FEATURE OF THE WEEK

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_

As most of you have noticed, we launched an HTML version of Kibbles & Bytes last week. We introduced this in response to the overwhelming percentage of you who voted for HTML in our February ’08 survey to Kibbles & Bytes readers. It allows us to add color, photos and style to the newsletter, while making it easier to read and keeping the Small Dog “feel.”

And, as Don mentioned above, we have noted your feedback; thank you for taking the time to let us know what you think! There are going to be some changes to future issues–some pre-planned and some based on your responses. I’ve noted some common concerns and suggestions that we’ve received, with further acknowledgement and explanation:

* __”Why is it so small on my iPhone?”__
Unfortunately, Apple Mail for the iPhone is the limitation here. It is not coded to understand the zoom/width settings needed to view the newsletter in a larger size.
The remedy: Click on the “View in web browser” link at the top of the email and Safari will display this in a more viewable way. You will be able to turn iPhone/touch sideways and view horizontally, as well as scroll to enlarge text.

* __”It would be great if the image at the top was a link.”__
We agree! We are working on making this happen, and we should see it in the next version of Kibbles & bytes.

* __”The links are hard to see.”__
One of the great things about HTML is that links don’t have to be spelled out in order to access them, but we acknowledge that sometimes they can be embedded within text, and possibly hard to see. We have used the color scheme of our website as a template for the link colors (blue), but sometimes email clients (often webmail) override those settings, making them a different color. With this in mind, we will try to make the links as visible as possible in the future. This includes the links in the footer, which we have altered to make them more visible. They now match our footer on “Smalldog.com”:http:www.smalldog.com with blue links that turn orange when hovered over.

* __”What are those weird characters when I look at the text-only version?”__
This is a good question. We’ll spare you the boring details of why this happens, though, and promise to keep those annoying symbols out of the text as best can can! (Feel free to “email me”:mailto:kali@smalldog.com if you’re curious!)

I would also like to note that we understand that there are some of you out there who do not want HTML newsletters altogether. We currently are unable to offer two separate email lists (one HTML and one plain text), so we have included the link to get plain text at the top of each newsletter. The images are not embedded, keeping the file size smaller, but if this is still too much for slow-loading email clients, the other alternative is to view the plain text emails in our online archive.

“The Kibbles & Bytes archives can currently be found here”:http://www.smalldog.com/kibbles/.
(The link is subject to change pending further development, at which point we will feature the new link in future Kibbles & Bytes issues.)

We thank you for your feedback again, and hope you enjoy the newest version of Kibbles & Bytes!

To offer your feedback, either reply to this message or email “subscriptions@smalldog.com”:mailto:subscriptions@smalldog.com.

Just a couple of notes regarding the “Cell Tower Internet: A Success!” follow-up article from last week (#583). As mentioned initially in Kibbles & Bytes #579, Verizon’s charge for this service is $60 p/month.

After further research, I’ve found that there are actually two plans that Verizon offers: the $60/month option includes a maximum 5GB data transfer. The $40/month option includes a maximum 50MB transfer. The overage charge for either plan is $.25 per MB.

“Read more about Verizon’s BroadbandAccess service here.”:http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=planFirst&action=viewPlanList&sortOption=priceSort&typeId=5&subTypeId=13&catId=409

__Thanks to reader John A. for the question!__

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

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.

_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!