The output style is basic text for viewing on mobile devices. • Apple-F: Opens and closes the future window. • Apple-K: New task. • Apple-N: New task. • Apple-P: Prints the current to-do list.
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  | Will
Been using the dragging finder items into terminal to get path loads...
I use idisk for sharing whacking big files, but if I use finder to copy it really slows finder down sometimes. Now instead I open terminal, type cp, drag the item to be copied into terminal, followed by the folder on my idisk to be copied to, and let it get on with it in the background. When the prompt returns I know its done.
Might help someone.
Best wishes
John
John Walker john@macwiz.co.uk http://www.macwiz.co.uk/apple/
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  | The British Mac Labour Exchange
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  | MICK COULTER Design/Visuals/Retouching/illustration
Mick has been been working in the creative industry in and around London for the last 18 years I looking for Freelance in Design/Visuals/Retouching/illustration work. I am also involved in bluetooth marketing.
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  | ANDREW YATES Freelance Web Designer/Developer
I'm a freelance web designer/developer. Mainly focusing on xHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP & MySQL as well as content management systems.
I have worked mainly with other freelancers. Lately I have also helped out several charity's and organizations, which involved meeting with the respective parties and discussing what they wanted to achieve and how they wanted to go about it.
I am based in Birmingham and very willing to travel. I am online most days if anyone wishes to contact me.
Most of my work can be seen on my blog/portfolio which can be viewed at www.mach2designs.co.uk, if you would like to see a copy of a CV please request it via my site or contact me at contact@mach2designs.co.uk
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  | Hi Will -
Delighted to have a new episode of British Mac, which I have just finished listening. I generally listen to the show on my iPod as I do the ironing late on a Sunday evening. It makes a chore a delight. Anyway I thoroughly enjoyed the new episode and I especially enjoying listening to the interview with Brian Thomson about 'If Monks Had Macs' - and I'm off to look at his website once I send this email. So cheers for doing the interview.
A quick update on the fiasco that was iWeb 08... a couple of nights ago Apple released an update, iWeb 2.0.1, which "addresses issues with upgrading and publishing iWeb 1.x websites". However, users of the Apple Support Forums continue to complain that the update is not always helping and some problems are continuing. One impact of all this is that a lot of Apple fans (some of them long-time Apple fans) are questioning Apple's quality control for iWeb 08 - its astonishing that these problems have arisen and you are left wondering how no-one spotted this in beta testing for the programme. Hope it will be fully sorted out soon.
On the news front, Scotland's very first Apple Store opens next Saturday, 25 August, at 147 Buchanan Street, right in the heart of Glasgow. The Glasgow Mac User Group (GlasMUG) are thinking about having a camp-out overnight so we can be first in line for the Grand Opening. A number of special events are planned in-store for that day and the Store's calendar page on the Apple site - http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/buchananstreet/week/20070826.html - has loads of workshops listed over the coming months. Can't wait.
Last but not least, here are two idea's for you -
[1] How about doing a piece about how British Mac came about - what made you do it and why? What did you want to achieve with it? And have you done that? Where do you see the show going from here? Did you already know about podcasting or did you have to learn it?
[2] What about a section for listeners to tell you their Mac history? What got them into Macs? What do they do with them? Why do they like them? What Macs do they have and have they used?
Hope Dave in Oz is managing to get his site problems sorted.
Best wishes to you and its great to have British Mac back where it belongs - after all, it *is" the Neapolitan of Mac podcasts!
Will
The D I G I T O G R A P H E R http://web.mac.com/digitographer
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  | I've been using the new version of iMovie and I note its been criticised for its inability to edit the soundtrack to any great extent. Someone on the Apple support forum posted a god workaround which works really well... I have used it and although a little circuitous, it does work a treat and I kinda like it. So if this helps anyone, make your movie then import it to the Media Browser. After that, pull it into the new version of Garageband and it will become a 'Movie track'. You can then delete, edit, replace or otherwise fiddle with the soundtrack (on a separate track) and come up with some nice results. This was the single feature that really irritated me about iMovie 08 so this workaround is a God-send.
