It's Friday, 30th June 2006 and you're listening to the EuroMac Podcast

Hi, This is Don McAllister and welcome to another edition of the EuroMac podcast.

The EuroMac Podcast is a free weekly audio podcast which covers news, technology and features connected with Apple and the mac from a European perspective.

There seems to be a lot of UK based news this week but that's mainly due to the lack of feedback from listeners in other parts of Europe. If you know of something happening or want to promote any apple related events in your region, please send me an email or an audio comment to euromacpodcast@googlemail.com and I'll give you a mention on the show. So no further pre-amble this week - let's get straight on with the news

Macworld UK 2006 awards winners revealed

Macworld UK named the winners of its prestigious Macworld Awards at a glittering ceremony held at the Royal Courts of Justice in London last night.

Macworld UK

I won't reel out all the winners but some notables were: Editors' Choice: Apple Product of the Year Winner: MacBook Runners up: Boot Camp Front Row iLife '06 iPod nano Mighty Mouse Readers' Choice: Best Hardware Winner: EyeTV 410, Elgato Runners up: Brick, LaCie Drive & Play, Harman Kardon EOS 350D, Canon MiniMax, Iomega SoundDock, Bose Readers' Choice: Best Software Winner: Creative Suite 2, Adobe Runners up: Freeway 4 Pro, Softpress Google Earth, Google iLife 06, Apple Photoshop Elements 4, Adobe Toast 7, Roxio Apple Event of All Time Penultimately, in a special award to mark the thirtieth year of Apple Computer Macworld's readers voted on what they consider the most pivotal event in the company's history, the Apple Event of All Time... Winner: 1998, The launch of the iMac Runners up: 1984: The birth of the Macintosh 2001: The arrival of the iPod 2004: The iPod mini 2005: The move to Intel

POLL: Macworld readers migrate to Intel Macs

An astonishing one in four Macworld Online readers already own an Intel-powered Mac, with another third of readers planning to buy one within a year. A recent online reader poll asked visitor's when they planned to get an Intel Mac. An impressive 2,491 votes were received. 29 per cent of those who voted already own an Intel Mac (711 readers). Mac user's Intel Mac migration Another 116 readers (5 per cent) plan to buy one within a month; with 149 more (6 per cent) intending to buy a new Intel Mac within two to three months. 198 more readers (8 per cent) revealed they plan to buy one of these new Macs within the next four to six months. An additional 383 (15 per cent) of readers intend buying one within the year. That means a sizeable 34 per cent chunk of the Macworld Online readership plan to buy an Intel Mac within the next 12 months.

Macworld UK - POLL

Virgin pirating Music

Whilst Not strictly mac related but I suppose you could call Virgin Music an iTMS competitor, there's an interesting story in the The International Herald Tribune which reports a rare case of a music retailer turned Internet pirate. Apparently the Virgin chain in France has been been found guilty of downloading and reselling a Madonna hit without permission. The store's online portal was ordered by the Paris Tribunal of Commerce to pay €600,000, or $754,000, in damages for downloading the Madonna song "Hung Up" from a France Télécom Web site. The Web site had exclusive rights to distribute the song for one week. "This is an amazing case of simple piracy by a respected company," Hervé Payan, senior vice president for content partnership and service at France Télécom, said Tuesday. "Virgin behaved in a surreal manner by downloading the song, cracking protection measures and then selling it from their own Web site." Virgin said it had the interests of digital music consumers at heart when it broke the exclusive arrangement.

Music retailer is fined for pirating

Apple Stores

Didier from Belgium has sent me details of a new Apple Center just opened on the main commercial street in Brussels City 2. Mac Line opened it's new Apple Center on 21st June and will be open this Sunday 2nd July for a special celebration. Links in the show notes

MAC LINE -

New Email Hosting Service Launched for Apple Mac Users

Simply Mail Solutions, the UK’s Email Hosting specialists have launched a new email service that for the first time properly supports Apple Macintosh email applications such as Apple Mail and Apple collaboration tools. Commented Colin Smith, Managing Director of SMS: “We wanted to be able to host an enhanced email package that supported Apple and UNIX users fully. We have found this with the award winning Zimbra CS server software. It syncs properly with the Apple applications and has a really superb AJAX based web mail interface allowing users to do everything while on the move. All our accounts include free use of a domain which means that the account is then a PIE (Provider Independent Email) account which so users no longer have to change their email address if they change their ISP. This is important because switching is much easier and common than it used to be with all the ‘free’ offers now available. And at £3.99 per month we have been able to make it really competitive” He added "We've made it very simple for Mac users to sync their calendar and contact data with SMS Zimbra CS. There are no additional software packages needed. SMS Zimbra CS will sync natively with Apple iCal and Apple Address Book." I've not tried the service but as they are a local company I thought I'd give them a plug!

