Happy Birthday to the Internet!

I dressed up as a full size hippo for Halloween today, with Fantail Shrimp as a mini-hippo and Hammerhead dressed as a french bulldog. Don’t forget to check out all the costumes for our annual contest and vote! Plus, enter to win a Chill Pill, too…

I’m picking up the Norton from our friends over at Classic Bike Experience who had done an “assessment” for me, outlining my work in restoring this classic. This is my stress relief project for the winter. I know that I’ll be stressed about that bolt that won’t come out or the part that doesn’t quite fit right, but this is a different stress than the day-to-day pressures of business and a great balance. Banging my knuckles occasionally is good for my mental health!

Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes and Happy Halloween!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali & Ed_

This week we’re offering $10 off any external hard drive with coupon code *backup*. Simply enter this code in your cart at checkout to get the $10 savings on any external hard drive!

We’re also offering $5 any iPod nano, including iPod nanos that are already on sale or listed in bundles, with coupon code *nano5*. For example, you can get an additional $5 any of the iPod 4G bundles listed below:

“iPod nano 8GB – Orange (4G), Free Contour iSee Inked for iPod nano (r) – $119.99!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19555/

“iPod nano 8GB – Pink (4G), Free Contour iSee Inked for iPod nano (r)! – $119.99”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19558/

“iPod nano 8GB – Yellow (4G), Free Contour iSee Inked for iPod nano (r)!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19557/atXX/

“iPod nano 16GB – Yellow (4G), Free Contour iSee Inked for iPod nano (r) – $129.99!”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19559/

“iPod nano 16GB – Silver (4G) , Free Contour iSee Inked for iPod nano (r)! – $129.99”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag19556/

Finally, we’re offering $5 off any iPhone case with coupon code *iphonehome*.

To use any of the coupons, place the item you’d like to order into your cart and then enter to coupon.

*If you have trouble using a coupon, please email* “sales@smalldog.com”:mailto:sales@smalldog.com.

Greetings, ghouls…

We’re at it again this year, and we need your help picking the best costume of all the Small Doggers. This year, we’re also giving away a “Chill Pill”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/71679 to one lucky voter, who will be picked at random.

*Here’s how to play:*

# View photos of the costume contest contenders by clicking the links below. (To see all costumes and Halloween photos, “click here.”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/sets/72157622571116829/)
# Vote for your favorite costume on the poll below (after the photos).
# Once you’ve voted, email us at “marketing@smalldog.com”:mailto:marketing@smalldog.com to be entered into the Chill Pill drawing!

Voting will end Sunday night!

*Art,* “Wicked Twine Tangle Monster” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058635722/
*Brian,* “Mike Myers” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4057893619/”
*David,* “Monty Python Lumberjack” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058786366/
*Don,* “Hippo” “Photo”:”http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4057890965/
*Ed,* “Eddie Munster” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058664594/
*Kali, Emily, Kerry, Lucie and Rebecca,* “Mad Dog Derby Dames” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058653336/
*Gary,* “Rocker” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058759962/
*Hapy,* “Tinky Winky” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4057923667/
*Jaime,* “Party Granny” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4057907099/
*Jason,* “Aquaman” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4057990789/
*Jim,* Groucho Marx” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4057925569/
*JJ,* “Pirate” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058754090/
*Jon,* “Biker” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058666686/
*Katie,* “Don” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058008635/
*Mark,* “The Health Care Meltdown” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058661402/
*Matt,* “Tired” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058786568/
*Michelle,* “PC” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058045373/
*Taylor,* “Austin Powers” “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4058633046/
*Tim,* “Freakshow” from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle “Photo”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/4057990737/

*Happy Halloween and thanks for voting!!*

__Votes are only registered once, and multiple email entries for the contest will be disqualified. By entering, you may receive notification of future contests and specials from Small Dog Electronics.__

After the death of my beloved iBook G4 (she spent two years in Africa with me) and after about a month long mourning period, I purchased one of the 13in MacBook Pros in anticipation of starting grad school. I’ve had the new computer for a couple of months now, and I don’t think I could survive without it. However, rather than just preach to the choir about the glory of Apple, I want to talk about the practical ways some specific innovations have been indispensable.

One of the primary reasons I was attracted to this computer in the first place was the physical size. At 4.5 pounds it’s only a shade heavier than the Air, and not that much larger. And in trade you get back way more power and speed, so I can still play games on-the-go if I want to. Speaking of on-the-go, compared to my old iBook, this computer is a joy to carry with me everywhere. The portability allows me to follow my impulse to the next coffee shop and basically work from anywhere.

But shrinking sizes and boosted specs are nothing new. What really makes it easy to keep working is Apple’s new 7-hour battery. This thing lives up to the boast. In practice, I am able to charge my computer over night and leave the charger at home in the morning. I work on this thing all day at Small Dog, then take it for a study session at a couple of different coffee shops, and finally read web comics in bed before it finally tells me to plug it into power. Not having to remember to carry my adapter with me is, in a word, liberating. And all of that usage was done without ever turning off Wi-Fi or dimming the screen anymore than the computer does automatically (yeah, did I mention it auto adjusts to ambient light? ‘Cause it does!).

The third thing I really love, which has changed the way I think about user input devices, is the glass Multi-Touch trackpad. As an example, in my grad program, I have to read a lot of scanned texts. I like to save paper so I never print these out. Sometimes, however, they are scanned in vertically, so the text is the wrong way around. On my iMac, I have to go through menus to rotate each page. Pain in the butt. On my MacBook Pro however, all I have to do us use the rotate gesture on the trackpad. Nothing has ever felt so natural. Add to that the intuitive zoom and scrolling and it’s like I’m manipulating a physical document. This is truly the interface of the future!

