MARCH MAYHEM

Hey, back when I was 20 and Neil Armstrong was landing on the moon, I could not even imagine being in the same job for 20 years. But as we launch Small Dog Electronics’ 20th Anniversary I could not be prouder of all the Small Dog team for making it happen over the years and to our awesome loyal customers, some of whom bought their first Mac up on Prickly Mountain in my living room, our friends at Apple for their support, and all of our vendors over the years. It has been an awesome ride!

Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

_Don, Rachel, Dean & Mike_

If you are like me you are using your “*Apple TV*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/80135/apple-tv-3rd-gen to access more and more content. You might also be a little annoyed at the not-particularly-intuititive interface. Well, there are a number of ways to enhance your experience and make your Apple TV a bit easier. As Apple adds more and more content, you might find some of these helpful.

*Remote*

You can control your Apple TV with your iPhone using “*Apple’s Remote App.*”:https://www.apple.com/apps/remote/ I find navigation a bit easier using this app but let’s go over some interesting things you can do with your remote.

*Subtitles*

Watching a video and want to access subtitles, closed captioning, or speaker settings? Hold down the *select* button (the round one in the middle) for about *3 seconds* and you will have that menu. This also works when listening to audio if you want to access stuff like Genius, Up Next, browse artist, etc.

*Organize*

With more and more content, your Apple TV home page is getting a bit crowded. Just like on your iPhone you can get the icons to jiggle and then you can move them around. Just hold the select button until the icon wiggles and then use the remote to move it up/down or side to side. Press select again and it stops wiggling. But there are some of those icons that you are probably never going to use and it would be nice to just get them out of the way. Easy to do! Select the icon you want to hide and *hold the select button* down for a couple of seconds, then press *Play/Pause* to hide. If you are going to hide a bunch of them it might be easier to go to *Settings* > *Main Menu* > *Toggle Show to Hide*.

*Getting Home Faster*

How many times have you had to hit the Menu button multiple times to get back to the Home screen Particularly annoying if you are waiting for stuff to load as you back up through the menus. Well there is an easier way. If you hold down the *Menu* button for a few seconds it will take you Home.

*Use a Keyboard*

Using the remote to enter letters can get tiring. If you have a Bluetooth keyboard you can pair it with your Apple TV. Make sure your keyboard is discoverable and then using your remote navigate to *Settings* > *General* > *Bluetooth*. You should see your keyboard listed then and you can select it. The Apple TV will give you a 4-digit pairing code which you can then enter on the keyboard.

Got any tricks or tips you use with your Apple TV? Drop me an email and I’ll include them in a future issue of Kibbles & Bytes.

I have always been somewhat of an audiophile and have been a Spotify user for several years now. For those who are unfamiliar with Spotify, it is a commercial music streaming service allowing the user to browse or search music by artist, album, genre, mood, playlist, or record label. Besides the extensive library of music Spotify offers (over 15 million songs) and its clean interface, the thing that I love about Spotify is all of the great features it has. I am able to build playlists, read artist bio’s, browse tons of pre-made playlists, and see what other members are listening to. I have also been able to discover more music than ever through Spotify’s integration of Facebook, Twitter, and third-party apps.

Spotify offers three tiers of membership: Free, Unlimited ($4.99 per month), and Premium ($9.99 per month), however Unlimited is no longer offered to new members. I have recently upgraded to Premium which understandably offers more capabilities than the free version. With Premium, I am able to do all of the aforementioned but without the annoying advertisements that the free version is riddled with. Premium also offers a higher sound quality and the ability to download music to listen to offline which was truly the selling point for me. With the ability to download and store music via the cloud, I am able to take my music with me wherever I go. As an avid snowboarder, I love the ability to take the playlists that I have created with me to the mountain and listen without worrying about using up my data.

Another benefit of Spotify Premium is its relatively new Connect feature. This enables you to play music from Spotify’s catalog but through Wi-Fi-connected speakers, TVs, laptops and other devices as long as they are on the same wireless network. Additionally, you can use the Spotify app on your mobile device as a remote, allowing you to adjust volume and switch tracks from afar. Once again, Spotify Connect is only available with a Premium membership.

To use Spotify, you will need to install a local client. PC (Windows 7, Vista, XP) and Mac versions are available. You can install Spotify by visiting “*www.spotify.com.*”:https://www.spotify.com/us/

Happy listening!

_Dear Friends,_

March is winding down but there still is a bunch of snow up at my home on Prickly Mountain where Small Dog Electronics got its start 20 years ago. Next week, we kick off the celebration of our 20th year. I started the company literally in my garage on Prickly. I would go to public auctions around the country, max out my credit cards and have Macs delivered up there. I have to give a big shout-out to the intrepid UPS drivers who came up my steep road in ice, snow, and mud lugging boxes in and out. We could not have done this without them. I clearly recall them putting on chains to get up my road, sliding off and having to get Hap’s garage to tow them out, and walking up my treacherous driveway carrying boxes. There have been a lot of people that went out of their way to help Small Dog Electronics along the way but the guys and girls in brown were a huge part of our success.

In addition to kicking off our 20th anniversary celebration, April brings us Apple’s 41st Anniversary, the launch of the Apple Watch, and the release of the new MacBook. It is going to be a busy month for sure! We do not have a Twentieth Anniversary Mac to release on our 20th but all month long we will have some special values as we celebrate the end of our 2nd decade.

As many of you know, we got our start with Apple Refurbished Macs and we are pleased to once again have some limited availability of Apple Certified Refurbished Macs. You can buy a lot of refurbished or used Macs out there but only the Apple Certified Refurbished Macintosh has the Apple 1-year warranty, has undergone Apple’s stringent refurbishment process, and qualifies for AppleCare, too. It is a great way to save some money, have a Mac that is fully tested (including full burn-in testing), and still have the protection of Apple’s warranty and AppleCare.

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes special features one of these Apple Refurbished Macs: the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. This unit has a 2.4GHz i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB Solid State drive. We are bundling it this week with AppleCare to extend your 1-year Apple warranty to 3 years and perhaps more importantly, extend the 90 days of free Apple technical support to 3 years as well. This bundle is normally $1179 (which is hundreds less than a comparable new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro) but for Kibbles & Bytes readers this week you can get this bundle of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display and AppleCare for only $1129.

“*Check it out here!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001811

A most sensible and useful gift idea for any occasion is the LaCie 1TB Rugged v2 Thunderbolt & USB 3.0 Hard Drive.

With its robust and proven rubberized case design, this LaCie storage device has the larger capacity you need for backups, along with the excellent support of a trusted name brand in the computer industry. The Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces on this hard drive mean the access to your data is quick and uploads complete faster than you can say, “Bob’s your uncle!”. This hard drive is bus powered, so there is no external power supply required; one less cable cluttering your desk area, and one less AC outlet you will have to free up. With up to 385MB/s, this model is one of the fastest bus powered storage products on the market right now.

Small Dog Electronics’ price is just $189.99. “*Shop here!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/85863/lacie-rugged-hard-disk-thunderbolt-usb-3-0-drive-1tb