Similar Posts
FEATURED SPECIAL | Valentine's Day Bundle
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and we’ve put together the perfect package for your special someone. Featuring the perpetually popular iPod shuffle, an upgraded set of sonically sweet A4 Tech Headphones, and our brand new Pink Chill Pill, this bundle is guaranteed to please. Get all 3 for only $89.99! Plus, did you know one dollar of every Pink Chill Pill sale goes towards breast cancer research? This deal beats a stale Whitman’s Sampler for sure!
“Click here to view the bundle.”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag20568/at_kb
Flash Player 10.2 – The Fastest Plugin Alive!
This Tuesday, Adobe released an updated version of Flash Player 10, featuring the highly anticipated ‘Stage Video’ hardware acceleration. As the controversy surrounding the aging web standard is now universally known, Adobe has reworked Flash 10.2 in an attempt to quell some of the negative feelings towards the plugin. Bashed in the past for its rampant CPU usage and an insatiable appetite for notebook batteries, Flash Player 10.2–while not fully resolving them–improves both of these issues.
Through its implementation of Stage Video, Adobe reports Flash videos will support smoother playback with considerably less CPU usage. On the Flash Team’s blog, developer Tom Nguyen writes:
bq. “Stage Video lets websites take advantage of full hardware acceleration of the entire video pipeline. This builds on the H.264 hardware accelerated decoding in Flash Player 10.1. Stage Video hardware acceleration means that Flash Player can play even higher quality video while using dramatically less processing power, giving users a better experience, greater performance, and longer battery life. In our testing across supported systems, we’ve found it’s up to 34 times more efficient.”
Nguyen expands on Stage Video claiming it can support 1080p HD video playback using a mere 1-15% of the CPU on a current Mac or PC. While this is an impressive performance leap for the picked on plugin, Nguyen is quick to add the performance boost may not be immediately apparent. While the player is capable of processing HD video at the reported stats, websites and content providers, such as YouTube, will first need to rework their players around the new standard.
Though the Flash Player is still far from perfect, the release of 10.2 demonstrates that Adobe is actively responding to the critiques voiced by Steve Jobs and others on its aging infrastructure and less than desirable performance. For all intents and purposes, Flash Player 10.2 is a sizable leap in terms of streaming HD video playback technology. Though it may not be around forever, until HTML5 receives more widespread support, Flash will have to do.
It is worth noting that Adobe has dropped support for Power PC Macs in version 10.2. The update mandates at least an Intel Core Duo 1.33GHz processor or faster. In addition, the update requires at least 256MB of RAM and Mac OS X 10.4-10.6. For a full list of system requirements click “*here.*”:http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/
To download Flash 10.2 click “*here.*”:http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
The iPad is Ready for Business and the Statehouse!
I was at the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility’s legislative reception the other day and nearly every one of the senators and representatives I spoke with had questions about the iPad. I have talked before about our project to outfit one of the committees with iPads, well the rest of the legislators are jealous and many are just buying their own iPads. Vermont has a citizen legislator and except for the Governor, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, none of the legislators have offices. The committee rooms are always cramped, tiny and crowded, so using a laptop computer is nearly impossible. The iPad makes a much better “meeting” computer because it is much more unobtrusive than a laptop – it looks like a piece of paper on the desk.
The real secret story of the iPad though is its acceptance in business. There are literally thousands of useful applications and everyone from lawyers to bakers and bankers are using the iPad now in their work. My attorney, Brian Dunkiel, gave all the lawyers in his firm iPads a few months ago and called me from the road a few days later to tell me that his firm was the first to use an iPad during a trial in Vermont.
Apple has recognized the business acceptance of the iPad and has made a lot of resources available for those considering the iPad in their work. We will be putting on some seminars at our retail stores about how to use the iPad in business, and there are on-line resources as well.
