On Monday we fixed a problem with a router that had resulted in all the streams being dumped every 40 hours. But in fixing that something else broke after 40 hours. And true to form, it happened on a bank holiday here in Hong Kong.

The downtime on Thursday was due to a Microsoft update and the need to reboot a few times and then a power problem.

All back working now.

As we have been saying on-air, for some unknown reason the listeners on these streams are mostly in Japan. The changes should make the streams better for you.

Now all the changes are made we hope you can all back and enjoy listening to yesterday’s best music on Apple-FM

If you have visited the Apple-FM web site, in the past week or so, you will notice that there have been changes to our streams. We now have 48K Windows Media streams from ViaStreaming. Some of you have found the streams already, mostly from Japan.

We are applying to Microsoft for listing on their directory of Windows Media stations.

The WMA streams come from London and sound fine here in Hong Kong, with no buffering. They must sound ok in Japan too, but if you have problems, please let us know.

We have also added XmPlayer to the downloads section of the web site. This is a small FREE player that needs no installation. You just unzip it and put a shortcut on your desktop to start it. It plays both MP3 and WMA streams. To get our MP3Pro streams to sound their best, put the MP3Pro DLL (in_mp3PRO.dll) in the same directory as the player and it will start to decode them correctly.

So we now have streams in 24K, 48K and 56K – so there must be one to suit your needs.

The server used for our WMA streams suffered a hacking attack over the weekend and has now been replaced. The Shoutcaster (MP3) server is also having problems resulting in you getting lost packets and constantly changing routs to the server. So we have been getting lots of one or two second calls.

We are working with the server team to resolve these issues.

Apple-FM has now added genuine Windows Media streams to our line up. The top of the web pages now have a link to Windows Audio streams at 48K Stereo.

Up to now the links to WMA have been to files to fool windows media player into thinking it was playing a windows media stream, when it was really playing an MP3 stream.

Now we have real Windows Media streams for you.

The full line up is:

24K MP3 Mono
48K WMA Stereo
56K MP3 Stereo

Please pick the stream that suits you.

There were troubles, on Monday, with the streaming servers you connect to, to listen to us, in Germany. We had a number of breaks, but they are now working fine.

Our web hosting moved and that resulted in a short period while things were not pointing in the right direction. You should now not have any problems, but let us know if you do.

We also had a break on Thursday when an upgrade to our link to the net took much longer than planned. We now have a faster link, but we apologise for the lack of service. Also we would like to say hello to the listener in London who was trying to connect every few seconds for hours while we were down.

We have now added an easy to understand breakdown of the programmes, on the web site. You can see when we change from our normal mix of music to special programmes. Take a look at the link marked Schedule.

Let’s see what has been happening in the meantime.

China got very cold. Well so did Hong Kong. Normally the problem is heat and getting rid of it. Air Conditioners going full blast almost all year. But this year the Cold weather warning was posted for the longest time on record. There was a lot of snow. A great deal of snow all over China. This coincided with the New Year festival when millions are on the road and train and plane back home to their villages and home towns. Rather like British Rail this was the wrong type of snow and the trains stopped. The 24 hour journey from Beijing to Hong Kong took 48 Hours and then stopped all together. This left 800,000 people outside Ghongzhou railway station waiting for trains. I hate to think what would have happened if 800,000 were outside Euston Station in London waiting to go to Newcastle or 800,000 outside Penn Station in New York waiting to get to the Pocono’s. So even though the Army may have looked a little heave handed, they were right to be or the situation could have got seriously out of hand and people could have been killed. The rush when a train did arrive could have resulted in a number of people being recruited for the Hong Kong 7’s with bags flying through the air and people climbing over each other. The government is however rethinking these long break holidays, due to the disruption to production they cause. So next time the numbers may be manageable.

This lead to the rather strange phenomena of Hong Kong (The little dot of 7 million people at the bottom of China) holding a telethon and sending money to China (population 1,321,851,888 July 2007 est.). No mention has been made of what will happen with the floods that will come when the snow melts.