I did indeed get to the new Apple Store although I was not one of those who camped out overnight for it. One guy came from Philadelphia and another from Santa Cruz and they were there from 7am the morning BEFORE the store opened!! Anyway, I've posted a full report on my website complete with the video someone has on YouTube and pics from various sources. I went to the Store mid evening and it was still mobbed. Treated myself to the new keyboard, which is an absolute joy to use.
http://web.mac.com/digitographer/Digitographer/AppleStore.html
Looking forward to the new edition of British Mac!
Will
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  | Hi Will,
Just a quick thank you for the 18/8 show info about the problems with iWeb 08. When I got mine I had to reinstall the whole site (took ages) and the iTunes update/refresh button didn't work. I asked at the Apple Store Birmingham and they didn't know about it. I asked a Mac-based film company I work with and they said they'd not heard anything. But you had, so thanks. Basically I had to resubscribe to my own podcast via the button on my site and will inform my listeners (both of them) that they will need to do the same. Good to know why it's all happened and I'll thank you in the next show.
The rest of iLife 08 (or the bits I've used):
iMovie - a completely new prog. Installation actually lets you keep iMovie HD in case you prefer it (yes, I do). Quick and quite basic. Does what it says on the tin.
GarageBand - the Magic GarageBand is not much for a muso, although it can be good for jamming practice. I've done the new theme tune (starting on the next show) on it by adding my harmonica to a basic blues track. Other bits and bobs are nice and it looks tidier. Changing key seems easier as well.
iWeb - above and beyond the buggering about you mentioned in your show, there are some more templates and recognition for domain names. Oh, and you can import active stuff like maps, youtube clips, weather etc.
iPhoto - much improved in that it packages things into events. Largely familiar, though, but the going to full screen is slightly different. Oh, and when you try and import into another application iPhoto's greyed out, so you have to find it via Finder/Spotlight.
The annoying thing with the whole package is that it takes a while to find how to do the common things you did before. But it's a good upgrade (apart from iMovie).
Agree with you totally about iWorks. I had version 1 before and was singularly unimpressed. This one's much better and potentially gives Office a run for its money. Could do with a Capital-at-the-start-of-a-sentence check, though.
And I've tried out the new iMacs at the Apple Store, Birmingham - they're blazingly fast and will be even faster when I get to buying mine next year (can't justify it to the starving family after the new MacBook in June).
But this long rambling letter was basically to say thanks for being the only person able to answer the iWeb query.
Yours aye,
John Visit John Edgar's website at www.storyjohn.co.uk New resources site on http://web.mac.com/johnedgar1 - home of the Storyjohn Podcast
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  | Think my email may have been the one that got flushed
Entourage wake up prob:
I may be talking complete twaddle, but I think I've heard of this problem before. Sounds like your using dhcp and a floating ip address. When the mac goes to sleep the ip address gets thrown back into the pool, and when it wakes up it fishes out another ip address at random. You would be better off manually setting up a static ip address.
Quicky on options:
You have an option to buy at $5 at a given point in the future.
If at that time shares were trading at $4 you could buy the shares on the open market at $4 so you would be daft to use your option to buy at $5.
The fact that the Apple shares are trading around $122, you exercise your option to buy at $5 and can flog them the same day on the open market for $122 - an instant 20 fold+ profit
No. of shares x option price ($5ish) = how much spent.
No. of shares x $122 = current market value
second value - first value = instant wad
Only recently started listening. I'm hooked. It's the funniest thing since the elephant crapped on Blue Peter.
Mike in Cardiff
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  | Will,
I noticed that you say you play around with Psion PDAs. I recently came across a post several months back on Roughly Drafted about the history of the ARM architecture in the iPhone and why it doesn't use Symbian. It's a nice bit of history that involves Acorn and Psion going back the good old Sinclair days.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/855E5843-AF47-47B7-B363-3C1FD2636F43.html
Roughly Drafted usually has some great reading, he writes quite well, although his podcasting style is a bit rough.
My sister, who lives in Shrewsbury, is visiting here in the states. She wants to know what nights you play, and if you ever play in Shrewsbury.
cheers,
Ryan
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