Reader Submitted Mac Maintenance Applications

With recent reports of record Mac sales (and strong sales of computers in general, click here to read about this), you wouldn’t think we’d expend energy on bringing Macs to your attention. However, to us, it seems that people are only talking about it the iPhone and the rumored, so-called iSlate.

This week, we’re back to focusing on Macs. In my measured opinion, Apple’s never offered a more incredible line of computers before now. To help promote them, we’re offering simple, streamlined bundles that will make it easy to choose the right Mac. We’re offering upgraded RAM for a discount, and also offering AppleCare bundled in for less than buying it separately. You’ll save anywhere from $35 – $600 by buying a bundle from us than Apple. Plus, we don’t charge tax on orders that ship out of Vermont (saving you even more), and we don’t change shipping on any computers.

Not only that, we are glad to help you choose the right Mac for your needs in person on the phone (800-511-6227) or via email (sales@smalldog.com). Let us know if you have any questions—we’ll be glad to help!

You can see some selected Mac bundles below, or click here to view them all. Look for the green “specials” link to view bundles and offers.

_Dear Friends,_

We are in the midst of a very mild spell of weather here in the Green Mountains. We have had very little snow, at least here in the Mad River Valley–Burlington got socked with three feet! The temperatures have been around freezing for the past week.

While a January thaw is common, so is that week were the temperatures seldom get above 0º. We have not had that cold snap–yet. Nevertheless, flying in and out of Burlington, Vermont is always an adventure in the winter. Hapy and I were stuck on the tarmac for over an hour on our way to CES because they needed to kick five people off the plane because it was too heavy. That, of course, meant we missed our connections and ended up spending the night in beautiful Detroit.

All eyes will be pointing west on Wednesday as Steve Jobs takes the stage to reveal Apple’s “latest creation.” The news and rumor sites are taking every remote clue and extrapolating to come up with predictions of just what might be up Steve’s sleeve. Even mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal are joining the speculation.

I’ll be heading to Cupertino on Feb 10th for some meetings and I am sure that the implications of the new announcements will be a topic of discussion. We will have all the details of the announcement and our reactions in the next issue of Kibbles & Bytes.

We have a couple of really interesting new discontinued products in stock now. The first is the $1699 MacBook Air with the solid state drive. This 1.86GHz MacBook Air has a 128GB drive that has no moving parts–it is all made of RAM. This Mac was originally $2499, then $1699, and we were able to buy up the remaining stock so are now offering this ideal Mac for the road warrior for only $1349!

“See the MacBook Air here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72296

The other great value right now is the discontinued 24-inch iMac. We have several configurations available starting at $1149, including the full-featured MB420 that has 4GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive for only $1499.

“See the 24-inch iMac here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Apple|iMac|24in

I’ll be with three dogs for awhile as my friend Deborah Wachtel heads down to Haiti to help out with the team sponsored by the nurse’s union at Fletcher Allen Health Care. Roots, a bearded collie mix, will join my pack while she is putting in the long hours helping out with earthquake relief.

When all was said and done, Small Dog Electronics and you, our customers, was able to send $30,000 to Doctors without Borders. This fund raising was an amazing demonstration of the power of social networking. We posted this appeal on our blog, FaceBook and Twitter and within 24 hours, it had gone viral and the donations were pouring in.

Have a great weekend and thank you for reading Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
Don, Kali & Ed

Apple’s upcoming event is shrouded in mystery (as per usual), but that doesn’t stop us from speculating about what they could unveil (in fact, it downright encourages us!).

Next Wednesday, January 27, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco at 10 a.m., we think Steve will announce:

• a revision to the iPhone!
  -Emily

• the iLove and the iPod TouchU—breaking fully into the interactive sex toy market (Editor’s note: Ummm…)
• OS 4.0 for iPhone and iPod touch
  -Carl

• the tablet everyone’s talking about (but what will it be named?? iPad? iSlate? iOHMYGAWDITSSOAWESOME?)
• OS 4.0 for iPhone and iPod touch
• Cloud-based iTunes streaming
  -Gary

• the tablet (and the name? iPen? iTab?)
• iPod touch with camera
• a change to MacBook Air
• a change to iPhone
  -Lucie

• Verizon iPhone
  -Mark

• new AppleTV/Mac mini HYBRID
• iPod redesign (shuffle, iPod nano, iPod touch and a FLASH MEMORY iPod classic!)
• iLife ’10/iWork ’10
• touch tablet (in different colors!)
  -Katie

• the new Apple product will have every feature the Newton had—including fax!!
  -Morgan

• a much-needed revision to Aperture
• something about a tablet? and some touch-screen business?
• iLife ’10, iWork ’10 and supercharged MobileMe
  -Kali

Email us with your predictions and we’ll be back next week with the REAL story!

Here’s a disconcerting item: one out of five web users still use simple, easily guessed passwords like “1234567,” “abc123,” “iloveyou” and even “password.”

The New York Times suggests that hackers could break into many accounts just by trying the most common passwords. “Because of the prevalence of fast computers and speedy networks, hackers can fire off thousands of password guesses per minute.”

In practice, it would be more complicated than that, but if you use weak passwords (or haven’t changed your passwords for years), then it’s time to update now.

Many OS X apps in Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard have a built-in Password Assistant to help you choose a stronger password. You can use this Password Assistant to generate strong passwords (and test your existing password) for any purpose.

However, it’s not obvious where to find this small application. One way to launch it is to open your Keychain Access application, then click File > New Password Item. You can also find it in System Preferences > Accounts > Change Password.

If you want to launch Password Assistant without having to open a separate application, you can download a tiny program also called Password Assistant. It solely exists to launch the Mac’s built-in Password Assistant. “Click here to see this.”:http://www.codepoetry.net/products/passwordassistant

I’d been thinking about covering Password Assistant for a few weeks, and the report about weak and common passwords seemed like the perfect occasion to do this. But just this morning I noticed another great article that covers this very subject in detail at “Macworld.com”:http://www.macworld.com/article/145804/2010/01/passwordassistant.html, written by the always great Dan Frakes. “Click here to read this.”:http://www.macworld.com/article/145804/2010/01/passwordassistant.html It also covers the popular 1Password application.