friday 06 january 2006

Dear All -


Firstly - best wishes for 2006! I hope that you all had a good Christmas, and start to the year.

The big event this year will be the release of the first Apple machines with Intel chips inside, which will make no
difference in the short term, but gives our computer a longer life as Intel chips have a better development route
than the PowerPC chips we have been using. Possibly late in 2006 we will see an early release of the next major release
of the OS X operating system - 10.5 (codenamed: "Leopard").

First announcements may be made in San Francisco on tuesday - I'll send out a note of the highlights shortly thereafter.


In the meantime, here are some other news snippets from late last year:
(As usual - ignore them if not of interest, and get back to me if you want any clarification)

1.	No future for Microsoft's Internet Explorer

"IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER FOR MAC USERS

In June 2003, the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit announced that Internet Explorer for Mac would undergo no further
development, and support would cease in 2005. In accordance with published support lifecycle policies, Microsoft will
end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.

Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from
Mactopia. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari."

the Mac Doctor says: "Or Firefox, or Opera, or iCab."


2.	One.Tel moves to Carphone Warehouse

"Another ISP has been bought out (december 2005). One.Tel has been acquired by Carphone Warehouse for £132 million
from Centrica to be able to compete better with BT. One.Tel offers both alternative voice services as well as broadband,
adding to their portfolio which includes Tele2's carrier pre-select business. In addition, they have also agreed
to pay British Gas a further £22.2 million over three years if British Gas customer recruitment targets are met.

One.Tel has 60,000 broadband users which will presumably be transferred to under the TalkTalk umbrella with other
operations. This is a series of acquisitions which have formed the One.Tel group that includes Rednet earlier this year."

the Mac Doctor says: "Funny new world in which we buy telephone service from a gas transport company - and that
(landline-based) business is sold to a mobile 'phone company"


3.	Ipod nano success

In a best effort to meet demand for its top-selling iPod nano this past Christmas, Apple Computer was building and
shipping 100,000 of the ultra-slim digital music players every day!


4.	Adobe's Bridge

"With all the talk about Aperture, it looks like someone at Adobe was paying attention. When I came back from a Christmas
trip, I got an automatic notice that an update to Bridge (1.0.3.106) was available. After a quick and painless installation,
I am suddenly able to view Nikon NEF RAW files in Bridge. All of a sudden I can now open multiple RAW files in the
Photoshop editor too. And I can do all of this without converting everything to DNG files first. In fact I don't have to
convert to DNG at all. This is a huge time-saver. Maybe this has been discussed before, but it was a surprise to me and
an great unexpected Christmas present."




Any questions? Let me know! Anything you'd like me to write a note on? Let me know!

thanks for being Mac users

hugh