June Rebates

Higher Ground and Small Dog Electronics are teaming up to bring you ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro to the HG Showcase Lounge on Sunday, June 21.

“Read about Jake here.”:http://highergroundmusic.com/calendar/show/3198/

So… here’s where you need to pay attention! One lucky person will win a pair of tickets to the show, a 1GB iPod shuffle, and a copy of Jake’s new live album. To enter, email “intern@highergroundmusic.com.”:mailto:intern@highergroundmusic.com

__The fine print: The deadline to enter is Wednesday, June 17. One entry per person. Prize package must be claimed in person by the winning contestant the night of the show. Contest will be conducted at the discretion of HG and SD.__

These days everyone is tight on both office space and budgets when it comes to office equipment, the Canon MP190 is an excellent multifunction printer that addresses both of these concerns. We have been using one of these units in our Waitsfield store for some months now and have all been impressed with the quality of the printing, scanning and even wireless printing.

I was skeptical at first about this printer, so I put it through a few tests, including scanning. I was pleasantly surprised that even with physical objects (such as mouse pads) the scanning quality was excellent. The scanning feature was quick and easy, the software that comes with the printer easily integrates into iPhoto for images, documents are easily saved as PDF’s or sent directly to your documents folder. Printing of documents is fast, even when your copying a document.

For just under $70 this unit is a great value, even the consumables are reasonably priced at $19.99 for the black ink and $24.99 for the color cartridge with estimated yields of up to 500 pages depending on coverage. The inks for the unit feature canons 100 year ink technology, so your photos and documents won’t fade over 
time. For a limited time we are offering this printer free after mail in rebate if you purchase it at the same time you buy a new computer with us, so hurry up and grab one before supplies run out.

*June 2009*

Each class is taught by an Apple Product Professional and features take-home materials.

Absolute Mac Basics
Sun. 6/7/09 5:15pm to 6:45pm, S. Burlington
Sun. 6/14/09 5:15pm to 6:45pm, S. Burlington
Sun. 6/28/09 5:15pm to 6:45pm, S. Burlington

Mac Basics Level Two
Sun. 6/21/09 5:15pm to 6:45pm, S. Burlington

For more information, come into our stores and ask a sales associate or “view Classes information here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/classes

*Greetings!*

Our long Vermont winter has finally come to an end and summer has made its presence known in the Mad River Valley of Vermont. Our staff enjoys diverse hobbies during the summer months that take advantage of all the Green Mountain State has to offer, such as motorcycle and horseback riding, camping and frisbee walks with the dogs down to the river. We’ve decided to enter a float in Warren’s 4th of July parade this year, so stay tuned next month for all the details!

Small Dog’s Purchasing Department has been very busy the last couple of weeks and has scored some great deals on discontinued and refurbished gear from Apple. One of my favorite items to come in during the last two weeks is the 2008 500GB Time Capsule. We are now offering this for $199 which is $100 less than the cost of the 2009 model that replaced it. The amazing thing about the Time Capsule is that it is a wireless router and 500GB drive in one.

Better yet, for users running OS X 10.5 or later, one can back up automatically with Time Machine. If you have been putting off buying an external drive (or even worse, not doing regular backups at all), now is your chance!

Stop by our Waitsfield store and say Hi!

Tony
“tony@smalldog.com”:mailto:tony@smalldog.com

I recently purchased a copy of the Apple Mac Box Set. The nice thing about the Box Set is that you get three pieces of software at an incredibly low price. The set includes iLife ’09, iWork ’09, and OS 10.5 Leopard. I made sure the software on my iMac was up-to-date and installed Leopard first, then iLife and iWork. All of the installs went off without a hitch, and soon I was exploring what felt almost like a new computer.

The new features in iLife are great. In iPhoto, you can organize your photographs by Faces, which automatically sorts your photos by who is in them. There are quite a few new features in iMovie as well. Precision Editor gives you much more control over your edit points and there is also a new feature that allows you to smooth out video that is shaky or unstable.

iWork is a really great suite as well. Pages has over 180 pre-designed templates on everything from cards and invitations to certificates and resumes. There is also an option for a full screen view which was lacking in iWork ’08. Of course, what also makes iWork powerful is that it can open Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files as well as save to a format that the Office suite can read and open.

Leopard’s Time Machine feature is what I was most excited about though. With the addition of an Apple Time Capsule 500GB, I now have a wireless, automatic backup of my computer. I set it up overnight because I knew the initial backup would take some time. Now, for subsequent backups, I have it scheduled to run every twelve hours. The fact that my computer backs itself up automatically is a real weight lifted off of my mind!

Apple has updated the specifications on the base model white MacBook, which sells for $999.99:

* Processor speed upgraded from 2.0GHz to 2.13GHz.
* RAM bumped from 667MHz to 800MHz (same as aluminum MacBooks). “Click to read about this RAM.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72316
* Hard drives increased from 120GB to 160GB. It’s now possible to custom order a white MacBook with a 500GB drive. Interestingly, the aluminum MacBook continues to offer a maximum hard drive capacity of 320 GB.
* Apple now says battery life of “up to 5 hours wireless productivity,” up from 4.5 hours.

We have the new MacBook in stock now! Plus, we have the previous MacBook on closeout for only $899.99. Come in to take a look!