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See all specials on our “Specials Page.”:http://www.smalldog.com/specials

_Dear Friends,_

It is snowing out and the temperatures have warmed up from well below zero for a couple days. We have a Siberian air mass headed our way with the severe cold coming back this weekend. Things just seem to break when it gets this cold for an extended period of time.

On Monday when it was -25 here at the office, we had a series of weather-related failures. The hot water stopped working until I found a portable heater to put in the closet where the instantaneous hot water heater was located to thaw out the pipes. Grace’s car just stopped working and was left stranded in a cell-phone dead zone. Worst of all, the furnace failed in the warehouse and the crew down there tried to put up a brave face and continue working as the temperatures dipped but ultimately we had to give up our conference room for Mac repairs.

The cold weather does make for interesting noises from the crunch of the cold snow beneath your feet to the creaking of the house as it contracts and expands from the cold outside and the heat inside. The roads tend to be more slippery during very cold weather because road salt doesn’t work at those temps. Fan Tail likes the cold and snow and she will just roll around in it and run on the trails from our snowshoes. On the other hand, Hammerhead needs to be coaxed to even step one paw out the door.

It has been a historic week. We had the inauguration playing on many of the Macs in our offices and stores, and pretty much everything stopped as we watched the 44th President of the USA inaugurated in front of a couple million friends. It is simply amazing and encouraging to realize that just 40 years ago we were working for basic civil rights in voting, housing and schools, and that less than 150 years ago, slavery was still common. In 1977, when Vermont was still a sovereign country, our state constitution outlawed slavery, becoming the first country to do so and later, the first state to outlaw it altogether. We now we have an African-American President of the USA. I was so proud to be an American, so proud of my country, and so proud of my President.

*START SOAPBOX*

These words are sometimes referred to as a curse; however, we certainly are living in extraordinary times. The change that occurred this week was a complete shift in the political paradigm. As I was watching Barack Obama give his inaugural speech and saw the millions of smiling, hopeful faces waving flags, I called my mom who has witnessed many more historical moments than I have. She was overcome with emotion and crying in joy about these interesting times. She said that she has not ever seen anything like this.

The change transcends simply a new President and a different party in control. This is a change that is all about hope and a celebration of our country’s political system. It is a tribute to some revolutionary folks who got together a few hundred years ago and formulated a government with the people as holders of the true power. President Obama tapped into this source of power, utilized his gift of eloquence and combined it with a modern network of email, text messages and internet presence to launch a new era of hope.

I am not naive enough to think that Barack Obama has super powers and that magically all problems will disappear. However, if this new paradigm means that we come together rather than split apart and work together to solve problems, I do not think any problem is too big to solve.

For too long, there have been two Americas. One was comprised of the privileged, wealthy and powerful, and the other was made up of the powerless and disenfranchised. The mosaic of faces that I saw at the inauguration–black, brown, white, young and old–waving flags and smiling and crying in joy gives me hope that President Obama can truly lead us to recover that greatness that makes the USA so unique.

The most poignant part of this change was captured by President Obama in his speech when he said:

“This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed–why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

It is fitting that a black man was able to stand proudly and take the oath of office of the most powerful position on earth at the same Mall where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. moved a nation with his “I have a dream…” speech.

In MLK’s timeless words:

__I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.__

This was a day of change not only for our nation but an inauguration for the world.

*END SOAPBOX*

To celebrate the Mac’s 25th anniversary, we’re offering an additional 10% off all items on clearance for one week only. Most of these items have already been steeply marked down, with some listed below cost.

You can see “all clearance items by clicking here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Clearance

We have iPod accessories, hard drives (including premium Glyph and G-Tech drives), books, notebook cases, software, games, Mac parts and much more listed.

To get the additional 10% off, simply add any clearance items to your cart and then enter coupon code *10percent* in the shopping cart.

I use Apple’s Safari web browser almost every single day. I like it and I depend on it. Thus I was alarmed to read that “Brian Mastenbrook recently discovered”:http://brian.mastenbrook.net/display/27 that Safari’s RSS reader is “vulnerable to an attack that allows a malicious web site to read files on a user’s hard drive without user intervention.”

Apparently this can be used “to gain access to sensitive information stored on the user’s computer, such as emails, passwords, or cookies that could be used to gain access to the user’s accounts on some web sites.”

Mastenbrook notes that this vulnerability has been acknowledged by Apple. It affects Safari in Leopard and in Windows, but apparently does not affect people using Tiger.

Originally, it seemed that the solution was very simple: change your default RSS reader from Safari to another RSS application in Safari’s preferences. However, Mastenbrook’s further research showed that this does not completely disassociate Safari all RSS feeds.

To work around this issue until a fix is released by Apple, Mastenbrook suggests the following steps. Note that I was able to easily do this on all of my Macs.

1. Download and install the “RCDefaultApp”:http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/ preference pane, which you can get “by clicking here.”:http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/

2. This installs into your Mac’s system preferences. Open your Mac’s system preferences by clicking on the Apple in the upper left corner of your Mac’s screen and choosing “System Preferences”.

3. Click on the the Default Applications option.

4. Select the “URLs” tab at the top of the window that opens. Now choose the “feed” URL type from the column on the left, and choose a different application (such as “NetNewsWire”:http://www.newsgator.com/INDIVIDUALS/NETNEWSWIRE/ or “NewsFire”:http://www.newsfirerss.com/ which is my preferred desktop RSS app. You can also choose Mail in Leopard, which has an RSS reader and is not affected by the issue.).

5. Repeat the previous step for the “feeds” and “feedsearch” URL types. Note that you don’t need to set a different app for these options; I chose the “” option here.

There is no easy workaround for Windows Safari users at this time except to use a different browser for the time being.

On my computer, I’ve performed the above steps with no difference in Safari’s performance. I’m sure Apple is working on a patch to be released ASAP.

“Read the original report by clicking here.”:http://brian.mastenbrook.net/display/27

It’s extremely unlikely that a Safari user would be affected by this. However, it’s almost always better to be safe than sorry. Thank you to Brian Mastenbrook for discovering this issue!

Times are tight right now, but Small Dog Electronics vows to make this a productive and successful year.

We are hoping to expand soon with new retail locations, and Don was recently interviewed by the Burlington Free Press about our plans for the future.

“Read the whole article here!”:http://burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090119/BUSINESS/90118012&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

*At right: Don photographed in our South Burlington store last week.*
__Photo credit: Glenn Russell, Burlington Free Press__