Create an AirPlay Speaker

Siri is great for resolving trivia disputes, setting reminders and even texting or sending email but Siri is also a talented assistant. Here’s a few of the more non-intuitive tasks Siri can accomplish:

1) Split up that restaurant bill and add a tip

Ask Siri “What’s a 20% tip on a $105 bill split among 3 people and Siri will not only tell you what the total tip would be but also how much each of the 3 owes.

2) Flip a coin

Siri will bail you out if you do not have a coin to flip if you ask her to flip a coin. Or if you are killing time and want to play dice, ask Siri to “throw the dice”.

3) Counting Calories

Siri can help! Ask Siri how many calories are in that Big Mac and Siri will tell you that you are consuming 520 calories.

4) Take a Selfie

Ready to take that selfie and find yourself looking for the camera app? Just tell Siri to take a selfie and boom!, the camera app will open. Siri isn’t smart enough, yet, to ensure you have the front facing camera active so you might have to click that first.

5) Name that Tune

Siri integrates with Shazam to listen to the music. Ask Siri “What is this song?” and with some help from Shazam, Siri will let you know and if you click on the result it will play that song if you are a subscriber to Apple Music.

6) Find your Friends

If you use the Find My Friends app you can ask Siri to find them by asking “Where’s my wife?” and assuming that your wife has agreed to share her location in the Find My Friends app, Siri will let you know where she is.

7) Convert Currency

If you are traveling out of the country you can use Siri to make those currency conversions. Asking Siri “What is 100 euros worth?” today reveals it is worth $112.49.

If the sadness and shock of the terrorist attacks in Paris were not enough, I was in shock this week as Islamaphobia and fear overwhelmed politicians and citizens. Some politicians were tripping over themselves to stoke the flames of fear by turning on the Syrian refugees. I don’t know about you but if I lived in Syria and there was a war in my neighborhood with madmen from both sides going berserk, I’d be a refugee, too. Oh, by the way, did you know that Steve Jobs father was a Syrian refugee?

This was seemingly fueled by what turns out to be a very sketchy report that one of the terrorists posed as a refugee. That has since been discredited but the conclusion jumping was already in full swing. Some politicians tried even to separate their distain for refugees by religion but there is no religion that makes terrorism its creed and there have been terrorist from many religions. It is when hypocritical fanatics of any religion feel that they can impose their will upon others that conflicts arise.

Way back when the USA was young, our friends in France sent us a gift. The Statue of Liberty proudly stands by our shores with the inscription that defines who we are as a nation:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to be free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

When we succumb to the fear the terrorists win. When we change who we are, the terrorists have won. When we let prejudice trump common sense, the terrorists have won. We must lead by example and the example of shunning refugees is the wrong one. In the height of the worst terror since WWII, President Hollande of France recommitted to taking Syrian refugees saying “We have to reinforce our borders while remaining true to our values.”

We cannot change who we are – unless you are a native American, you are a descendant of refugees and immigrants. This anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-refugee wave of fear is unAmerican and is born of ignorance and hate.

How do you feel about this trend towards exclusion of refugees and immigrants? Share your opinion at our blog – blog.smalldog.com

End Soapbox

Downloading the latest Mac OS this next week is the easy part. Unless you start the download when another 2 million people are doing the same thing, Apple makes the upgrade process very painless. And of course, it is free, too! There are some steps you should consider as you prepare for El Capitan to make it a smooth process.

BACK UP!
Yes, I am shouting! Back up your data all the time but especially whenever you are updating your operating system. We have talked endlessly about how fabulous Time Machine is as a tool to back up your data. DO IT NOW. Upgrading to El Capitan is a great excuse to make a fresh back up of your priceless data.

Do you know who you are?

Do you know your Apple ID and the password? You are going to need that to upgrade. It will be asked for when you start the download and you will also be asked for it during the El Capitan and iCould setup. If you wrote it down on that little scrap of paper that is somewhere in your wallet, now would be a good time to find it.

How Old is Your Mac?

