KB SPECIAL | Accessorize Your New iPad

I’ll be heading out to CES next week and will try to send a report back for Kibbles, but hey, it’s Las Vegas. It will be good to see the latest copies of Apple’s technology and try to hunt around for some new innovations.

Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,
_Don, Kali, Steph & Mike_

Lately, I have been dealing a great bit with color (not too surprising for someone working in the marketing department!). I’ve found that Apple has a great base to build upon with their Colors Utility.

If you’re wondering what the Colors Utility is, it’s a good bet you’ve used it without realizing. In apps like Text Edit, Mail and “*Pages*”:http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=19XpSnZWhPI&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fpages%2Fid409201541%3Fmt%3D12%26uo%3D4%2526uo%253D6%2526partnerId%253D30 to name a few, there is a utility that lets you choose the colors you want for text, backgrounds and other stuff. You may find it in the Inspector in the native Apple apps, or in various menus, but it usually can be found with the same keyboard shortcut (Command + Shift + C). Once opened, you are able to select the color you want by choosing it via the virtual box of crayons or from the full color spectrum.

If you’d like to select a specific color from a source on your screen, you can use the magnifying glass, found in the upper part of the Colors window. If you click the magnifying glass, you can then hover over any part of your screen and then click to pick the color your cursor is over. Once the color is picked, it is now your active color and you can drag it to some highlighted text or shape to change the color of that element. My primary use is to figure out the RGB and CMYK values for certain colors I find.

Unfortunately, not every app has a need for the Colors Utility even if ??you?? might (like I do). I stumbled upon a “*website*”:http://www.robinwood.com that has a script to launch the Colors Utility as a standalone app. There’s an article that the developer wrote about the Colors Utility “*here;*”:http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/OtherTuts/MacColorPicker/MacColorPicker.html just scroll to the very bottom to find the link for her ColorPicker app.

Once you have downloaded it, just drag the script anywhere you’d like (I put it in the Applications folder). Click on it like you would any other app and it will launch the script. Then you are all set to start picking colors, regardless of the app you are currently using. Good examples: Now you can save that color you came across on a random website, or Facebook blue just because.

Note: ColorPicker is not an “Apple Approved” app since it is not found in the App store, so you must use this *at your own risk.* I have been using it for the past two months with absolutely zero issues and I love it. I recommend checking out the article at the very least to learn more about the Colors Utility.

Finger prints got you down? This cute little Bunny screen wipe can help! For those spots that need a bit more elbow grease use the Apple Juice screen cleaner. All this just for $7. Keeping your screen clean has never been so easy – or cheap!

It is true there are a finite number of USB ports on every Mac. Lucky for you the Hub Man will give you an extra 4 ports. Even luckier for you every order of this neat little guy ships for FREE!

My crystal ball is in the shop, so this year, I will polish up my glass hippo on the windowsill and find a polished surface to activate “*Cycloramic*”:http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=19XpSnZWhPI&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cycloramic/id587578368?mt=8%26uo%3D6%26partnerId%3D30 (clearly the iPhone 5 App of the year) for a 360° view of 2013.

Ahh, here we go…

* Apple stock will hit a low of $425 but will reach a high of over $750
* Apple will not release an actual TV set (and no rabbit ears, either!)
* Small Dog Electronics will have at least 5 retail locations
* Another mild winter and early spring for Vermont — I will have my motorcycle out in March
* The Cubs will not be in last place this year and the LA Angels will take the World Series
* The Celtics will not make the playoffs; the Thunder will win the NBA Championship
* There will not be an NHL season
* There will be confirmed evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life
* Apple will introduce a product we never thought we needed but will find essential by the end of the year
* Small Dog Speaks (our radio show on WDEV) will be carried live by at least one more radio station
* The Patriots will not win the Super Bowl
* Hapy will not lift more than 1055 pounds at one time
* There will be more snow in 2013 than in any of the previous three years

_Dear Friends,_

Happy New Year! We slipped over the fiscal cliff and hit -20° F this morning on the way into work. It’s a good old-Vermont winter temperature, but it is supposed to moderate later this weekend.

I was looking at the “*Internet Archive Wayback Machine*”:http://archive.org/web/web.php and found our original website from 1996, back when the URL was still “Smalldoggy.com,” which will slowly but surely still redirect you to “*Smalldog.com.*”:http://www.smalldog.com Back then, we had the “Haploid Clone Page” with two pictures of Hapy and specials on all of the Mac Clones. The URL Smalldog.com was owned by a small record company at the time, but we made friends with them and ended up trading a PowerBook Duo for the domain name.

This newsletter was first published in October of 1996. In it, we published our entire price list which included such gems as a Power Mac 9500/180MP for $5,599 and a 64MB DIMM for $499! You’re reading issue number 809, a good 16 years later! It wasn’t until 2000 that I started making my annual predictions. To commemorate, here are what my Y2K predictions were:

* Apple stock will hit $175/share
* Internet access will be free for nearly everyone
* Apple will release an innovative Palm device w/color LCD
* Several non-profitable internet companies will fold their tents
* Sammy Sosa will hit over 70 home runs
* Apple will make a surprising acquisition
* LCD Monitors will decline 50% in price
* Small Dog Electronics will be authorized to sell new Macs on the net
* I will put more miles on my motorcycle than last year
* Adrian Griffin will be the NBA Rookie of the Year
* NASDAQ will hit 8000
* Steve Jobs will remain interim CEO of Apple for another year
* The fastest Macintosh will continue to kick butt over any Intel/Microsoft
* Small Dog’s website will reach 5 million hits

I am going back to that simple format for my predictions this year — just a random prognostication for what’s to come in 2013.