friday 20 october 2006.

Dear All -

A number of pieces of news, none of major importance, but each snippet of interest to some of you, I hope.

0.	Apple announces 4th quarter results

Apple have announced sales of 4.84 billion USD for the year just ended. There is 10 billion USD cash in the
bank, and they have sold 5.3 million Macintoshes, and 39 million iPods in 12 months. 40% of sales are outside
the USA.

They also announced a profit of 546 million USD for the last quarter (a 27% increase over last year). Overall,
Macintosh sales have increased by 30% over a year-ago to 1.61 million machines in the quarter. Laptop sales
have increased by 56% (but desktops by only 4%). iPod sales have increased by 35% over the same period last
year. 8.1 million iPods have been sold in the quarter - making a total of over 68 million sold over the last
5 years. (68 million iPods - that's more than each one per inhabitant of the UK!)

In addition to the Macintosh range of computers, and the iPod range of MP3 players, Apple has announced the
iTV ( a media player for the home, due for release next year), and there are increasingly strong expectations
of the Apple iPhone

Says an analyst: "We believe in six months the halo effect will expand beyond a simple iPod-to-Mac
correlation into a four-way relationship with iPod, Mac, iPhone, and iTV benefiting from each other's
success."


1.	OS X at 10.4.8, and other updates

Note that OS X is now issued at 10.4.8, together with a number of other updates to Apple applications.
Work on Leopard (OS X 10.5) continues apace and it may be released early in the new year (as much as
anything to show-up Microsoft's long-awaited, oft-delayed Vista (the replacement for Windows XP)).


2.	Other updates of interest

2.1	Microsoft Messenger now released at version 6.0.1

2.2	GraphicConverter is at 5.9.2

2.3	Aperture 1.5 released - free update

2.4	Both Microsoft's Office V.x and 2004 have been updated recently. There are some problems with some of the
updates for some configurations.

2.5	QuarkXPress is at 7.0.2; Adobe InDesign at CS2 4.0.4

2.6	Adobe Photoshop is at 7.0.1, and Photoshop CS2 at 9.0.2


3.	Applications of interest

3.1	BackTrack 3.0 - Logs all text typed into all applications, and allows you to "un-wind" any typing you have
done, and to record your typing.

3.2	Skype 2.0 Beta allows for mac users to video conference with IBM-compatible PC users. I have tried this
with one of my brothers (who is not yet a Macintosh user) and it works. This is the best cross-platform
solution for video conferencing at present.

3.3	In all the excitement about You:tube (bought by Google for 1.6 billion USD last week) I suggest that you
have a look at Democracy TV, a front-end, or portal, for a lot of interesting video channels. Get it from
http://participatoryculture.org/

3.4	ThinkFree Office and NeoOffice both offer cheap or free alternatives to Microsoft's Office suite and may
be worth a look for you. Later versions of AppleWorks will open and write WORD documents, and under OS X 10.4
TextEdit will open and write WORD documents too.



4.	Broadband notes

	A number of recent announcements about broadband

4.1	NTL has announced a new 'quadruple-play' package incorporating a broadband Internet, cable TV, home phone
and mobile phone service all in one package at £40 per month. The integration of offerings continues, next
you'll be paying for your gas from a broadband company. Really.


4.2	PC Pro has some interesting comments on the state of broadband in the UK, with the item generally revolving 
round xDSL services that make use of the BT local loop infrastructure.

The concern of the various 'free' or bundled broadband services at the time of their launch was that they were
too cheap for the services to be sustainable for more than a couple of years. Certainly many of the double/trip
e play bundles rely on customers taking another service, which is where the income will be generated, e.g.
mobile calls on the telephone services, and pay per view content. The UK has gone through a period of around
three years where the retail prices to consumers for broadband have been in free fall, with the cuts mainly
being fueled by providers introducing acceptable usage policies and caps to keep a lid on their own costs.
The unbundling processes took this a step further, by allowing providers to try and run services cheaper than
what they can buy direct from BT Wholesale. For the millions of broadband users who still simply check their
bank account and email now and then, plus perhaps do a little bit of online shopping, the myriad of offerings
work well. However, for those embracing the dream of a broadband connection being central to a home
entertainment system, many cheap provider products are lacking.

So when will the bloodbath end? It is impossible to say. It is likely to get worse, and we suspect that issues
like customer service will often be at the bottom of the priority list. Some providers may simply try to make
its customer base attractive to competitors in the hope of a buy-out, others will try to compete head-on with
products that price match the bigger operators who have deep pockets and can afford to run at a loss for a few
years. We would not be surprised if those million or so people who kick started the broadband revolution from
the year 2000 onwards are going to see monthly subscriptions increase to keep the same degree of quality of
service as what they enjoyed a few years ago.

