SPECIALS 08/14/09 – 08/21/09

_Dear Friends,_

It looks like summer will finally arrive this weekend in Vermont. We’ve been cheated out of summer with constant rain and cool temperatures but the forecast for this weekend is more like it–with sunny skies and temps in the 80s and 90s. Which of the 4,000 summer things that we have not been able to do will we do this weekend? My garden is almost a complete failure due to lack of sun and too much water. It is the worst vegetable garden in my 40 years in Vermont! The only things that are doing well are the berries, and this year (for some reason), my Arctic Kiwis are full of fruit.

One of the great values from Apple that is frequently overlooked is MobileMe. It is a power-packed offering from Apple that is very reasonable in price for all of the benefits that it provides. While we all have email accounts, I believe that the MobileMe account is one of the most versatile. I use my xxx@.me account for all of my non-Small Dog Electronics stuff. I can get my mail anyplace that there is a computer available or cell-phone signal to download it on my iPhone. If I am buying something from a vendor I may not trust yet, MobileMe also gives you the ability to create up to five “aliases” for these purposes. See below for a few of my other favorite things about MobileMe.

We are gearing up for next week’s Tax-Free Day on Saturday, August 22nd. It is promising to be a huge event. Just a reminder that we do not charge tax on any order that ships outside of Vermont–365 days a year!

Hapy and I have a pick-up truck that we share. The other day he mentioned that he thought it was out of balance, but when he checked, it was simply a bunch of mud and rocks from the spring’s mud season that I haven’t cleaned yet. I’m going to finally do some “spring” cleaning up at my place on Saturday and hose the mud out of there as well as load it up for a trip to the dump.

It is fair season in Vermont now and this year the Washington County field days are being held right here in town, so perhaps I’ll get the grands to come visit.

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes and have a great summer weekend!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali & Ed_

*”Push” mail, contacts and calendar.*
MobileMe is the cloud that stores this information so that your Macs and iPhone are always synced with the latest information. You add a contact on your phone from someone you have just met and it is automatically synced back to your Mac.

You work on your calendar on the office and you do not have to worry about having the most current calendar when you are setting a date on the road. This push technology alone is worth the price of admission, but there is a lot more to MobileMe.

*Sharing your photos.*
Let’s just say you came back from an exciting trip and have a bunch of photos you want to share. From iPhoto, you simply select the photos and if you have a MobileMe account you just click a button and you have a Gallery to share with your friends that is hosted on your MobileMe account. Your friends and family can download the pictures or even add shots to complete your album.

*iDisk*
iDisk is basically your own storage available anywhere. Think of it as your hard drive on the internet where you can store files, share files, allow people to send you files easily and to be able to access large files anywhere you have access to the internet. The basic membership in MobileMe gives you 20GB of storage but you can also purchase more if you need. You can use this storage to host your own website that you created in iWeb and MobileMe even gives you the ability to have your own personal domain name.

“You can see mine at www.donmayer.org.”:http://www.donmayer.org

There is a lot more to MobileMe but those are my top three favorite parts about my membership. I highly recommend MobileMe as being an essential part of your toolbox.

It’s a bargain at $99 a year for all of the features and functionality it brings to your digital life. Plus, you can get started with MobileMe for “20% off instantly”:http://www.smalldog.com/specials/71917 when you buy a new Mac!

When iPhoto ’09 was introduced as part of iLife ’09 back in January, its facial recognition feature “Faces” received a lot of attention. With Faces, you simply put a name to a face in just a few photos, and iPhoto will then suggest a set of possible matches you can confirm with a click. iPhoto then uses the information to sift through your library and find even more potential matches. This makes it easy to find photos of specific people.

Back when Faces was introduced, I checked it out, played with it for a bit, then promptly forgot about it. However, a few incremental updates to iPhoto have made Faces faster and easier to use, as well as more reliable. Also, I’ve realized that Faces can be a very useful tool–especially when you have a giant iPhoto library.

For example, I’ve known that you could flip a snapshot in iPhoto and add a person’s last name and Facebook ID. However, I just learned that when you tag a person’s face with Faces, then publish that photo to Facebook, the person will automatically be tagged on Facebook. Even cooler, if your published photo of the person is tagged on Facebook, then the photo in iPhoto will automatically be updated (pending your approval to protect your iPhoto library).

Faces makes it incredibly easy to create people-based Smart Albums, which will automatically stay up to date with pictures of family and friends. From the Faces cork board, drag one or more snapshots to the Source list, and iPhoto will generate a Smart Album that automatically updates every time you name and confirm more photos of those people.

Want to quickly navigate your iPhoto library to tag Faces? Browse photo to photo with the left and right keys. Switch between recognized photos with the tab key.
And as long as the person’s name has been previously entered in iPhoto, all you have to do is press enter on the correct name in the drop-down list.

Macworld has an excellent article with 7 tips for getting more from Faces. If you’re interested in Faces, it’s a must read. “Click here to see this.”:http://www.macworld.com/article/141746/2009/07/faces_tips.html

Meanwhile, Apple has a posted some useful “iPhoto Keyboard Shortcuts”:http://www.apple.com/support/iphoto/shortcuts/

Don’t have iPhoto ’09? Get it for 10% off as part of Life ’09 “buy clicking here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19386/

Telling iPhoto when it guessed incorrectly is helpful, but even more helpful is telling iPhoto to whom the errant face actually belongs. With iPhoto 8.0.2 or later, you can Control-click on a thumbnail in Confirm Name mode to assign a different name to a person.

Macworld posted an excellent article about 7 Faces tips:
http://www.macworld.com/article/141746/2009/07/faces_tips.html

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak turned 59 Tuesday. Here are some highlights from his 59 years:

*April 1, 1976:* Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple (Happy April Fool’s Day!)
*1976:* Apple releases the “Apple I,”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I designed and built by Wozniak
*1977:* Apple releases the “Apple II”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
*1980:* Apple goes public
*1981:* Wozniak is involved in an aircraft accident (he was the pilot), after which he developed amnesia
*1982-1983:* Woz sponsors the “US Festivals”:http://www.usfestivals.com/ where some of music’s biggest names performed. It’s estimated that he spent nearly 20 million dollars of his own money to do this!
*1982-1986:* Woz leaves his day-to-day duties at Apple and attends UC Berkeley
*1985:* Receives a National Medal of Technology from then president Ronald Reagan
*1985:* Woz founds “CL 9,”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CL_9 a universal remote control company
*1987:* Woz officially ends his employment at Apple, though still receives a paycheck
*1987:* The first official universal remote is developed and released through CL 9
*1989:* Receives an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder
*2000:* Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame
*2001:* Wozniak founds “Wheels of Zeus”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheels_of_Zeus a company that designed wireless hardware for location devices
*2005:* Awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from Kettering University
*2006:* Wrote his autobiography “iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It”:http://www.amazon.com/iWoz-Computer-Invented-Personal-Co-Founded/dp/0393061434
*2007:* Appeared on __Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List,__ with then-girlfriend Kathy Griffin
*2009:* Became a contestant on the TV show __Dancing With The Stars__

“Read why Steve and Steve priced the Apple I at $666.66.”:http://myoldmac.net/FAQ/Apple1-priced$666.66-Why-WozAnswers.htm

“Watch Steve Wozniak present the Apple Historical Museum here.”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul7NkLGtD84

“Watch Steve compete on Dancing With the Stars!”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfxWbYUTJl8

“Visit Steve Wozniak’s website.”:http://www.woz.org/

From “Wikipedia”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak