FEATURE OF THE WEEK

Did you know that you can perform simple calculations with Spotlight in Mac OS 10.4 and OS 10.5? All you have do is enter the numbers you’d like to add, subtract, multiply or divide in the Spotlight bar, and Spotlight will automatically update on the fly with the answer. I often do this rather than launch the Calculator app, typically to quickly calculate percentages.

Use the following symbols in both the Calculator app and in Spotlight for performing calculations: + is add, – is subtract, * is multiplication, and / is division. You can use ! for factorial calculations and ^ for exponents. There may be more symbols for other types of calculations; if you know of any, let me know and I will share with other readers.

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I’m heading to Chicago for a vendor event and decided to stay for an extra day to catch a game. I just grabbed a ticket, so I’m ready to go!

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes. Have a great weekend!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali and Ed_

_Dear Friends,_

Thank you for all of the great comments and suggestions for our new HTML format for Kibbles & Bytes. We are enjoying the process and feel that this new format will enable us to bring you more news and features in a better-looking and easier-to-navigate form. We will continue to make improvements and incorporate your suggestions.

We are all heading up to Centennial Field in Burlington for the last game of the Vermont Lake Monsters, Vermont’s Single A short-season minor league team. As the baseball and football seasons overlap over the next six weeks or so, I frequently take time to listen to the late George Carlin’s monologue on baseball versus football. I’m a baseball fan first–I love the game for its subtleness, the details (the “game of inches”), and of course, this year I am watching every Cubs game that I can as we see if the 100-year curse is over for my team.

__Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying.__

“Watch George Carlin’s famous bit here”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-gakLqibP4.

The next big Apple event is Tuesday. The “Let’s Rock” event will likely herald this year’s new offerings for iPods and music from the market leader in these categories. There is a lot of anticipation and guessing going on but we’ll have to wait for Steve to take the stage at the special event in San Francisco to see exactly what Apple’s been working on for the past several months. We’ll have pictures for you in next week’s Kibbles!

Hapy is out for the next couple of weeks recovering from shoulder surgery. Hapy participates in heavy athletics and suffered a sports injury, but they were able to repair the damage with orthoscopic surgery. However, he won’t be doing much typing for a few weeks; he’ll probably just be annoying us with video iChats.

We have some amazing bargains right now on 17-inch MacBook Pros and some Mac Pros. These are the best values we have had all year on professional machines. Be sure to check out some of the specials below!

At Small Dog Electronics, we’re frequently asked how to create simple, easily maintained websites. There are many excellent reasons to build a website, yet even computer experts struggle with making websites that are both functional, attractive, and easy to update. Fortunately, new website and blog-building tools have made website creation easier than ever. I’ll outline several free solutions in this article. I don’t cover ways to create e-commerce sites (websites that sell products and process credits cards), though it’s also becoming easier to create these.

The tools below are free (though paid “pro” versions may be available), don’t require HTML coding (though many offer the option to custom-code some features), and are hosted by the developer (which means you won’t need to pay a separate company to host your website, and won’t need to figure out how to properly upload pages and other files to a remote server).

Blogs are very popular with individuals and organizations; Small Dog Electronics has a blog at “blog.smalldog.com”:http:blog.smalldog.com. A blog is distinguished from a regular website because it’s frequently updated with commentary, descriptions of events, or multimedia in reverse chronological order. Blogs are usually created and hosted with special blogging software. Most blog software is hosted online, which means blog posts can be edited on any Internet-connected computer, anywhere in the world.

Blogger.com is Google’s free and easy-to-use blogging platform. It’s designed to share text, photos and video with the world. Compared to other blogging platforms such as Moveable Type and Wordpress, Blogger offers the best balance of advanced features (such as comments, podcasts, and feeds) along with ease-of-use and low-maintenance. While Blogger lacks some of the pro features and customization options of the other platforms, many people will not miss these or even be ready to use them. Visit “Blogger.com.”:http://www.blogger.com/

The Wordpress blogging platform is an ideal next step beyond Blogger. While the Wordpress software is free (and excellent), you’ll need to find a webhost to host your Wordpress blog, which is not free. You’ll also be responsible for your blogs maintenance. Visit Wordpress.org. Also, take a look at “Movabletype.com”:http://movabletype.com/, which is a paid service.

If you want an even easier blogging tool than Blogger, consider Tumblr. Tumblr is based around the idea of tumblelogs, which favor simple, short-form posts that include photos, links, quotes, dialogues and video over the longer editorial posts you find on a regular blog. Tumblelogs are typically used to share the author’s discoveries, creations or experiences with little or no commentary. Many busy people favor tumblelogs over regular blogs. Visit “Tumblr.com.”:http://www.tumblr.com/

If you want a free blog that has some social networking features such as Facebook or Myspace, take a look at LiveJournal. LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary that include photos and videos, with an emphasis on user interaction. A basic, fully-functional account is free, while paid accounts receive access to premium features.

Many people prefer to create a website of pages that aren’t updated as frequently as a blog. These websites tend to be more informational and brochure-like in nature. Weebly is a polished, easy-to-use, and fun tool for creating websites and simple blogs. It provides ready-made components for you to add to your site, such as titles, paragraphs, two columns of text, pictures, photos, videos, feeds and more. Weebly allows you to easily drag-and-drop content and components on your page. Your Weebly website can contain an unlimited number of pages. Weebly also allows you to instantly buy your own custom domain (www.”Yourdomainnamehere”.com). Weebly offers a robust free option as well a pro version for only $3.99 a month. “Visit Weebly.com.”:http://www.weebly.com/

Google Sites is a more stripped-down tool that allows you to share information with “a few people, a whole organization, or the entire world.” It’s powerful enough for a company intranet, yet simple enough for a family website. It’s also easy to use. Example uses are planning group meetings and activities, sharing info on a secure company intranet, collaborating on a team project, and staying connected with family members. “Visit Sites.google.com.”:http://sites.google.com

Finally, some people do use social networking sites such Facebook and Myspace to promote their hobbies and interests, especially as these sites add public photo-hosting and other traditionally blog-like features. However, I tend to think of websites and blogs as one’s home on the web, where you keep your stuff and invite people to visit, while social sites such Facebook are more like the bars or public places where you go out to mingle and network.

Want to recommend an easy-to-use, free solution for building and posting a website or blog? Email “ed@smalldog.com”:mailto:ed@smalldog.com. I’ll include these submissions in a future article.

Grab the specials while on-hand supplies last. Please note that some specials may not be available in our retail stores; check for availability.