Holiday Sights and Sounds at Small Dog…

Mac Treats are meant to be quick and easy “how to” tips for getting more from your Mac on a daily basis. Many of these Treats elicit a “wow, I didn’t know you could do that!” reaction from readers. I find it oddly satisfying to discover, harness, and share the seemingly hidden features of Mac OS X. Occasionally, I stumble across an OS X feature that all my fellow Mac users seem to know – except for me.

For example: in Apple’s Mail program, did you know you can easily color code email messages in your inbox? This is useful if you want to flag certain messages for appropriate responses.

I just learned that you can manually do this by selecting an email, then pressing Command-Shift-C. The Apple color chooser window will pop up. You can use the color wheel to choose a color, but for this task I prefer the “crayon” view in the color chooser. In Mail, you can also get the color window to open by navigating to the menu bar at the top of the screen and choosing “Format > Choose Colors.”

It’s also easy to get Mail to automatically flag email by color as it enters your inbox. For example, lets say you’re married but have a boyfriend or mistress, and you don’t want their emails to get mixed up. Wait, no, don’t use that example.

Let’s say you want email from your boss to be flagged with green. In Mail’s menu at the top of the screen, click on Preferences, then in the window that opens, click Rules (note that sometimes the Rules button is hidden far to the right, and you have to drag the window larger to see it). Click “Add Rule”, choose the input criteria, and under “Perform the following actions” choose “Set Color of Message” in the drop-down menu. You may need to adjust the input critereia to make this work perfectly.

This is an easy way to make sure important emails stand out in your probably-swamped inbox. Feel free to flag Kibbles with red, meaning “read now!”

Back in October, when Apple introduced the new aluminum MacBooks, they also introduced a $999 MacBook with the classic white polycarbonate case, Superdrive, and 2.1 GHz processor. It’s the only current MacBook that still has a FireWire 400 port, which is essential for people with older MiniDV or HDV camcorders or FireWire400-equipped hard drives.

That’s a great machine, but right now we have something better at the same $999 price – namely, a previous-generation white MacBook with a 2.4GHz processor and 2GB or RAM (compared to the 2.1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM in the current white MacBook). Our 2.4GHz MacBook also has a 160GB hard drive (compared to the 120GB drive in the current model) and a DVD-burning Superdrive.

Again, this 2.4GHz MacBook is on sale for $999.99 and includes a FREE Isis case and free three-day express shipping until 12/31.

In a few days, many thousands of people will unwrap shiny new iPods. iTunes and the iPod are fairly easy to use, with fairly intuitive interfaces, but first-time iPod owners may still be confused about how to use them. This is espeacully true for people who rarely use a computer.

Also, even long-time iTunes/iPod owners might not be getting the most out their iPods. For example, many iTunes users don’t know they can manually manage songs and playlists on their iPods, rather than having iTunes automatically sync media (which sometimes results in media being improperly removed from the iPod). Following are a few links from Apple.com that will help new and experienced iPod owners to get the most out of their iPods.

* “New User’s Guide For iPod”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1345
* “iPod tutorials from Apple.”:http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/tutorials/
* “Apple’s iPod Support Page”:http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/
* “Syncing Content to iPod”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2209
* “Using iPod with multiple computers”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1202
* “Safely disconnect iPod”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1853
* “Adding and Deleting Songs and playlists from your iPod”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1855
* “How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329

At Small Dog Electronics, it’s obvious we love animals. So when we discovered that there was a little girl who was committed to feeding hungry dogs and cats, we thought we could provide some support!

Mimi Ausland, a 12 year old girl from Bend, Oregon, was inspired by the website “freerice.com”:http://www.freekibble.com, which uses word games to help feed those in need. She figured the same could apply to animals, so she came up with an easy (and fun) way to provide food through playing trivia games on the website.

“Check it out!”:http://www.freekibble.com

There’s no time like the present to give the gift of a charitable donation to reach those in need. Small Dog Electronics believes that giving back to the community (both local and global) is an integral part of our business, and we will match your donation dollar-for-dollar up to $200.

Be inspired! Give to others less fortunate–you’ll be glad you did. ‘Tis the season, after all!

Some of our featured charities:

* Amnesty International
* Doctors Without Borders
* EarthTrust
* Planned Parenthood
* Vermont Foodbank
* VPIRG

Read more about Small Dog’s Charitable Giving Program:
“Smalldog.com/charity”:http://www.smalldog.com/charity

Make a donation:
“Charitable Giving Program Donation Page”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Gifts_and_Swag|Charitable_Donations

I’m heading up to my mom’s place on Sunday to celebrate the start of Chanukah and will be playing Santa for my grandkids on Christmas. One of the presents I got them was a basketball hoop. Autumn was a star b’ball player in high school and I went to every one of her games. She was the starting center and her point guard, Kim Blodgett, was living with us at the time so we spent a lot of time on basketball.
Khadija took me aside the other day and told me she was going to play basketball once she got to middle school, so I guess it’s time for a hoop! As soon as the snow melts a bit, I’ll go up and install it on their garage. Autumn and I have plans to paint a key and three-point line, too.

All of us at Small Dog Electronics send the very best wishes for the holidays from our family to yours. We know that it is you who pays our wages and we appreciate the loyalty and support that we have been fortunate to enjoy.

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali & Ed_