ByDon

Dear Friends,

Artie brought in a whole basket of pears from the tree at his house. They were pretty darn tasty, too. September is harvest time and while there still is some great sweet corn out there, apples, squash, potatoes and other root crops are ready. We have eggplant and some nice jalapeño peppers in the garden, too.

“Hey Siri, give me a hint!” That is the invite sent out by Apple for the big event on September 9. Excitement and anticipation of new toys from Apple is always fun. We will have full coverage for you in next week’s Kibbles & Bytes but we will be playing the guessing game until then. If you say “hey Siri, give me a hint” to your iPhone or iPad or Apple Watch, she will give you some clever responses that hold no clues like “What, you can’t tell from my colorful wavey words?” Interesting that she misspells wavy – that might be a hint.

Have I ever told you how valuable Time Machine back-ups are? Of course, I have. I had another experience that just proves how important backing up your data can be. Grace left Key West to come home this week and called me in a panic at the airport, waking me up at 6AM to say she forgot her Mac at the house. After I cleared my head a bit and after the “and why are you calling me?” I realized that I could solve her dilemma. When she got home, I had a demo Mac ready and got it on my network and restored from her backup on our Time Capsule and after a few hours of data transfer, she was ready to go with all her data, music and pictures. Joe, our Key West manager extraordinaire, was kind enough to retrieve her MacBook Air so we will reverse that process once that gets up to Vermont. Backing up your data can be a life saver and Time Machine is the tool to use!

One of the easiest ways to backup your data is to have an external hard drive that is dedicated to that task. For this week’s Kibbles & Bytes special we are offering the 1TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim drive for only $59.99!

Similar Posts

  • Time Machine Backs Up Your Mac!

    Time Machine has been a feature of Mac OS X for so long that I do not know how we ever did backups without it. It keeps a copy of all your files and updates it automatically. It remembers how your system looked on any given day so you can “go back in time” to see your Mac as it appeared in the past.

    h3. Setting up Time Machine

    You need to select a backup destination before you can use Time Machine. You can choose one of these:

    * an “*external drive*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/Storage_and_Backup/External_Hard_Drives connected to a USB, FireWire or ThunderBolt port on your Mac
    * an “*AirPort Time Capsule*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/Apple/Time_Capsule or OS X Server on your network
    * an external drive connected to the USB port of an AirPort Extreme

    Time Machine will keep hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month and weekly backups. The oldest backups are deleted as your drive gets full.

    h3. Using Time Machine with an External Drive

    This is the simplest way to use Time Machine. Plug that 1TB drive that is on sale this week into the USB port on your Mac. If you haven’t already specified a backup device, Time Machine will ask you if you want to use that drive when you connect a blank drive to your Mac.

    * Click “Use as Backup Disk” to select that drive
    * You can choose to encrypt you backups if you want to prevent other users from accessing your data without a password. But a word of caution, if you do encrypt your data and forget your password you will not like it.

    h3. Using Time Machine with an AirPort Time Capsule or AirPort Extreme with attached Drive

    Once you have your Time Capsule configured on your network you can set it up to select as the backup device for Time Machine. Here’s the steps to get started:

    * Open Time Machine preferences an click Select Backup Disk
    * Select the AirPort Time Capsule (or the drive attached to your AirPort Extreme) from the page that comes up
    * You again have the option of encryption

    h3. Backing Up (beep, beep ,beep)

    Backing up begins automatically when your Time Machine drive is available. Your first backup will take a while, especially if you are doing it wirelessly with a Time Capsule. It does not interfere with your use of your Mac but you’ll want to give it a few hours for the first backup. If you are using the AirPort Time Capsule you will find that it goes a lot faster if your connect an Ethernet cable between your Mac and one of the Ethernet ports on the Time Capsule.

    Once the first backup is complete, Time Machine automatically backs up files that have changed on your Mac since the last backup was performed. You can check the status of your backup by clicking on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar.

    You can also manually start a backup by selecting “Back up Now” from the Time Machine menu bar item. If you hold down the Option key when selecting this menu you will also see additional items such as verifying the backup disk or switching to a different disk.

    h3. Restoring

    With Time Machine, you can go “back in time” to restore files, versions of files or the entire system. If you accidentally deleted a photo you can enter Time Machine, imagine you are H.G. Wells, and grab it from the past and restore it to the present.

