Another Week of Apple Updates: The Mac mini

It is supposed to be in the 90s on Saturday and I’m going to procrastinate on my tiling project and go for an all day motorcycle ride instead. I love summer!

Katie, Kerry, Hapy and I are heading to Manchester next week with our builder to really make some hard decisions on the design and construction of our new store.

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes and have an awesome weekend!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali, Ed and Ben_

Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.4 yesterday through Software Update. This revision offers numerous stability, compatibility, and security improvements over Mac OS X 10.6.3 which was released in March. The new update includes Safari 5 as the default browser, improves VPN connections, and resolves a host of miscellaneous software issues. A full list of changes can be found “*here.*”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4150

*START SOAPBOX*

As we invent more and more ways to communicate with each other, it is also important to establish standards for appropriate times to use that technology. There was a move to allow cell phone use on planes that at first, I thought would be just fine. That was until I imagined myself trying to read a book (I do a lot of reading on airplanes) and being surrounded by people yapping on their cell phones. And why is it that someone wandering around talking into their Bluetooth earpiece is more annoying than someone actually talking into a phone?

This year, the Vermont legislature passed a law that bans texting while driving. DOH! That was the good news I guess, but our legislators did not have the courage to ban the use of handheld cell phones because–yes, you guessed it–it is an election year. I reached out to the legislators as a motorcyclist to appeal for this handheld ban.

I have taken my own informal survey as I ride my motorcycle around Vermont and I would estimate that fully 15-25% of drivers are talking on their cell phones when they are driving. As I ride by them, I glance into their vehicles and it is clear from their body language that their attention is, at a minimum, divided. Many seem to have most of their attention on their phone conversation and only a little on the road. People in their cages (as we on two wheels call car drivers) seem to think they are invulnerable.

Distraction from cell phone use extends a driver’s reaction time as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of 0.8%, according to a study by the University of Utah. Driving while distracted is a factor in 25% of the accidents that are reported to the police. Carnegie Mellon reported that driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37%!

These are sobering statistics that I can verify as I ride my motorcycle. I have had drivers on cell phones cut me off, swerve into my lane or make other bone-head moves because they are just not paying enough attention and a motorcycle is smaller than a car.

I think it is time for legislation that bans handheld cell phones from drivers and stiffens the penalty for their usage. While the use of a hands-free device also is a distraction, it is clearly not as serious a problem. The problem is even more serious for teenage drivers, who have the highest proportion of distracted drivers involved in fatal crashes. Texting, looking at email, checking your stocks or any other fiddling with your handheld device is as dangerous as driving while intoxicated and perhaps the penalties with license suspensions should be made similarly strong.

*END SOAPBOX*

“Chime in on our blog, Barkings!”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/distracted-drivers-and-technology/
__Image credit: JDPower.com__

Quick Look is one of my favorite features of OS 10.5 Leopard and OS 10.6 Snow Leopard. Quick Look provides instant, full resolution (but not editable) previews of many files simply by selecting the document and pressing the space bar. I use Quick Look to preview photos, read Pages documents without launching Pages, skim through movies and to scan PDFs. It’s great to have access to a file without having to wait for its parent application to launch. I would pay for Quick Look; it’s great that it’s built into the Mac OS.

Quick Look can natively open PDFs, HTML, any QuickTime readable media including of types of images, ASCII and RTF text documents, Apple Keynote, Pages and Numbers, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, and most RAW camera images.

However, Quick Look can’t natively open Illustrator, InDesign, Swatch Exchange (ASE), EPS and Freehand documents. Many times during the week I have to access Illustrator files in particular. Thankfully, there is a plugin for Quick Look called SneakPeek Pro that enables this functionality. SneakPeek Pro also allows you to see fonts, images and colors used in many CS3, CS4 and CS5 documents. That’s right, SneakPeek Pro is already CS5 Compatible.

SneakPeek Pro costs $19.99, and is worth every penny considering how much time it has saved me.

“Click here to download SneakPeek Pro as a free, fully functional 15-day demo.”:http://www.code-line.com/software/sneakpeekpro/

Once SneakPeek Pro is installed, you can configure its options from within System Preferences. The software publisher includes an uninstaller “on their website.”:https://www.code-line.com/software/sneakpeekpro/

Also, I just want to note that I’m recommending this plugin solely because it has solved a problem for me. We don’t get any kind of renumeration for mentioning it!

The Garage Sale is still going strong, set to be live until the end of the month!

**Newly added products from Speck, Altec Lansing, LaCie, Logitech, Seagate and more, with many prices slashed over 40% from their already-reduced Garage Sale prices.**

“Smalldog.com/garagesale”:http://www.smalldog.com/garagesale

_Dear Friends,_

We are in an alternating weather pattern here in Vermont with rain one day and sun the next. The strawberries are ready and it is such a relief to finally get real berries–not the ones that are in the stores in the winter that seem to have no taste but a long shelf life. The deer are munching at my garden this year and my baby plants, especially the broccoli and peas, seem to get eaten each night. We are using some old-time Vermont remedies to keep them at bay; Hammerhead and I have primary responsibility for deer repellent application.

Speaking of Hammerhead, he so much loves going to our South Burlington store. I drop him off at the store when I have meetings up in Burlington and he goes right to work as our “greeter.” He meets every customer, most of whom stop to pet him and all of whom seem to smile after his greeting. The kids especially like him and he is so gentle and tolerant of them.

Our new Hammerhead Verso iPad cases have been a big hit and our initial production run is nearly sold out. More are on the way and we are very happy with tis product–I think it is the best iPad case, but then again, I am very prejudiced. This product was a direct result of my visit to China in April where I visited the leather factory where the cases are made.

I think the new Mac mini is a great improvement over the previous model and it is much easier to upgrade the RAM. Plus, it now includes an HDMI port to make it easy to connect to your TV. See more details in the article below.