Sorry, that old SE 30 will not support El Capitan so you should make sure that you know if your Mac will support the new operating system. Here’s a list of the supported machines:

iMac (mid-2007 or newer)
MacBook (late 2008 Aluminum, or early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Air (late 2008 or newer)
MacBook Pro (mid- to late 2007 or newer)
Mac Mini (early 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (early 2008 or newer)

If you do not know your model you can go under the Apple menu and select About This Mac and if you are running Yosemite you will see something like this screen shot that will show you the vintage of your Mac.

RAM and Storage

The two mostly commonly confused terms in technology. Well, you need enough of both memory and storage. In the case of memory, Apple recommends a minimum of 2GB, however; Small Dog Electronics would set that minimum at 4GB. I think you will find your experience with El Capitan to suffer with only 2GB. If your Mac’s memory can be upgraded, now might be a good time!

Storage is also important. We always recommend that you have at least 10-15% of your hard drive or SSD drive free just for cases like this. The installation of a new operating system creates a lot of temporary files that need space to live before they are ultimately deleted by the installation. Apple says that El Capitan takes about 6GB and that you should have 8GB free. That is cutting it pretty close. I would recommend that you have a minimum of 10GB free and pay close attention to the 10-15% free space. Now would be an excellent time to purge some files and old stuff that you really don’t need – like that downloaded copy of the Sopranos last season.

Are you up-to-date?

Is there a number in the icon of the App store? Have you done all your updates for the operating system and apps? Developers have been optimizing their Apps for El Capitan for several months so doing all those updates before you upgrade to El Capitan may make things go easier for you, too!

We have a guest post from the “*developers at Green Mountain Software!*”:mailto:john@greenmountainsoftware.com

*****

Certainly you’ve heard the expression: “There’s an app for that!” but if there __isn’t__ currently an app for that, Green Mountain Software can write one for you.

Now located in the Innovation Center in Burlington, Vermont, Green Mountain Software (GMSW) was founded in 1993 by Lou Krieg and his wife, Ann Pettyjohn after attending the ’93 MacWorld trade show where the Apple “Newton” was first introduced. Lou and Ann realized that mobile technology was going to be a huge part of the future, so Green Mountain Software was formed to fill that need. They were right. Mobile technology is changing the world and how business is done. The number of mobile users is predicted to surpass the number of desktop users by 2014.^1^

It is apparent that simple email access is no longer enough. Mobile technology allows companies to have an unprecedented level of connectivity between employees, vendors, and customers.^2^ In 2012, Gartner Research predicted that sales of mobile tablet devices would top $120 million – double that of 2011. In addition, the number of active smartphones is currently over 1 billion worldwide.^3^

During the past eighteen years, companies such as EcoLab, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Coffee Lab International, Pro-Cut International, United Technologies, Bio Tek Instruments, Leica, the Indy Racing League, and many others have trusted GMSW with their app development. In fact, even other software development companies such as Palm have relied on the expertise of Green Mountain Software to develop their mobile device apps.

Today’s technology includes iPhones, iPads, Androids, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and others. These devices have thousands of times more advanced computing power that the computers NASA used to get to the moon! In the hands of good software engineers, there isn’t much these devices can’t do, and combining these capabilities to achieve the results you need is what GMSW does best.

Do you have an idea for an app for your company? Are you wondering how can mobile technology can increase your productivity and profitability? Mobile technology can measure, compute, exchange data with machines, utilize GPS location services, interact with servers, be Web-based or native within the device, communicate through the Internet or cell systems, take photos, be used for medical diagnoses, and so much more.

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If you’re interested in more information, or just want to discuss your idea, Green Mountain software is on the Web at “www.GreenMountainSoftware.com”:www.GreenMountainSoftware.com. We can be reached at 802-865-2728, or email “john@greenmountainsoftware.com”:mailto:john@greenmountainsoftware.com.

^1^ Morgan Stanley Research
^2^ “http://www.strategicgrowthconcepts.com/growth/increase-productivity–profitability.html”:http://www.strategicgrowthconcepts.com/growth/increase-productivity–profitability.html
^3^ “http://mashable.com/2013/01/04/mobile-2013/”:http://mashable.com/2013/01/04/mobile-2013/

There has been a lot of talk about the Apple TV recently thanks to the addition of AirPlay Mirroring functionality to Mountain Lion….

Small Dog Electronics is thrilled to announce that we’re going to be hosting a free iPad in Business Briefing on Tuesday, September 17…