It's time once again for the bimonthly Brisbane MacTalk Meet! This is early notice so there will be no excuses this time for anything except attendance greater than Melbourne and Sydney!

When: Friday September 26th, 6pm - iCal File (Thanks Exocet!)
Where: Boardwalk Bar - Website - Map
What to Bring: Yourself, a friendly attitude and money for food and drinks. Also bring your cameras, but perhaps leave the laptops at home...
Contact: andrew.wilson[at]mactalk.com.au

Discussion

In an age where green is increasingly becoming the 'in thing', how does our favourite fruit inspired computer maker score? Join me for this model by model look at Apple's recyclability, materials usage and energy efficiency.

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Longer than usual podcast this week for our 40th episode. We spent it ranting about channel 9 sucking and being pricks to IceTV, how the MacBook Air doesn't meet our lofty nerd requirements and Apple's plans for the iPod Nano (Kevin Rose is a douche).

Discussion

MacTalk forum member qf380 has been doing a bit of snooping around at Melbourne's Chadstone shopping centre and taken these two snaps yesterday that show what seems to be some progress in fitting out the future Apple store. Speculation on the status of the store, or it's opening date has been fueled by the fact that the space in the large shopping complex was sitting empty for months. Going by these photos, it appears that fit-out is happening quickly, as the Genius Bar logo can be seen fixed to the back wall.

This obviously leads to the question - "When will it open?!", while no official dates have surfaced, it is pretty safe to assume that Melbourne will get it's first official Apple store before Christmas '08.

Discussion

Yes, it's late, but it's here. This week we have the pleasure of hearing from forum members bartron and walexx. Thanks to both members for taking the time to complete the questions and give an insight into who they are.

The usual suspects interrupt each other often whilst trying to dicsuss the latest Apple related news. Most of it is taken up talking about Optus and their pathetic billing system. Full show notes available on the forums!

Discussion

Apple has released a software update for iPhone and iPod touch that brings the firmware version up to 2.0.2. As usual, Apple is coy on details, but from first reports, 3G reception is improved as well as the speed of accessing your contacts, particularly with large contact lists. It can be downloaded now via iTunes.

Update: It has come through the grapevine that as with 2.0.1, hacked first generation iPhone users (provided they are unlocked already on 2.0 or 2.0.1) can simply go ahead and hit update in iTunes as if they were a legitimate user. This will however break your jailbreak and any unofficial apps, so hang tight for a Pwnage update if you want to keep those.

Discussion

I am glad forum member coljac wrote this article, as a lot of people aren't aware exactly what the government has planned in regards to Internet "filtering". It would be a national shame if something like this actually got to wide implementation. Hopefully reading this will wake some people up to what is going on with this filter and that it actually is happening unless we do something about it.

Discussion

Good evening and welcome to another edition of Meet the MacTalkers! This week we have the pleasure of hearing from friend of MacTalk and Next Byte Rushcutters Bay (formerly Frequency) manager Jeloz and well known forum regular Rasta. Thanks to both members for taking the time to complete the questions and give an insight into who they are.

It's been a long time in the making, but our new site design is finally live! Big thanks to Currawong and GraphicDZNR for their hard work in bringing the page live. We have some great features in store, like a wiki and user blogs that we can't wait to release, as well as a proper podcast page. Look for them in the coming weeks. This is the first step in a long line of constant improvements to the site, to keep being the best Australian Apple website!

Our next change will be the forums, which are a huge job as we're starting from scratch to get something really clean and simple to use - with a bunch of new features that we will be finally able to implement. For you crusty old-timers however, we'll try our best to keep the old theme around.

I'll be shocked if there are no bugs in the new design, so if you see any, please let us know.

Discussion