Press Release:

Coca-Cola joins forces with Apple in iTunes drive

Brand Republic reports that Coca-Cola is to team up with Apple for a substantial iTunes promotional initiative as part of the launch strategy for its calorie-free Coke Zero brand. The soft-drinks firm is negotiating a deal with Apple that will see Coca-Cola-sponsored content appear on iTunes, and its consumers offered iTunes discounts. The deal follows the closure of download site Mycokemusic last week. The site, which launched in 2004, featured more than 250,000 songs, but music files downloaded from it were not compatible with Apple's iPod. Music has been one of the key battlegrounds between Coca-Cola and arch-rival Pepsi, and insiders believe the iTunes tie-up could help Coca-Cola maintain its edge in the competitive UK soft-drinks market.

Coca-Cola joins forces with Apple

Macs and Xserve power UK's fastest net cafe

Jonny Evans over at macWorld Uk has come up with another great web post on organisations using macs. The Visitors Centre at BT's Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station, on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, is to become the world's fastest internet café on June 27. Computers there will be able to download data at speeds of up to 100Mbps – significantly faster than standard broadband. The café computers will include 12 iMacs with the latest Intel Core Duo processors and an Apple Xserve. Routing, switching and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology has been provided by Cisco and headsets by Sennheiser. Visitors to the Satellite Earth Station, which attracts more than 80,000 people a year, will be able to use the superfast facilities of the internet café free of charge. Adrian Hosford, director of corporate responsibility for BT, who will host the launch, said: "This sort of technology will mean that people can choose to travel less, helping the planet to deal with climate change and creating a more sustainable future. We are pleased to work with world-class companies, such as Apple, Cisco and Sennheiser to deliver this wonderful 'must-see' attraction for the visitors centre at Goonhilly." Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station – located in a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), containing some of the rarest plants in the UK – is the largest station of its type in the world, with 60 antennas handling thousands of international phone calls, TV broadcasts and data.

UK's fastest net cafe

Apple Events

CocoaDevHouse

I had an email from Richy a couple of days ago. He says" I'm just sending you a quick email to see if you can help, I'm trying to drum up interest in setting up a London / UK CocoaDevHouse community. Basically, at this point I'm hoping to get some kind of loose collective of London or UK based Cocoa / OS X developers together, preferably to meet periodically, discuss ideas, help each other out, network, drink beer, that kind of thing. The ultimate aim would be to organise something like the recent Amsterdam event. So far there are a couple of interested parties and myself, but obviously I'm looking to improve on this and am hoping you can help by mentioning this in your podcast and asking people to register their interest on the CocoaDevHouse wiki here - wiki.cocoadevhouse.org—CocoaDevHouseLondon I am quite keen to get this up and running and would really appreciate any help you can provide. They can also contact me directly on this email address, or through my website wiredupandfiredup.com Thanks for that Richy and I hope you get some support.

wiredupandfiredup.com

Cyberphone for the Mac

Just a reminder that I'll be giving away a Cyberphone W over on ScreenCastsOnline as the first prize in the monthly prize draw for new Extra! members signing up in July. Most of you are probably ware of ScreenCastsOnline but in case you don't it's a weekly video podcast which publishes a free screencast or video tutorial each week via iTunes. The free version is published at a reasonable resolution but ScreenCastsOnline Extra! members get a choice of high resolution versions and some additional content each week together with a completely members only show each month. You even get a free DVD of the earlier shows in all resolutions. If you sign up to become an extra member in July month (which is only 25 USD for a full 6 months membership) you'll be entered into a prize draw for the Cyberphone W or a full refund of your membership fee. This weeks show is all about installing and configuring Wordpress, the industrial strength blogging tool. Details over on the ScreenCastsOnline website at www.screencastsonline.com

accessories.skype.com

If you've got any interesting news on the mac in Europe or you want to promote any events on the Euromac podcast, just drop me a line at euromacpodcast@googlemail.com And also if you've a Mac related product or service based in Europe or if your in the US and want to raise your brand awareness in Europe, why not consider advertising on or sponsoring the EuroMac podcast. We reach a large audience of tech savvy mac enthusiasts from all around the globe and you'd be surprised at just how affordable and cost effective it is. Again, drop me a line at euromacpodcast@googlemail.com

Have a great weekend and I'll see you next week for another edition of the EuroMac Podcast.