News for Sunday, 22 August 2004

Our bandwith tets tool can now be found under the following address:
speedtest.macbidouille.com

Many thanks to Brice for this piece of information :

I am a music lover and own some high quality equipment from a British company, Naim. For instance their "entry level" CD player costs 2200 € (About 2,700.00 USD). I regularly log into the forums on the official website and see Naim users beeing quite fans of Apple products, particularly of the sound quality provided by the iPod, and of the AirPort Express, literally praising it to the skies.
(http://naim-audio.infopop.net and http://naim-audio.infopop.net).
The news of the month however, Naim prepares a separate power supply for iPods. This is from Paul Stephenson, one of the forum moderators, here: http://naim-audio.infopop.net/. This power supply should enable the best possible output quality from an iPod, and thus make it a true "upper class" HiFi component. I do know the benefits of a separate power supply since each my CD player and HiFi preamp. have one: smoothness of the sound, stability of the auditory image, true bass depth, shape and grain in every channel. The snag could be the price for a majority of iPod users, in my opinion not below 150 € (About 185 USD).
The most interesting part here, beeing the consideration of a highend HiFi specialist for the iPod. That means that iPod is really a good product.

Note from the translator: Euro-prices are most incuding VAT, 19.6% in France.

That's a new and bright idea for a present for cooking fans. The application iCuistot (literally, iCook or iCooking Chef):

iCuistot overview, main features:
- 150 different information may be saved for each recipe.
- professional looking and printing recipe themes
- support books and SmartGroup
- information on more than 6,800 foods (Nutrient Database for Standard Reference from the U.S. Department of Agriculture).)
- Convert to and from American, Australian;, Canadian, Imperial, metric and bartenders measures.
Price
49 $ US License Family (1 to 5 Macs) http://www.cafederic.com/en/

As you can see it, Macbidouille (only the french version for the moment) has a new presentation/skin for the AppleExpo.
I would like to thank all those who have worked on that project since 2 month, especially (design HTML/CSS), Simon (graphics), and Macbidouille Development Team.
This new interface has required a complete and deep revision of our website, so it might happened that you see abnormalities or bugs, so do not hesitate to send us a report.
[update] Display problems when using Internet Explorer under Windows will be solved soon...

We have planned a maintenance operation soon. Forum (French only) should not be affected.
If everything is working well, you should have a surprise...

A new website dedicated to Apple's XGrid technology has been launched:

Xgrid.info is a website dedicated to Apple's technology for shared computing. It is in English (and soon in French) and will propose to developers and experienced Mac users to find the latest related to XGrid integration. In addition, this site is proposing to developer to give their project address in order to help them via XGrid to speed up the process.
This is a brand new website, still not finished, be comprehensive.

Thanks to Olivier for this info. On its website, the recruiting company in charge of Apple iPod branch is posting 2 job offers. Hereafter is part of the description:

Required Experience:
* BS/MS EE or equivalent required.
* Must have great EE fundamentals.
* 5+ years overall experience needed, 3+ years in a lead role preferred.
* Experience in the following areas is important: system integration, digital logic, SDRAM, Flash, ASIC’s, processor selection, ATAPI, various communication protocols (ie: GSM, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, Firewire, and USB), display types and video and analog integration.
* Broad experience: both digital and analog.
* Experience building actual products in labs.

You can find the full description on their recruiting website with the offer number 2142016 and 2118478.

The website IFOAppleStore claims having information concerning the opening of the first AppleStore in Europe, in London (UK). The currently selected opening date would be on November 20th, corresponding to the next MacExpo exhibition .

Another delay for Apple's product shipment! This time the responsible component is the brand new nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL. Some Mac users have received an email from the AppleStore where it was proposed to first receive a PMG5 equipped with an ATI graphic card, and then when available, Apple will send a nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL. If it continues like that, we can seriously doubt that we will be able to see this ultimate configuration during AppleExpo.

AluBook attery exchange program that we were alreading talking about here is working well, since some macusers have already received their new battery, as confirmed by one of our reader:

I wanted to mention that I have just received the new battery for my PowerBook. I am living in Montréal. I have filled the required form on Tuesday around 4p.m., and I have received the battery on Friday around 5p.m. That's fast and efficient!