A good place to start is the iPad in Business “*site*”:http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/ that Apple has created. Here you will find a bunch of information on how to integrate the iPad into your work life, including apps that make your work life easier, tips for seamless integration into your work flow and profiles of businesses that are using the iPad right now in their work. The other resource to discover what you can do on the iPad for your work is to check out the wide range of business apps on the iTunes App Store. Search the Business, Finance, Productivity and Reference section to get an idea of the myriad of options available to you. Once you have taken a look there, the next step is to completely ignore Apple’s pleas to “buy now from Apple,” and come over to Small Dog to get that iPad!
Hapy turns the big 4-0 this weekend and he has the grey hair to prove it. Hard to believe I have a 40 year old son. Happy Birthday, Hapy!
I write a daily report to the Small Dog staff and solicit “ask the Top Dog” questions. Jaime asked me this week “Who do you think is the best 3-point shooter in the history of the NBA?” Now, there is a softball if I have ever seen one! Of course, it is Ray Allen, who on Thursday set the NBA record for the most 3-point field goals ever, in the game against the Lakers. Jaime was just pulling my leg because he has been a fan of Ray Allen since he was a college player at UConn. I have watched Ray come out hours before everyone and shoot hundreds of shots and he does that EVERY game. I think Ray Allen is the best pure shooter in the history of the NBA and a lock for the hall of fame!
Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!
Your (lonely) Kibbles & Bytes Team,
_Don & Ben_MAC TREAT #146: Turn Your Mac's Volume Up a "Notch"
We’ve all been there. You arrive at the office intent on listening to your tunes, only to discover you’ve left your headphones at home. At Small Dog, a quick trip to the warehouse to browse our “*inventory*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Audio|Headphones for a replacement set is all that’s required, but many are without that luxury. So lets say you’re sitting at your desk in complete silence, and decide that ‘Pyromania’ simply needs to happen now! How can you pull it off without disturbing your co-workers? Easy.
Though all Macs feature 16 steps of volume adjustment at first glance, there are actually 64. Each time you adjust the volume from the keyboard (F11 and F12 on current gen. Macs) The level jumps by a box with an accompanying “pwipt” noise. However, holding down a series of keys prior to adjusting the volume enables you to fine tune your level further.
By holding: Option + Shift, and pressing: Volume Up or Volume Down, you can adjust your Mac’s volume in 64 increments instead of the usual 16. You’ll notice that each box divides into four precise slices while using this method, allowing you to set your volume as low as 1/64 if you have picky co-workers.
_Dear Friends,_
Huge ice chunks fell off our roof at the office and at my home with the storm this weekend. There was a spectacular thunder snow event with snow, thunder and wide spread lightning on Saturday. It was an amazing celestial show that looked like giant flashbulbs going off. The warmer temperatures brought a little rain and that caused the built up ice and snow to slide off my roof at home in thunderous crashes that rivaled the thunder, and shook the house. Hammerhead wanted to go outside for this action but we kept him safe inside. The ice broke the railing to the stairs leading up to my porch and it was a lot of shoveling to clear the deck.
When I got to work on Monday, I noticed we also had some ice sliding off of the roof that looked like big icebergs sticking out of the big snow banks. Unfortunately, when I got inside, it turned out we had sprung a few leaks and there was a pool of water surrounding Hapy’s desk for his first day back from vacation. We got the mess cleaned up, and got most of the snow and ice off of the roof. I know our longer term solution here is better insulation for the roof so not as much ice is created.
We have yet another new addition to the Small Dog family as one of the Kibbles & Bytes team, Kali, gave birth to her son, Griffin Blake Hilke on Feb 7 which just happens to be my birthday, too. Congratulations from the Kibbles & Bytes community to Kali and Chris and a warm welcome to Griffin! You will see some new authors on the Kibbles & Bytes team as Kali gets to know her son while on maternity leave.
Ed Shepard is also leaving the Small Dog team to pursue other interests, so it will be Ben and I with help from the newbie, Jan and some of the other Small Dog team handling the Kibbles & Bytes duties.