The Inquirer writer Ryan Hunter tells us why he has dropped MS Windows for the Apple Mac.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15143

UK digital music distributor Wippit launched its à la carte, platform-agnostic music download service today.

www.wippit.com

The company – which already offers a subscription-based service for Windows – is offering 150,000 tracks from EMI, BMG and 200 independent labels through its new service, including current rising stars such as Franz Ferdinand. Tracks cost from 29p.

AOL UK is going on a £20m advertising spending spree to plug AOL 9.0 - the latest version of its Internet service.

As a ex-employee of the BBC I'd like to point out something those of you outside the UK may find of interest. (in fact to be honest in strange turn of fate these shows are not broadcast in the UK, except via the web. Kinda strange eh, tell me about it).

Unfortunately they are only available as Realmedia streams.

Following a spree of muggings in London, police have urged users of the iPod to use less stylish earpieces in a bid to deter thieves from targeting their them.

The white iPod earpieces appear to be a big giveaway and muggers are targeting these individuals, the top of range iPod can cost £400 in the UK and is big price for any mugger.

The site MacGeneration, a French-language site in Switzerland, says that some resellers in France have dropped the price of the PowerBook 12" Combo and SuperDrive models by more than €300. They also said that as of press time, the Apple Store in France had not dropped the prices.

See the Apple UK Retail Store being built, thanks to the BBC's jam cams

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/travel/jamcams/camloco/040247.shtml

Although it says the camera is not working you'll find that it is and updates about every 10-15 minutes

Bah the iPod mini has been delayed and I thinking of purchasing one when they arrived since my 1st generation 5gb iPod is now getting on a bit.

Well big Apple and iPod fans the Guardian national newspaper tells us who we can get our hands on them

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1176733,00.html

I am not 100% sure Apple will take up all this space, I know this area well and if it does it would be a very very big store, mostly likely the biggest computer store in the UK full stop, not just Apple but Computer store

http://www.macminute.com/2004/03/25/aslpics

he European commission is preparing to fine Microsoft a record-breaking €497m (£333m) for abusing its dominance of the personal computer software market.

Microsoft has confirmed that settlement negotiations with the European Commission have ended in deadlock. The company is dropping heavy hints that it will go to court to appeal any decision.

We will have to wait until the 24 March when the Commission publishes its ruling on actions it must take as punishment for past anti-competitive behaviour.

Happy birthday, Justine from the UK gang (will me anyway)

Apple Expo Paris organizer Reed Exhibitions is accepting registrations for this September's Paris event.

Register here

Apple enabled print ordering from within iPhoto for ius lucky folks in the UK customers late last night.

During his Macworld Expo keynote in January this year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the feature would be enabled for Europe's consumers in March 2004. Jobs offered a rare apology for the wait: "Sorry it took us so long," he said.

Microsoft faces huge fine, maybe forced to re-build Windows XP by EU

A reuters news article suggests Microsoft will be made to share code with other makers of software for servers, and to create a version of Windows XP, without Media Player 9 included.

And Microsoft is also likely to have to pay hundreds of millions of Euros when the EU committee meets later on this month.

Back before Christmas, Apple setup a web site www.ipodrocks.com with suggestions for getting a iPod. Well on the back of this a friend of mine Geoff Marshall started his own campaign.

50 pence - iN Da Pod.

Britain and the United States are to work together to shut down violent sex websites, it emerged today.

Officials on both sides of the Atlantic will decide how to act against extreme pornographic sites, which were implicated in the trial of the man who killed Brighton teacher Jane Longhurst.

Three major Internet firms and Earthlink have announced a collaboration to fight the scourge of spam.

The firms, which are founders of the anti-spam industry alliance formed last year, are rolling out the results of their collaboration.

UK developer Starbrite has developed software that enables a PocketPC to emulate the iPod.

The pBop's interface is just like the iPod's, with songs arranged in a series of nested menus, which can be browsed by artist, album, and genre. "It works exactly the same way as a iPod, except it's software and it costs $20."

Following recent fluctuations in the value of the US$ against the EU€, I was tempted to do a little price comparison between the price of European and American Apple Hardware. The results were quite surprising. After researching the subject I found out that it would be cheaper for me to fly from Ireland to New York, stay on Lexington Ave. for 3 nights, purchase a powerbook and then fly home, than to purchase the hardware in Ireland, even better, I would have $300 left over for spending money!

Sony Ericsson has announced new flagship mobile phones today

Arriving sooner will be the K700, a 93 gram phone that features a 176x220 pixel display that can work in landscape mode. It comes with an FM radio, VGA camera with 4x zoom, and a handy 32MB of memory. In common with most new Sony Ericsson models, it includes Bluetooth

Napster chief Chris Gorog has criticized Apple for pushing its ACC format.

In an interview with UK The Guardian newspaper Gorog says: "Companies pushing a propriety agenda are consumer-unfriendly experiences because they're cloistering them in an experience that they can't leave and eliminating choice."

Nothing new here then - lol

Microsoft is writing to software developers to warn that some of its programs will not work on Windows XP after the new service pack is introduced.

Virgin is to launch a music download service in August. Richard Branson will join Apple, Napster, MusicMatch, BuyMusic et al when he opens Virgin Digital (VD)- the front end for online distribution company MusicNet.

But were is Apple - still no word - just a sign - one little sign please Apple

Busy iPod owners in the UK are being offered a solution to help them get their music into their computer by new business start-up.

The European Union seems set to force Microsoft to offer two versions of Windows to PC makers – with one version stripped of Windows Media multimedia software in a blow to the company's plans to establish its proprietary standard.

The EU wants to give other multimedia software vendors, including Apple and RealNetworks, a better chance to gain market traction.

Roxio/Napster CEO Chris Gorog is in the UK this week as the company prepares to launch its Napster 2.0 service here "before the end of summer".

Apple UK has launched its 'More memory for less' promotion, offering Mac purchasers up to 38 per cent off the cost of more memory.

Apple-authorized resellers in New Zealand are offering 20GB iPods for NZ$99 (£36) to purchasers of a PowerBook during March.