We have also had a fun time with the police making up law so they can arrest people who have copies of some photos of Hong Kong celebrities without their vests on. Well Gillian does have her bikini top on in some and another is in a police girl uniform. But the police, arrested people, held them for weeks, and then had to let them go when it was pointed out that they had not really broken any laws. Well maybe copyright infringement, but as the stars were claiming that the pictures were fake, they could not pull that one. And copyright is a civil thing not criminal.

The tabloid magazine press has been filling its pages with the photos, with discreet black boxes in interesting places, and chasing the stars for comments. Members of LEGCO have been complaining about the pictures being obscene, when no one has submitted them to the tribunal to find out if they are considered obscene. Or is because they do not get invited to these types of parties?

But where is the video we have all been waiting for.

Then there was the New Year festival. We went to the Peak to watch the fireworks. First time I have looked down on a firework display. But the Peak was very crowded for the evening. Oh and Cold! Oh Dong!

On Tuesday Feb 19th Lydia Shum died. Know as “Fei Fei” to fans and as “Fat Fat” to others, she was a big star in Hong Kong, in more ways than one.

Her death was marked by over 5 hours of Obit programmes on TVB that night and more on ATV. The second night saw “The making of…..” programme about the previous nights programmes, and the third night saw extended highlights. The only place you could get away from Obit items was the McDonalds Channel.

Fat Fat leaves a 20 year old daughter called Joyce. She has grown up in the public spotlight, with comments about her weight. She is now a singer in her own right and hugely popular. She is now grieving in public, something normally reserved for royal families. She says she wants to grow up to be a strong woman, which she is already by going through these times.

But we can report the return of two additional versions or Takin’ Ya Back. The 60’s and 70’s versions are being produced again and we have three chances for you to listen to all three versions of TYB. This includes a 3 hour block with all three hours back to back on Saturday Morning (03-06 GMT)

60’s – Monday 0400 – Friday 1900 - Saturday 0300
70’s – Monday 1600 – Wednesday 0200 – Saturday 0400
80’s – Tuesday 1000 – Thursday 2200 – Saturday 0500

This represents a slight change to the times of the 80’s show.

We have other new programmes in the pipeline, so lookout for more from Apple-FM

 (PST is 8 hours behind GMT so 1900 is 11am. EST is 5 Hours behind GMT so 2200 is 5pm. China is 8 hours in front of GMT so 0400 is Noon. Japan is 9 hours in front of GMT so 1000 is 7pm)

Wolfman Jack will be having his Christmas party for 2 hours. OK Bill Smith died in 1995 but his programmes are still safely stored away and we have been allowed to broadcast his show. Classic Christmas hits and classic Wolfman Jack presentation. You can hear the Wolfman at Midnight and Noon GMT. Christmas Day and 0900 Dec 26th.

We also have 2 hours of Totally 80’s Christmas hits with Gary King. That will be on the air at 0300 and 1800 Christmas Day.

Finally we will be bringing you a new weekly program called Boardwalk Radio, in the New Year. As a taster, we will have Jason Remington in for a one hour Christmas special. You can hear Jason at 0600, 1500 and 2300 GMT.

So Christmas will be crowded and full of different things to hear on Apple-FM

Merry Christmas from Apple-FM

Now on with the planning for Chinese New Year…………

Following the up’ing of security following 911 at events all across the world, the coat-check and baggage-check have disappeared from mass meeting places around the world. No longer can people leave their suitcase or rucksack outside but have to bring it all with them. This leads to hundreds or people wandering around pulling their case behind them.

So they take up more space and those bags are heavy when they run over our toe!

What the Nobel committees next year need to do is aware a prize to whoever comes up with solution to this and makes going to exhibitions bearable again. There also, of course, needs to be a desire of organisers to do something about this.

It is some time since I was last at CeBit in Hannover, Germany, but on my last day there I would have the same problem, so will someone please fix this!!