FEATURE OF THE WEEK

_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!

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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.

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

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_

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!__