Dear Friends,
They say that winter is not really over until the April snowstorm has hit Vermont, and we had that this week with a reported five inches up at my house on Prickly Mountain. Hopefully, the roads will now dry out and the rivers get back in their banks!
Hapy, who has been waiting very patiently for his new Mac Pro, is now sporting the diminutive powerhouse on his desk. I really do not know what he will do with all that freed up desk space, but I am sure it will be covered soon. I hope I can twist his arm to write a review next week for Kibbles!
Normally, this time of the year Jason and/or I are in China for the trade shows, but we decided to skip the spring shows this year as there were no compelling new products for us to source. I have heard, however, that some of the manufacturers over there are already showing cases for future, unannounced products. That is always risky as specifications (and more importantly, dimensions) frequently change at the last minute.
We have three job requirements of all Small Dog employees that help us to manage the business. Each employee writes a weekly report to their manager and copies Hapy and myself. In these reports we are looking for a report of work accomplished, work planned for the next week, obstacles encountered, resources needed and any general commentary. With sixty employees, sometimes it takes me awhile to read them all but I find them incredibly valuable.
The second job requirement is that each employee, whether they are sales people, shippers or accountants, takes the series of Apple online training modules and achieve the designation of Apple Product Professional. We may be the only company that has 100% of our staff with this designation. I really want whomever answers your call or email to be very well-versed on the products we sell.
The third job requirement is that employees take a paid day off each year to perform community service. The only requirement here is that they send me an email describing their work. Community service has run the gamete from helping with the clean-up from hurricane Irene to working the Special Olympics or helping a neighbor stack wood.
My Kibbles & Bytes special for this week is the MacBook Air 11-inch model featuring a 1.3GHz Intel i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 256GB of solid state storage. This is the ultimate in portable Macs! Weighing in at only 2.38 pounds, it is the lightest Mac you can buy. I am bundling this MacBook Air with AppleCare, of course, so that you have the protection for three years instead of just one, and three years of technical support from Apple instead of just 90 days. Two more items in this bundle provide more protection for you. The Hammerhead 11-inch Leather Envelope is a great case for this Mac and you need backups (yes, you NEED backups!) so I am including a Seagate 500GB Backup Plus Slim drive that will make it easy with Time Machine to have all of your data backed up! This lightweight portable bundle is available exclusively to Kibbles & Bytes readers for only $1,449 for this week (while supplies last).