Class Schedule: April 2010

*It’s Spring!*

It’s April and spring is in the air… well almost. I was excited to see the extended forecast for this first part of April predicting temperatures close to 70 degrees, but quickly snapped back to reality of spring time in Vermont when I saw a dusting of snow and sleet early Monday morning.

As I still haven’t succeeded in convincing Don to move our headquarters to a warmer location, preferably one with sandy beaches, I will settle for catching whatever warm rays I can here at the office and maybe an extra dog walk or two to get all the vitamin D I can!

With Spring in the air, we thought what says spring better than a little spring cleaning of our own. On your next visit to our retail store in Waitsfield you will find a number of changes underway, and we hope that when finished our customers find an improved shopping experience and selection of products.

Lets all hope mud season doesn’t last too long!

Emily and the Waitsfield Team
“emily@smalldog.com”:mailto:emily@smalldog.com

Today, we streamed live from our S. Burlington retail store for the first time on our Ustream channel. If you’re not familiar with Ustream, it’s generally used as a platform for live streaming and “lifecasting.”

Gary, one of our S. Burlington Assistant Managers and Tim, our S. Burlington Warehouse Manager, were on hand first thing to chat about iPad, Chill Pill and other gadgets. The cool thing about these streams is that if you’re watching online live, we encourage you to chat questions and comments to them so that they can answer them on-air.

We’ve had success with our Tech Tails TV broadcasts, and we’re excited to really get into the swing of our retail broadcasts as well, so check us out! We’ll keep you posted on future broadcasts.

Check out our stream, “@hellosmalldog, here”:http://www.ustream.tv/user/hellosmalldog and follow us for future broadcasts!

There are seemingly endless choices when considering a case for your iPhone. Things to consider are: first, protection, then color, style, features and perhaps a screen protector. I currently am using the “Switcheasy Rebel case”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72973/switcheasy-rebel-iphone-case-for-iphone-3g-serpent-black ($24.99).

It features protection for the 30-pin dock connector on the bottom of the phone to keep dust and dirt out, two protective screen covers with the micro fiber wipe and squeegee to apply the screen protectors, dock adapter (so you don’t have to remove the case to dock it), and a video stand to prop the phone up-while watching videos.

There is a silicone wrap that goes on first, then a plastic polycarbonate exo-skeleton that snaps on after the silicone wrap is applied. There is also a dock connector cover as well. The case has a grippy feel to it, and you can always buy another Switcheasy case to mix-and-match with a two-tone look–they’re interchangeable.

We are always testing and looking for new iPhone cases from different vendors, so check our store often for new accessories and cases for your iPhone!

*Best in Showroom Exclusive*

Clip and bring in to either of our retail stores to redeem by 4/30/10!

!(image)http://blog.smalldog.com/images/1639.jpg!

BACK UP! This topic is always a conversation piece when speaking to customers about a new computer purchase, and can be the most crucial purchase you make when you buy a new machine. As far as technology has come, drive failure occurs on a daily basis.

There is no magic wand or crystal ball we can use to estimate when a drive might fail, so the best defense is to purchase a backup drive along with your new computer. With 10.6 Snow Leopard (as well as 10.5 Leopard), Apple has built-in backup software: Time Machine. Time machine takes just minutes to set up and works with any external back up drive. The only requirement of Time Machine is that your backup drive must be at least as large as your computers internal drive.

I purchased this 320GB Buffalo drive as my Time Machine Backup on my MacBook Pro. Out of the box, I was very impressed with the quality of the case and the feel of the drive. I was pleased to see that it does include an extension cable in the event that the 4-inch cable built into the drive isn’t long enough. My Macbook Pro sits on a stand so I needed to use the extension cable to allow it to sit nicely on my desk.

As always, setting up the Time Machine was a breeze. The computer automatically recognized the drive with no need to install any drivers or software–this drive is plug-and-play!

Tyson and Waylon These two guys spend their days at work greeting customers and chasing balls around our sales office and retail store!