APP REVIEW: Gilt Taste

If you are like me, the internet has become your go-to source for new recipes. While I have an entire shelf full of cookbooks (ok, they are all my wife’s) more often than not my MacBook Pro is sitting on the counter while I am chopping and mixing up a storm. This means that I need to keep at least one finger clean to scroll down the page, which is not always possible, so my down arrow button gets a little food on it now and again. I haven’t dared take the iPad into the kitchen as the touchscreen interface means even more touching of my device. If only there were a way to turn the pages without having to touch the screen….

Wait, there is!

Gilt Taste is a free app from the Gilt Groupe which gives you access to their store, articles, and recipes. The editorial advisor is Ruth Reichl, former New York Times restaurant critic and editor-in-chief of Gourmet, and current judge on Top Chef: Masters, which means that there is a great selection of recipes to choose from. The best feature, though, is that in the recipes section you can turn the page by merely swiping your hand in the air in front of the iPad. This is facilitated by the camera sensing your hand movement, so it will only work on the iPad 2 or 3.

This feature is a real game changer in the kitchen, so I hope that it gets integrated into more apps or even becomes a native feature.

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  • MAC TREAT #183: Swiped

    There are a lot of things I love about the Magic Mouse and Multi-Touch gestures in general, such as their ability to make a seemingly simple item–a mouse or a trackpad–much more sophisticated. As we know from many years of Apple history, simple doesn’t have to mean lacking, and often conceals some very complex thought and engineering in order to create ease for the user.

    All of that said, there are sometimes features that Apple devices are capable of that I wish they just…weren’t. (“*Remember ‘natural’ scrolling?*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/kibbles/kb734/ I still can’t get on board with that one on my desktop.)

    With every new OS release, there are hundreds of new things that it can do, and there’s one in particular that I find more annoying than not–swiping in Safari. I find that I inadvertently make the swiping gesture and end up on a different web page than I want. If this has happened to you, try this:

    * Go to *System Preferences > Mouse* and click on “More Gestures”
    * Uncheck “Swipe between pages” or select an option from the drop down that’s a better fit

    (For the record, I changed it to “Swipe left or right with two fingers” because that dramatically limits the chances that I’d do it accidentally.)

  • FREE eWaste Recycling Event!

    June is here, and your overstuffed garages and basements will thank you when you decide to recycle your old electronics at our free eWaste Recycling Event.

    If you’re in or around the Rutland, VT area (new location this year!), come out to Rutland High School *this Saturday (tomorrow!), June 30 from 9-3pm.* “*Check out our event page on Facebook here.*”:https://www.facebook.com/events/370407646353422/

    More details are available on our website as well:
    “*http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste2012*”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste2012

  • SPECIAL: Buy ANY computer, get Parallels for $9.99!

    For a limited time, we are offering Parallels for $9.99 with the purchase of any computer.

    Parallels Desktop for Mac is the most tested, trusted and talked-about solution for running Windows applications on your Mac. With Parallels Desktop for Mac, you can seamlessly run both Windows and Mac OS X applications side-by-side without rebooting.

    Drag and drop files between Windows and Mac applications, launch Windows applications from your Mac dock, and do much more with speed, control and confidence.

    *PLEASE NOTE:* This special does not include a copy of Windows. See Windows 7 “here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/search?x=0&y=0&search=windows+7

    To take advantage of this offer: Add any computer into your cart, add “Parallels OEM”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/78997/ into your cart, and enter coupon code “Parallels999”.

  • I am getting ready for Independence Day and this year it is a bit more than usual. Grace and I will have our annual 4th of July party after the big Warren, VT parade but this year Grace is out visiting her Mom until the 3rd so I will be getting all the party preparations going. Also, I set the parade as the goal for the debut of my electric motorcycle and I am happy to report that as of today, it is looking pretty good that the bike will be ready for the parade. I just got off the phone with my friend, Steve Miracle, who is an electric vehicle expert and I am heading over there this afternoon to fire it up for the first time. Powered by a 20kW hub motor and holding a lot of batteries, it is our goal to achieve at least a 75 mile range and top speed of 100MPH. I’ll post some pictures from the parade next week.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes. Have a wonderful and safe Independence Day. Perhaps some of the most powerful and meaningful words come from our Declaration of Independence:

    bq. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Dawn, Kali & Mike_

  • _Dear Friends,_

    We went from cool and rainy weather (which my garden loved) to sunny and hot weather (which I love) in the course of a couple days. I was able to get out of the office and participate in a golf tournament with our bank. I showed them that I am not totally left-leaning by slicing almost every shot to the right and playing a lot of “army” golf… you know, right, left, right, left.

    I got my new “MacBook Pro with Retina display”:http://www.smalldog.com/search?search=Retina&page=1&refinecat=Apple this week and I am very impressed. This is the most advanced and powerful laptop ever from Apple and I am enjoying the Retina display a lot. Aside from the brilliant resolution of HD movies, I am finding that when I am reading a lot, where I sometimes have to don my reading glasses, with the Retina display not only is that not necessary but it interferes. I enjoy having the larger SSD drive as my old 256GB was constantly on the verge of being too full. I had to replace all of my chargers because of the new MagSafe 2 adapter and the fact this MacBook Pro requires the 85 Watt charger. The little “MagSafe to MagSafe 2 converter”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/80943/ works great for my Apple display, though. I guess the only other negative I have is that this MacBook Pro is a bit heavier than the MacBook Air that I was used to but more power and a larger and higher resolution screen comes with some tradeoffs. If customer reaction is any indication, I would say that the MacBook Pro with Retina display is one of Apple’s most successful laptops ever and a transcendent product.

    Our “Vermont eWaste collection event”:http://www.smalldog.com/ewaste2012 is tomorrow (Saturday) down in Rutland, VT. It seems we will have great weather and hope to collect a lot of eWaste at Vermont’s second largest city. Come on down if you have some old electronics stashed away in your garage. It is all free and you can be assured that your eWaste will be recycled in an environmentally sound manner.