4.3	AOL UK and Carphone Warehouse (Talktalk)

Carphone Warehouse has bought up AOL UK for £370m in cash, instantly bumping up its broadband customer base by
1.5 million, even if 600 000 of the AOL users are still using dial-up connections.

Assuming the deal gets regulatory approval it should be all completed by the end of the year, making Carphone
Warehouse the third largest broadband provider in the UK, after NTL and BT.


5.	USB camera

Of interest as Apple has stopped selling their elegant and "just works" video camera, the iSight, because of
European legislation about some of the chemicals inside.

Ecamm Network and Pico Instruments have announced the availability of the iMage USB Webcam, a lightweight, port
ble webcam delivering high-quality video to any popular Mac video application, including iChat AV, Yahoo!
Messenger, Skype and Photo Booth. Employing USB video standards, the iMage webcam requires no device drivers
to be installed prior to use with Mac OS X or Windows XP. Ecamm includes special iMage Plugin software to
provide complete iChat compatibility. iMage is priced at US$59.95, and for a limited time the company is
including their Conference Recorder for iChat and Call Recorder for Skype software and offering free shipping
within the United States.


6.	Eudora

A sad day for the serious email users. Qualcomm and the Mozilla Foundation have announced the end of commercial
development of its Eudora email client and announced that future versions of Eudora will be based upon the same 
echnology platform as the open-source Mozilla Thunderbird email program. Eudora 6.2.4 for Mac OS X features a
new Mail.app import to easily import mail from Apple's bundled email client and features updated spamWatch
definitions.

"I'm excited for Eudora to be returning to the open source community," said Steve Dorner, vice president of
technology for Qualcomm's Eudora Group. "Using the Mozilla Thunderbird technology platform as a basis for
future versions of Eudora will provide some key infrastructure that the existing versions lacked, such as a
cross-platform code base and a world-class display engine. Making it open source will bring more developers
to bear on Eudora than ever before."

"Hmmmmmm" says this long-time Eudora user.


7.	Fixing UKOnline mail when it appears to "stick"

Just for those of you on UKOnline mail.

Sometimes you find that mail won't download from UKOnline's mail servers to the Apple email client 
called Mail.

This is usually because an email has appeared in your list on the server with special characteristics 
that prevent Mail from picking up your mail.

The way to unblock the jam is:

1. Log into your account at UKOnline via their website: www.ukonline.net

2. Go to your Mailbox - on the right hand side

3. Look for an email from " " with [No Subject].

4. Mark the tick-box at the left hand side of that email

5. Click on the Delete word at the top or bottom of the column of tick-boxes

6. Check to see if there is another of these problematic emails, and delete it.

7. Log out of the email listing

8. Logout of your account

9. Check that you emails come into the Mail program


8.	From the field!

This is a new section, featuring small snippets written by fellow Macintosh users.

PB says: "Having bought a 60GB iPod for classical music on my travels, I recently downloaded version 7.0.1 of
the software and only then realised that I could automatically transfer all my current iCal calendars to the
iPod every time I hook the iPod up to my PowerBook.  As I don't use a Blackberry or other PDA, to have date
and appointment information with me when I have only the iPod is really handy.  The iPod display is of course
limited - one day at a time - but scrolling between days is easy.  Same system for copying photos from iPhoto
on to the iPod, though there the limited size and resolution of the display, at least on my iPod, really do
limit the usefulness of the facility."

PB also notes: "Use the 'Link tracks' command under the 'Advanced' tab for turning opera CDs into iTunes
'songs'"

And not from the "field", but specifically for business readers here:

PMcI (not a Macintosh user) says "Some years ago the Department for Trade and Industry sponsored the creation
of a scheme to accredit business advisers in the theme "technology means business". The scheme was reinvigorate
 a year or so ago with a special emphasis on helping enterprises - particularly small enterprises - assess
whether they are getting the best use out of their office equipment. This covers such aspects as whether the
office equipment and systems provide the right information to enable them to make most profit i.e. is the
"bang for buck" as big as it could be? The starting point is a short meeting and "health check" with an
accredited adviser to see "what's what" that results in a short report. If you would like further information
please let the Mac Doctor know and he will put you in touch with me - a TMB adviser.




Any questions? Let me know!

Best wishes to you, and thanks for being Mac users

hugh