Volume 23.01 January 2006 The Official Journal of the 1 Meeting Details ALL MEETINGS ARE HELD AT: (unless otherwise indicated) Turnbull House, 11 Bowen Street, Wellington When: Monday 30 January, 2006 Time: 7.10 pm till 9.30pm (doors open 6.50pm) We will start the meeting with a presentation on new internet publishing methods and how they relates to iPods following which we will have a short Mac Help Desk session. We will have our traditional supper and social time. Kapiti Area Meeting For those members living at or near the Parapar- aumu area, our next Kapiti meeting will be a din- ner at the Rita King Cottage at St Marks Church in Rosetta Road, Raumati on Monday 6 February 2006. New Media Users Group (web and publishing) Check <http://nmug.welmac.org.nz/> Digital Video Users Group 7–9.30pm, Monday 20th February 2006 at Turnbull House, 11 Bowen Street, Wellington. Cover Photo: The new Macintosh models announced at the recent MacWorld in San Francisco as displayed on Apple's web site. 2 3 President’s Report Hi folks. I hope duction of the first Macintosh models everyone else had a using Intel processors: great Christmas and • iMac with Intel Core Duo processor. New Year. This is almost identical to the recently Apple has updated iMac G5 model, except for some new the new processor, faster memory and surprises better video hardware. It includes the built-in iSight camera, remote control, The MacWorld Front Row software, and no internal Expo has recently modem (Apple are now selling an been held in San external USB modem). Francisco, and as usual Apple has intro- • MacBook Pro. This is a replacement duced several major new products. for the 15” PowerBook G4, with a few The main announcements were: changes: new processor (dual core), • iLife ‘06, which includes iTunes, iPhoto, much faster memory, better video hard- iMovie, GarageBand, iDVD and a new ware, slightly different screen dimen- component called iWeb (used to create sions, even brighter screen, replaced the simple but effective web sites). All of CardBus slot with ExpressCard/34, no the applications have significant im- built-in SVGA/Composite video out- provements. As usual, iLife ‘06 will put (available with an adapter), no be bundled with new machines, and internal modem (external one is avail- there is a cheap upgrade if you bought a able), no Firewire 800 port (still has computer after January 10th and it only Firewire 400), reduced performance includes iLife ‘05. For everyone else, iL- for the SuperDrive. ife ‘06 is only available at full retail price The iMac is already available and ap- (about NZ$155 for a single licence, $190 parently in stock in New Zealand. It is ex- for a family pack). The system require- actly the same price as the iMac G5, and ments have got steeper: you must be both models may continue to be available running Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, and for a while. have a G4 or better processor. (If you The MacBook Pro is supposed to be have 10.2.x or a G3 processor, you will available here in March. The major detail have to stick with iLife ‘05 or earlier.) they haven’t specified yet is its nominal • Enhancements to the “.Mac” online battery life. Compared to the PowerBook service, with even more integration G4, it has a higher capacity battery and with iLife ‘06. bigger power supply, but might have a • iWork ‘06 includes updated versions of slightly reduced battery life due to in- Pages and Keynote. Pricing is the same creased power consumption. as iLife, and there is also a family pack Apple is claiming the iMac Intel is up available. to twice as fast as the iMac G5 given the • A new iPod remote control (for the right software, and the MacBook Pro is Nano and Video models only) which up to four times as fast as the PowerBook includes an FM radio receiver. G4. The real speed will depend very much The major announcement was the intro- 2 3 on what software you are running - see there is no upgrade available, you will below. have to keep a PowerPC Mac around. The big surprise is that Apple released • Many PowerPC applications for Mac these machines so early: they had promised OS X will run on an Intel processor, but Intel models would be available by June. with reduced performance. Develop- Another surprise is that Apple have not ers are gradually releasing “Universal” yet announced Intel-based models of the versions of their applications which low end machines (Mac Mini and iBook). I run at full speed on either Intel or expect these are not too far away. The Pow- PowerPC processors. (When running erMac G5 is unlikely to be replaced by an a Universal application, the new Intel Intel model in the near future, as Apple will machines will generally run faster than be waiting until more powerful processors a comparable PowerPC machine.) In are available and most “Pro” applications some cases this is a free update, some have made the transition to Intel. are charging a small upgrade fee, while Intel or PowerPC? others might be charging a big upgrade fee. Now that Intel models are available, it • PowerPC applications which are is important to consider your options if you dependent on special features of the are thinking of buying a new computer. G5 processor will not run on an Intel The key points are: processor. In particular, most “pro” • Both Intel and PowerPC Macintosh image, video and audio editing appli- models are running the same operat- cations are currently dependent on the ing system (Mac OS X) with the same G5, so new versions will be required for user interface. As long as you are run- Intel. Apple have announced that Final ning applications which work on either Cut Pro etc. will be Universal by March, processor family, you won’t be able to with a reasonable upgrade price. tell the difference between the Intel and • There is no way to run Windows appli- PowerPC other than speed. cations on an Intel Mac yet (Virtual PC • PowerPC processors (G4 and G5) will won’t work, and Windows won’t boot be phased out over time, but will con- directly). I expect this will be solved, but tinue to be supported for a few years it might be a few months away. yet. You don’t need to worry about As the Intel machines have only just your computer becoming obsolete been released, I haven’t had time to get a overnight if you buy a new computer feel for initial reports on their reliability with a G4 or G5. Support for the older and real world performance. If you are G3 processors is starting to disappear interested in these sort of details, I recom- in new applications. mend keeping an eye on Mac news web • If you need to run any software in sites such as www.macintouch.com. the Classic environment (applications written for Mac OS 9 and earlier), you That’s all, folks! will not be able to run them on a Mac If you wish to contact me, your best with an Intel processor. (This might option is to send E-Mail to <president@w change in future, possibly with third elmac.org.nz>. You could try ringing me at party software, but for now they will home (04 475 9755), but I’m not there very not work.) If you have an absolute re- much these days, so leave a message and quirement for an old application which I’ll get back to you when I can. you have not upgraded or for which 4 5 Apple Computer Inc. involved in new Communications Phenomena There is a new phenomena taking place Podcasting as a medium is not limited in the world of electronic communications to audio data. Podcasting of video data is and although Apple Computer was not called, among other things, “video blog- the originator, it is playing a large part in ging” (see vlog), “video podcasting”, its rapid growth. Since producing the first “vlogging”, “vodcasting”, or “vidcast- iPods in 2001 and the iTunes Music Store ing”. shortly thereafter, Apple has had a big im- Mechanics pact on the way we can acquire our music and more lately, video content including Podcasting is an automatic mechanism TV programmes. by which computer files are transferred The new electronic communication is from a server to a client which pulls down “Podcasting”. Rather than explain it my- XML files containing the addresses of the self, I’ll let the web site Wikipedia <http: media files. In general, these files contain //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting> audio or video, but also could be images, walk you through what this new phe- text (e.g. PDF), or any file type. A podcast is nomena is all about. generally analogous to a (non-live) televi- “Podcasting” is a portmanteau that sion or radio series. combines the words “iPod” and “broad- The content provider begins by mak- casting.” The term is often thought to be ing a file (for example, an MP3 audio file) a misnomer since neither podcasting nor available on the Internet. This is usually listening to podcasts requires an iPod or done by posting the file on a publicly- any portable player, and no broadcasting available webserver; however, BitTorrent is required. The term is also sometimes trackers also have been used, and it is criticized as giving undue credit to Apple not technically necessary that the file be for a technology which it had very little publicly accessible.