The innovations Apple has packed into these unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros are amazing and make mobile computing an absolute delight. With the polycarbonate body MacBooks finally getting some of the goods, it really makes it a great time to upgrade an older laptop.

“Check out what’s new here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/macs

_Dear Friends,_

I am back in the Green Mountains, although my body is not quite sure what time zone I am in at this time. I had an amazing three weeks of travel. I left with the trees ablaze in fall colors and return to “stick season” with no leaves left and the first snow behind us. I have the winter tire change-over, motorcycle buttoning-up for winter and a few more chores before I can really say I am ready for the long winter, but it is sure nice to be home with the pups!

I went first to Taiwan and visited Taipei and Taichung. In Taichung, I visited the manufacturer of the CAR Tune FM transmitter/charger and our USB chargers. We took a high speed train from Taipei and I was very impressed with the efficient and fast rail system. What might have taken two or three hours by car was only an hour by a very comfortable train. I was glued to the window watching the countryside which seemed to have agriculture on one side of the tracks and urban development on the other with high-rise apartments.

There were two purposes for my journey to the Far East: one was to visit our current suppliers, examine the working conditions in the factories and talk about new products, and the other purpose was to find new products at the three trade shows. After the journey to Taichung, I attended a trade show in Taipei which was a bit disappointing. It was billed as the Taiwan electronics show, however, it was primarily a showcase for LED lighting. The developments in LED lighting were very interesting since high-efficiency lighting is really the future of lighting–beyond compact fluorescents–but I wasn’t interested in LED importing for our business, so that show was pretty much a bust.

The H1N1 awareness in all of the places I visited were much greater than here in the states. As we got off the airplane, we were handed health forms to fill out, there were infrared monitors to scan for fevers and most of the immigration personnel wore masks. When we went out for dinner that second night, we had to have our temperatures taken and hands sanitized before we were allowed into the restaurant. I’d say that perhaps 10-20% of the people in Taiwan wore masks.

I was traveling with my friend Jason Wu who has family in Taiwan so while he visited with friends and family I went to visit the sales agent for our Chill Pill speakers. We spent the afternoon discussing the Chill Pill and designing future models of the speaker. I went to dinner with Jenny and her daughter, Grace, and then spent the next day with Grace, who showed me many of the historical sites in Taipei and took me for some very local food!

That evening I went to the Taipei night market and had stinky tofu and oyster pancake and the next morning I was off to Hong Kong. Hong Kong also had H1N1 measures in effect and was just as hustle-bustle as I remember it from my first visit 20 years ago. I had a great room overlooking the harbor and we took public transportation everywhere we went. I attended two trade shows in Hong Kong and while one seemed to be more of a showcase, the other was full of vendors focused on buyers. We found many potential new products.

We took a train to Dongguan in the mainland to visit the manufacturer of the Hammerhead sleeves and the actual manufacturer of the Chill Pill speakers. I was very impressed with both companies, especially with the care and quality control of the Chill Pill manufacturer. They were actually running part of our order on the assembly line while I was there so it was very interesting to see our products actually being made. The factory was clean and very well organized. Most of the workers appeared to be 18-25 years old and many lived in the large dormitory next to the factory. You can see some pictures at our “Flickr page here.”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldog/sets/72157622444924369/

I had a lot of other adventures but soon it was time to hop on the plane and head for Las Vegas for the Apple Specialist Marketing Coop meeting. Grace flew out to meet me and Hapy was there too, and took us out for an amazing dinner for our anniversary. The conference was abuzz with discussion of the new Apple iMacs, MacBook, Mac mini and Mac mini server as well as the new accessories. I am switching to the Magic Mouse as soon as they come in!

I got back to Vermont about 1AM on Monday and have had a full schedule ever since. I always prefer to be very busy at work and also work hard to maintain a healthy separation of work and play, although I have been spending a lot of time on-line at nights chatting with our suppliers overseas since our night is their day.

Kali and Ed did a great job covering for me while I was gone, particularly during Apple’s financial results and new product introductions. We have an awesome Kibbles & Bytes team!

Earlier this week, Apple introduced a semi-major free update to the software that drives Apple TV. Now called Apple TV 3.0, the update centers around a completely redesigned main menu that aims to make content simpler and faster to navigate, especially when used with the “Apple Remote.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74719

Beyond the all-new interface, Apple TV also supports iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in fullscreen as well as Genius Mixes and the ability to listen Internet radio through your home theater system.

iTunes LP delivers a rich, immersive experience for select albums on the iTunes Store by combining beautiful design with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits and more.

iTunes Extras are similar to special features on DVDs, with deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries. iTunes LP in fullscreen, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system.

The new Apple TV software is available immediately free-of-charge to existing Apple TV owners, and Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for just $229.

Apple TV boasts the largest selection of on-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts, all downloaded directly from the iTunes Store.

“The new software for Apple TV features a simpler and faster interface that gives you instant access to your favorite content,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “HD movies and HD TV shows from iTunes have been a huge hit with Apple TV customers, and with Apple TV 3.0 they get great new features including iTunes Extras, Genius Mixes and Internet radio.”

“View the Apple TV by clicking here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/43699

Save $10 on Apple TV for the next week when used with coupon code “*appletv*”. To use this coupons, place the Apple TV into your cart and then enter the coupon. *If you have trouble using a coupon, please email “sales@smalldog.com.”:mailto:sales@smalldog.com*