The other week I borrowed (long term) a friends Apple TV and after updating it to the new 1.1 Firmware (with YouTube support) have been playing with it every since.

 Initial Thoughts
The Apple TV certainly has the usual Apple design flair, looking like an Apple MacBook that someone sat on (its flatter and wider). On the back of the Apple TV are the connections for digital & analogue audio, HDMI, network. Full specifications may be found here.

I always find it a bit tricky to recommend an ISP, as even the best can have a bad day and a bad day for an ISP can result in a terrible user experience. A lot of this is the due to how tight the margins are for an ISP, with them making maybe £20-40 profit per user per year. With a single support call costing them an average of £15 you can see how any profit can be quickly lost.

The first reviews of the Apple iPhone from the Wall Street Journal and from the New York Times Journal are now available.

Their reporters have had the Apple iPhone for 2 weeks now and while initial impressions are pretty good, especially for a first generation product

However while it is not yet clear that the huge amount of hype over the iPhone has been completely justified it is looking like the iPhone will enjoy at the very least a limited success, and after a few software updates could possible become THE phone to own!

A group of British people are trying to break the Word Land Speed Record for a Steam Car. Currently the record is held by a Stanley Steamer set in 1906 with a top speed of 127 miles per hour. They are looking for sponsorship to finish funding the building / testing /racing of car at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the US and are allowing people to buy space (pixels) on their web site

We at DigitalBuzz.co.uk have kicked in £20 to start and may well add more over the coming month. We of course wish them the best of luck!

I have just seen the news that Eclipse have become on of the first UK ISP’s to become carbon neutral.

They already have a great reputation as one of the best smaller ISP’s in the UK with great customer service and innovative service. It just shows small companies can be better choice!

Full information is available at the Eclipse web site here.

Apple has just released a new patch for OS X, version 10.4.10.

Weighing in at 49MB the update is available via Apple Software Update (Apple icon > Software Update).

It appears mainly to maintain bug-fixes for Bluetooth and USB as well as incorporating recent security fixes. More information below:

Bluetooth
Addresses an issue in which a Bluetooth headset may show up as an available device for sound output in the Sound preference pane after it had been removed from Bluetooth preferences.

I was just in the middle of writing my review of the Apple TV, when I noticed that there was new update available, taking it from 1.0 to 1.1 (Settings > About menu). You can find the actual update under Settings > Update Software. It takes about 5 minutes to download the update and then the Apple TV asks if you want to install it. If you select yes, it the Apple TV reboots and bingo its finished!

So what’s the biggest change? YouTube that’s what! This has been available on new Apple TVs for about a week and basically lets you watch YouTube on your TV.

Carrying on from my my previous article about PC or Mac, I have decided to compare the MacBook versus a PC laptop. For this comparison I decided to choose another iconic design company, Sony. Like Apple, Sony are repeatedly chosen as one of top 3 most reliable laptops and again like Apple tend to innovate.

The closest Sony Laptop to the MacBook is the Sony C Series, which is supplied in a range of colours, as follows:

Green (VGN-C2S/G)
Grey (VGN-C2S/H)
Blue (VGN-C2S/L)
Pink (VGN-C2S/P)
Silver (VGN-C2S/W)
Black (VGN-C2Z/B) (NVIDIA® GeForce® rather than Intel® 950)

First of all, if any begineers have a specific question please go ahead and post and I will do my best to answer.

1. Don’t Panic!
Unless you physically drop your mac its impossible (almost) to break it by playing around with OS X. So relax and take a look around.

Part 1 - Does it really matter anymore with Intel Macs?

I recently had the PC or Mac discussion with my sister. She was looking for a new laptop and knowing that I had a MacBook Pro, asked me if she should get one. The catch was she has nearly always been PC (Microsoft Windows), except when 7 years previously she bought one of the first PowerBooks while visiting me in the States.