SPECIALS | 4/23/10 – 4/30/10

Random Facebook, Twitter and newsletter winners!
For the next two weeks, we are going to be giving away an iPod gift pack to a random winner (three total) from our Facebook fans, Twitter followers and our newsletter subscribers.

If you’re not already in our Facebook group, you can join here:
Small Dog Electronics on Facebook.

Do you use Twitter? We post Mac tips, tricks, news, contests and more on our Twitter feed. Click here to follow us on Twitter.

Of course, many thanks to all of you who read our newsletters every week. We haven’t forgotten you—we’re pulling a random subscriber from Kibbles & Bytes to win as well.

We’ll be announcing the winners in our 4/30 issue of Kibbles & Bytes (next week.) Good luck!

Hey, let’s face it. Our lives are busy and try as we might, sometimes we just need a little help finding things sometimes. These tips might not help you find your keys (“or your iPhone 4G prototype”:http://www.switched.com/2010/04/20/apple-wants-its-missing-iphone-4g-back-please/), but they should make life a little easier.

*Google Searches*

The NY Times recently featured a great article by Simon Mackie about how to maximize your Google searches. I’m going to cite my favorite five from the article (“you can read it in its entirety here”:http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2010/04/02/02gigaom-10-simple-google-search-tricks-58674.html?src=me&ref=general) and also feature some top tips for searching in Spotlight.

* *Use the “site:” operator to limit searches to a particular site.* It’s a great one if a certain website’s search engine doesn’t return the result you’re looking for. For example, if you’re looking for Hapy on Smalldog.com, you’d type “Hapy site:smalldog.com”:http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Hapy+site:smalldog.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 in the Google search bar.

* *Use Google as a calculator.* “Google has a built-in calculator–try entering a calculation like “110 * (654/8 + 3).”:http://www.google.com/search?q=110+*+%28654%2F8+%2B+3%29 Yes, your computer also has a calculator, but if you spend most of your day inside a browser, typing your calculation into the browser’s search box is quicker than firing up your calculator app.”

* *Use the OR operator.* This can be useful if you’re looking at researching a topic but you’re not sure which keywords will return the information you need. It can be particularly handy in conjunction with the “site:” operator. For example, you could try this search: __GTD OR “getting things done” site:webworkerdaily.com.__ “(see example here)”:http://www.google.com/search?q=GTD+OR+%22getting+things+done%22+site%3Awebworkerdaily.com

* *Exclude specific terms with the – operator.* “You can narrow your searches using this operator. For example, if you’re looking for information about American Idol but don’t want anything about Simon Cowell, you could try: “american idol -cowell.”:http://www.google.com/search?q=%22american+idol%22+-cowell

* *Search within numerical ranges using the .. operator.* “Say, for example, you want to look for information about Olympic events that took place in the 1950s, you could use this search: “Olympics 1950..1960”:http://www.google.com/search?q=Olympics+1950..1960

__Thanks, Zack!__

*Spotlight Searches*

Matt Klein, the editor of “Tech Tails,”:http://www.smalldog.com/newsletters is our resident Spotlight pro. He often writes about how to maximize searches in Spotlight in 10.6; here are some of his best tips:

* To search for an email with a particular item during a specific time frame, for example, an email from Rebecca mentioning Toby within the last month, type __kind:mail from:rebecca date:this month__ (you will fill in your own specifics, obviously!)

* To search for the same kind of thing in iChat, let’s say an iChat from Jon in which he professes his love to Red Delicious apples, ask Spotlight for __delicious kind:chat from:jon__

* Really, using Spotlight’s parameters are key for any search. Say you want to see all the image files (JPG, PNG, TIFF, etc) created yesterday. You’d type __kind:images created:4/22/10__

You’ll find more helpful tips in the Help menu on your Mac; go into Help and type Spotlight, and an article entitled “Searching for specific types of items” will explain it all in depth!

Mother’s Day is just two weeks away! We’ve posted a page with some of the most popular Mother’s Day gifts at Small Dog Electronics. See our “Mother’s Day page by clicking here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/mothersday

Also for Mother’s Day, we have a great promotion on Chill Pill Audio mobile speakers. Use coupon code “mama” at checkout and get 50% Chill Pill Audio mobile speakers! “Click here to see these.”:http://www.smalldog.com/chill-pill-audio

Apple tossed all the analyst’s predictions into a big microwave oven and set it to high as they announced their latest quarterly financial results. Apple announced their results on Tuesday and posted record non-holiday quarter sales of $13.5 billion for the period ending March 27, 2010.

