Scandinavia still not satisfied with iTunes, but France has a change of heart

Apple responded in a 50 page document to concerns from the Consumer agencies in Denmark, Sweden and Norway over iTunes and it's in-operability with non-iPod players

Apple pointed out that consumers are free to burn audio CDs and use those how they see fit. They also asked to meet with Scandinavian regulators to discuss the matter further and attempt to reach a mutual agreement.

The heads of the Norwegian and Swedish agencies say it's good, but not good enough and are still mostly concerned over Apples refusal to open up iTunes Music to other players.

The parts of France's copyright law being used to attempt to force Apple to open their iTunes DRM has been dramatically changed. Some parts even found unconstitutional.

The law originally allowed individuals to circumvent DRM if doing so to enable interoperability

Changes have now been made to the proposed law that would make it have almost the opposite effect.

A new DRM licensing authority would be set up with the power to order companies o provide information to competitors to enable interoperability. If a company was forced to do so that those being forced to open their DRM should receive compensation.

A section that de-criminalized file sharing and set a fixed fine for illegally uploading or downloading music files was declared unconstitutional.

iTunes Europe sells over 200 million songs

Apple has sold over 200 millions songs in Europe in just 2 years, with 150 million of those being sold in the last year.

Coke and Apple are teaming up in the UK to give away 70 million iTunes songs. Codes will be on promotional packs of Coke and Diet Coke in the UK.

The promotion starts in mid-August and will run for six weeks.

There’s a limit of five songs redeemed per person.

Coke is also planning future promotions in Europe, including one upcoming one in Germany where they will give away an iPod and 50 songs from iTunes every hour for 8 weeks.

Now if Apple could just start selling TV shows in Europe? Hmmm.

NBC 'Heros' on iTunes First

NBC has announced that the pilot episode of its new adventure drama, "Heroes," will be available as a free download from Apple Computer's iTunes store beginning Sept. 1, more than three weeks before its Sept. 25 network premiere.

Apple .Mac outages annoying users

Over the last week there seems to be growing problem with people publishing to iWeb and using iDisk.

In the past there have been long outages with .Mac Mail too.

Apple has not been very good at responding to issues.

Apple claims to be looking into the issues, but need to do a better job if they want to keep business.

I wonder if it is growing pains over iWeb? Better optimization? Podcasting?

Apple removes Discussion Board support staff

Originally a rumor on AppleInsider, but has some confirmation from a MacObserver source

Apple began dismissing the discussion support team members on June 29th after the Apple management began to question the value of the boards.

Reports say the since the layoffs the quality of discussions on Apple boards has seriously declined. There is a lot of rude behavior going on and posts on illegal subjects like pirating music and software.

There have always been complaint from users that Apple over "censored" the boards and that the staff often removed threads that pointed out defects in Apple's hardware.

Now the complaints are worse.

Apple recalls MacBook Pro batteries

Apple says the batteries are under performing

Units purchased between February and May 2006. If your battery model number is A1175 and includes a 12-digit serial number that ends with U7SA, U7SB, or U7SC, Apple will replace your battery free of charge.

Apple says there is no fire or safety risk.

Say nothing about the "swelling" issue, but I wonder if these are also in the range?

Apple also is fixing discolored white MacBooks and the MacBook Pro "whine" issue. Contact AppleCare for support.

Misquote leads to iPod life-span complaints

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris was quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying iPods are designed to last "four years" and have a failure rate of less than 5 percent (lower than most consumer electronics).

The quote is "for years".

We know batteries should last about 2-3 years. Apple has the iPod battery replacement program (USD$59.00).

iPod Battery Replacement Program

Hackers demonstrate wireless vunerability on a MacBook

Researchers at the Black Hat conference demonstrated the vulnerability at a computer-security conference, showing how to take complete control of a MacBook.

A couple things to note:

The vulnerability is with wireless technology in general and cards and software from many manufacturers.

They showed a video of the exploit and did not perform the exploit in front of the audience of 300. They claim radio receivers in the room could allow people to detect their techniques and use them to commit crimes.

The had to install a "root kit" on the MacBook to execute the hack.

They used a 3rd party wireless card and not the Airport built into the MacBook

Apple releases 4th security update for 2006

Apple release Security Update 2006-004, which among other things fixes issues with AFP Server, Bluetooth and WebKit.

The update is recommended for all Panther and Tiger users

MacCast One Minute Tip #19 - Hot Corners

Play MacCast One Minute Tip

www.oneminutetip.com

Follow-up on Network attached storage

Comment from Rodney on D-Link DSM-G600

D-Link DSM-G600

Other enclosures from Netgear - SC101, etc but their websites never mention Mac support.

LinkSys Network Link Storage, NSLU2

Linksys NSLU2

Many people recommended using Linux solutions

Listener Curtis, Steve and Patrick Norton recommend ServerElements NAS software, using old PC hardware.

Server Elements

Listener Reed likes a solution called FreeNAS and notes it support AFP as well as SAMBA. Uses X86 hardware and he built his with a fan less mini-ITX board with a VIA C3 800Mhz and a 200GB Drive for under USD $300

Free NAS

Several people also liked solutions from Infrant

Infrant ReadyNAS

Infrant has a mac compatible program called raidar and the main interface is web based.

ReadyNAS NV has 4 hot-swappable bays up to 2 TB and uses Seagate drives. (USD$800-$2100)

Does SMB/CIFS and AFP

Can sun Slimserver if you have a SlimDevices Squeezebox. No computer required. 1Tb ReadyNAS NV and 2 Squeezeboxes - only $1499

Slimdevices Squeezbox NAS

Beware of aging power adapters

Photos of listeners Galens burning PowerMac adapter

Burning Adapter

No signs of wear, but there seems to be quite a few reports of similar issues. Almost always at the point where the connector attaches to the brick.

Galen expressed concern that the adapter continued to spark after it "shorted out" and he felt the materials used around the connector seemed "flammable".

Apple replaced his adapter, even out of warranty, but may want to consider the life-span of a power adapter. May also not want to leave unattended.

Reports say new adapter seem to be "thicker" in the area of the connector.

Resetting the PMU/SMU to fix power issues

Play comment from Jeff

In addition to "refreshing" your battery, like on the last show. Try resetting the Power Management Unit (PMU) or System Management Unit (SMU).

Apple Support

Remember batter lifetime is 2-3 year, but could be reduced if you have not been refreshing regularly.

Battery replacement program for 12" and 15" PowerBook G4 and 12" iBook G4, plus new program for the 15" MacBook Pro.

Have your Mac read to you

In almost any Cocoa application you can use the 'Services' menu under the Application menu and choose Speech-->Start Speaking Text. Use same menu and Stop Speaking Text to stop.

You can also change the voice that you hear using the "Speech" preference pane in your System Preferences.

If your brave you can go "Star Trek" and turn on Speech Recognition.

If you want text-to speech and more advanced voice recognition features try out iListen from MacSpeech

www.macspeech.com

Loads of speculation on upgrading Intel Mac processors

One user on the Macrumors.com forum claims to have put an engineering sample of a 2.16GHz Merom T7400 processor, into a 20-inch iMac

Merom in iMac

Will Apple rev existing model with new Conroe or Merom processors? We spoke a bit on this on the last Mac Roundtable.

www.macroundtable.com

A tip for Enhanced MacCast listeners

Listener Dani points out if you burn a standard audio CD from the MacCast enhanced in iTunes each chapter will be burned to a separate track. Handy if you use a CD player to listen to the show.