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    Using the timeline on the right side of the window will allow you to reach back to a certain point in time. The timeline shows all the times of your backups on the drive. If you don’t know exactly when you deleted that photo you can use the back arrow to tell Time Machine to travel through time to show you when that folder last changed.

    You can also search for a file using a Finder window. From the Finder, enter Time Machine and then enter a search term in the search field. Use the back arrow to have Time Machine search through your backups.

    To restore a file, select the file or folder and click the “Restore” button. If you are not sure if you are restoring the right file, you can use Quick Look to preview the contents. Highlight the file and press the Space Bar to take a closer look.

    You can also revert to earlier versions of a document from within apps. In those apps that support this feature, open a file that you want to revert and you can either

    * Choose Enter Time Machine for the Time Machine Menu
    * Choose File>Revert to>Browse all Versions
    * Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock

    h3. Restoring your Whole Mac

    If you lost your Mac or like Grace left it someplace and you want to restore your whole life to another Mac you can do that by using Migration Assistant. A new Mac will ask you how you want to transfer data or you can launch Migration Assistant. Then you will be prompted to select a Time Machine Backup and whether you want everything or just apps, etc.

    As long as you keep storage attached wirelessly or by direct USB connection to your Mac, Time Machine can be a real lifesaver without any attention from you unless you need something from the past.

  • iPhone Photography with Olloclip

    Take your iPhone Photography to the next level with Olloclip!

    When I bought my first iPhone the biggest draw for me was the camera. I’m not a professional photographer, but like many I wanted snapshots to remember my travels, fun with friends, or a picture of the beautiful world in which we live. Either way I found I never carried the nice cameras I bought. When the sun set I would reach for my SLR or point and shoot and realize that nope, I didn’t bring it with me. “Real” cameras for me were just inconvenient to carry while trying to enjoy the activity. Not with an iPhone. We always have our phones on us, especially a nerd like myself. Whether I’m skiing, biking, hiking, driving in the car, etc… it’s in my pocket and ready to take beautiful photos.

    So when I heard about the “*Olloclip*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/?mmfg%5B0%5D=Olloclip and its line of lens adapters for the iPhone I was very excited. These aren’t massive lenses that attach to an SLR, but rather a small package that includes a 4-in-1 Fisheye, Wide Angle, and Macro at 10x or 15x. They most recently introduced their active lens which has a Super Wide Angle and 2x Telephoto. Being a gear-head I of course bought both.

    !{display: block;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;}http://blog.smalldog.com/images/4505.jpg!

    The 4-in-1 is my go to. The wide angle makes for great landscape shots and expands my panoramic photos even further. The Macro lenses make the littlest things look amazing, like insects along a hike, flowers or even just a dollar bill. Then there’s everyone’s favorite, the Fisheye. Whether it’s taking a shot of the crowd at this summer’s concerts, a picture of the mountain as you ride up the lift, or for many social media gurus, improving your selfie game ten fold, the Fisheye has you covered. Grab yourself a selfie stick and throw the fisheye lens on, it’s selfie time.

    The newest “*active lens kit*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001941/ is my personal favorite. While not quite as versatile as the 4-in-1 the 2x Telephoto is exactly what I was looking for. The digital zoom has never been great. Shots come out blurry and if taking action shots you miss your subject completely. With the 2x Telephoto you can easily get up close and take the perfect shot. Bring the landscape closer and capture more detail of your friend’s line down the hill. The Super Wide-angle lens captures beautiful landscapes and also enhances your panoramic photos.

    We know you want one, so during this long weekend we’re going to launch an Instagram giveaway contest so you can get your hands on the “*Olloclip 4-in-1 Lens Kit and Ollocase for iPhone 6*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900001940/. Simply follow “*@hellosmalldog*”:https://instagram.com/hellosmalldog, hashtag your photo #sdelaborday and tag us in the photos you want entered from your weekend fun, and Tuesday morning we’ll select a winner.

  • I think there will be some motorcycle riding, corn eating and general relaxation this Labor Day weekend. All of our stores and offices will be closed on Labor Day but will reopen on Tuesday the 8th. Of course, our web site store never closes.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes team,

    _Don, Dean, Scott_