Weekly Apple News Recap | 03.21.14

With the reintroduction of the iPad w/Retina display, we’re putting the Hammerhead Folio for iPad 4 on special!

When you purchase the Folio, we’ll throw in a *free Cleaning Cloth and Pen Stylus.* *Save $20!* for the next week!

With over $800 in prizes on the table (court?!) you’ll want to make sure you get your bracket set — our “*March Mayhem*”:http://www.smalldog.com/marchmayhem/ contest is in full effect and you have *two chances to win.*

# Enter in-store on any of our demo machines (in any store) and you’ll have a chance to win a *$400 Small Dog Gift Card!*
# Enter online at “*Smalldog.com/marchmayhem*”:http://www.smalldog.com/marchmayhem and you’ll have a chance to win a pair of Beats Studio Wireless headphones in Red — a $379 value.

Need more info? Even if you’re not a basketball fanatic or don’t care about NCAA or March Madness, entering is a piece of cake. Just go to “*Smalldog.com/marchmayhem*”:http://www.smalldog.com/marchmayhem/ at home or in-store, enter your final four selections for the NCAA final brackets, and then pick the winners of those last three games.

Increase your chances and sign up both ways — we will be giving away one grand prize winner in our retail stores and one via our website. See page for more information!

The iPad with Retina display is now going to replace the iPad 2! This provides a great upgrade in power, performance, and value.

It’s the most affordable 9.7-inch iPad and features a stunning Retina display, fast A6X chip, 5MP iSight camera, FaceTime HD camera, ultrafast wireless, and up to 10 hours of battery life. Dropping $100 in price from $499 to *$399,* and we’ll ship it for *free!*

I was at the saloon across the street from Small Dog here in Key West, coincidentally called Don’s Place, and it was funny to see a lot of dogs in the place. That included Roxie, a Whippet, who liked to get up on the bar and walk from customer to customer.

These guys keep an eye on our store when we are closed and send customers over all the time. (So much so that we are considering adding an entry for “Don’s Place” to our “Where did you hear about us” tool in our retail store!)

Get your brackets ready for March Madness and be sure to check out our March Mayhem specials, too!

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
_Don, Kali & Stephanie_

Recently, after more than a year of research and tiny prototypes, I put together a “mini” 50-watt photovoltaic power system. My intent is to run my computer system off of it. At the heart of the system is a 34 amp-hour AGM lead acid battery. That’s a bit small to power a computer system, but with a slight reduction in use time, and some efficiency modifications, I think it can be done.

I’ve only just put the system together and have been running it for almost 2 full weeks. I haven’t powered my computer using it yet, but I have been running floor lamps and charging my cell phone using it (total overkill).

In researching how to build something like this, I found lots of people online who had built things in a similar size range, but none of their designs could answer one question I had: How do you monitor the battery accurately? Watching the voltage is ok, but it’s not very accurate if the battery is loaded or charging. Deep cycle batteries are tough, but you still need to treat them right. They aren’t cheap either, so protecting the investment is a good idea.

Originally I was going to use something like this “*Turnigy inline watt meter*”:http://www.powerwerx.com/digital-meters/dc-inline-watt-meter-power-analyzer-powerpoles.html, but I hesitated at the thought of running so many amps through a little plastic device. In the end, I took inspiration from how our server battery backup here at Small Dog is monitored.

*The best way to monitor a battery is by counting the amp hours in and out in addition to watching the voltage.* This is like the odometer on your car (if you could somehow put miles back into the engine). To do this without using an inline meter, you use a device called a “*shunt*”:http://ow.ly/uMTqb. A shunt is basically a very low-value resistor which causes a tiny voltage drop. This drop can be measured, and using “*Ohm’s Law*”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm%27s_law current can be calculated. With some digital logic, you can count how long the current has been flowing, and there you have your amp hours.

In my system I’m using the “*TriMetric 2025*”:http://bogartengineering.com/products/TriMetric. Yes this is a bit overboard for such a small system, but so far I’ve found it to be invaluable, especially since I’m doing a lot of testing. Installation is a bit complicated, but the instructions are very helpful in figuring out what goes where. You also need to program the device for your specific setup. I really found this handy, since I could set the battery charge voltages, charge efficiency, days to recharge reminders, and much more. The TriMetrics also have a J2 serial data out port, so I’m working on a way to pull data from there and upload it to the web in real time. Once online, I could check on the status of the charging from anywhere.

Interested in simpler, shorter term battery backups? Check out “*uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/Power_Supply/UPS_Backups. These are like surge protector strips except they have batteries in them that will continue to run your equipment if the power at the wall outlet fails. Most are only designed to run a short time (like an hour or less), but that should give you enough time to save and shut down your equipment properly without any data loss or damage.

Customers ask us regularly to recommend anti-virus software for their Mac. Many of these are converts from the PC world and are accustomed to needing it. There are several reasons why it’s largely unnecessary.

Since OS X 10.6.8 Apple has included anti-malware that is built into the OS. There was a lighter version in 10.4 and 10.5 called File Quarantine that confirmed with the user that files and applications downloaded from the Internet were intentional and approved. In 10.6.8 File Quarantine was enhanced to include actually checking downloaded files against a list of known malware and malware types/signatures. Again, this is built in.

Apple has also established that many anti-virus programs interfere with Apple updates which is part of their argument for advising against them.

The last two large reasons are the main difference between PCs and Macs and are probably the most important. The Mac OS uses compartmentalization, or ‘sand-boxing.’ This means that applications are limited and isolated to the resources they need to access. This is very different from Windows operating systems where this isolation doesn’t exist and malware can attack system and other resources, although as of Windows 7 this is improving.

Lastly, the argument most commonly given is that Macs have a smaller footprint in the market and are less appealing to hackers who must invest great resources in the development robust malware and viruses. This is diminishing somewhat as Macs become more popular, but it’s still true.

Apple still tows the line that anti-virus software for modern Macs is unnecessary. I was a PC tech for fifteen years and dealt with at least one virus for a customer a week. In the year I’ve been working on Macs, I haven’t seen a single one.

So, rest assured that your Mac is safe and installing anti-virus software has the risk of doing more harm than good.