Their quarterly profits rose 90% to $3.07 billion. These results are completely astounding when you compare them to the same period a year ago. In 2009, sales were $9.08 billion (that’s nearly a 50% increase in sales) and profit was $1.62 billion in 2009 (that’s a 90% increase in profit!).

Steve Jobs said in the announcement, “We’re thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49 percent and profits up 90 percent. We’ve launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year.”

Here are some highlights from Apple’s financial results:

* Apple sold 8.75 million iPhones, 2.94 million Macs and 10.89 million iPods.
* Earnings per share was $3.33 versus the analyst’s estimates of $2.45.
* iPhone sales were off the chart as revenue was $5.6 billion up from $2.4 billion from a year ago.
* iPad was not included in this quarter’s numbers since it did not ship until April 1.
* Apple maintains a 70% market-share of MP3 players and continues to gain share internationally.
* iTunes store had $1.1 billion in sales–best quarter ever for the Music/App/Book Store.
* There were over 4 billion downloads from the App Store!
* Apple has $41.7 billion in cash (and the acquisition rumors are flying).

Apple not only makes the most exciting and innovative products on the planet, but also has one of the most effective management teams in place to manage this astronomical growth. While many times, Steve Jobs gets the credit for Apple’s success, I know that even a visionary leader like Steve needs the management team to make it work.

Tim Cook, John Brandon, Peter Oppenheimer and others on the team must also have visionary leadership to coordinate development, production, distribution and promotion. Just think of all the pieces that went into the very successful iPad launch. Even though every company feels their new product will be a smashing success, you never truly know until the orders roll in. Will 200,000 units be enough or 2,000,000?

Apple met its goals with the launch and the reviews are very positive with virtually no reports of technical difficulties. The point is that creating new products that are awesome is only 1/2 the battle, the behind the scenes work is also vital to Apple’s success and Apple has world-class management in place to lead the company from its current $50 billion size to the next level.

Congratulations to Apple for an outstanding quarter–we look forward to the extraordinary products… er… toys… that are in the pipeline!

_Dear Friends,_

The big apple tree that we planted by the corner of our building when we first bought our facility has spread out its limbs and just getting some buds. If this warm weather holds, it should be a good year for apples! My fledgling vegetable plants are under the artificial lights, but it is high time for planting the peas.

Apple’s tree is blooming too, with another record-breaking quarter. I’ll go over the numbers later in this issue of Kibbles & Bytes, but the remarkable story of Apple is continuing as they surpass Walmart, IBM, GE, Proctor & Gamble and Bank of America on the list of most valuable public companies. Using “float-adjusted”:http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/22/apple-microsoft-market-cap/ numbers puts Apple past Microsoft as well, but technically, they are still behind Microsoft and the leader, Exxon.

To imagine this business journey from a company near bankruptcy, posting huge loses and without a direction, to the one of the most valuable companies in the world–and perhaps the most famous–is simply mind boggling. Congratulations to everyone at Apple for yet another great quarter of growth, leadership and success.

One thing that was remarkable from my journey to China and the two trade shows that I attended was the number of iPad accessories that had already made it to the floor. The dimensions were off on some of them and will have to be re-tooled, but it is clear that the iPad will have an eco-structure in terms of accessories to rival the iPhone and iPod. All manner of cases, stands and AC chargers were being shown and even devices to hold iPads in cars for playing movies for the kids were being demoed.

It is Earth Day and while we normally hold our free Annual eWaste Recycling Event this time of the year, we have decided to postpone the event for a number of reasons. Vermont has passed one of the most comprehensive ewaste laws in the country and our Governor signed that into law this week. It will basically make ewaste disposal free for all Vermonters. Secondly, we chose to use the majority of our charitable giving budget on the Haiti earthquake relief effort and lastly, we would love to do the collection, perhaps in a different location, later in the year or in the following spring.

We continue to accept ewaste for proper recycling every day at all of our locations. “Read more about our ongoing ewaste initiatives here.”:http://ww.smalldog.com/ewaste

__Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me…__ oh, sorry about that. Just got carried away for a minute there.

Today’s Mac Treat is a simple one, but you know, it’s my birthday today, so I felt it was appropriate. I find new iCal features that I love all the time, and this is one of the more basic ones: your Birthday Calendar.

We all love Macs because of the integration, and Birthday Calendar is a good example because it automatically pulls the birthdays from your Address Book into iCal as its own calendar.

Here’s how you make it happen:

* add some birthdays to your Address Book
* launch iCal and open Preferences
* select ‘Show Birthdays Calendar’

This will show a separate calendar with only birthdays. I’m hoping that they eventually add the ability to show special dates, such as anniversaries, etc. (how hard can that be, really?) as well, but hey, sometime’s it’s best to keep it simple.