_Dear Friends,_

Still not much snow up in Vermont but I do see a little dusting on the lawn on Prickly when I look at the webcam. Artie took advantage of the artificial snow up on Sugarbush and his “ski” clause in his employment agreement to get a few runs in this week. It was a very mild November and December is also mild. I definitely would have extended my motorcycling season this year if I was in Vermont. Motorcycling down here is a 12-month affair but a lot more boring – there is really only one road for about 100 miles.

It is funny how my grandkid’s Christmas lists mature over the years. They have gone from asking for the latest game, toy or doll to much more practical stuff. My oldest teenage granddaughter, Khadija, had the following on her list: bed spread, house plants, tea, yarn and knitting needles, banana bread, stuff I need for college & anything from the heart.

We have good stock of all the Apple products and third-party accessories at each of our stores so if you are doing some holiday shopping, drop into any of our stores in Vermont or down here in Key West!

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is the Apple iPad Air 16GB with WiFi in Space Gray. This is a great iPad at a very affordable price. It features a 9.7 inch screen, the powerful Apple A4 processor and a 10-hour battery life. While supplies last, this “*16GB iPad Air is available to Kibbles & Bytes readers for $389 and you get a $25 Small Dog Gift card, too!*”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002102/ Only a limited quantity available at this price!

Back in college when I was working at the IT helpdesk, we’d sometimes have days that were just really slow. One of my favorite things to do back then was hop onto Yahoo Answers and find questions that I could help answer for people. They were mostly technical questions and I liked being able to help out people with the knowledge I had.

Although Yahoo Answers still exists today, it’s often not taken seriously because of the large number of people there posting fake questions and answers. So where should you go if you have questions you want answered by a volunteer community of experts? Enter “*StackExchange*”:http://stackexchange.com/

Launched in 2009, StackExchange has become host to dozens of excellent topic-specific sub-sites or exchanges where you can ask questions and get answers. The community is exceptionally helpful and friendly. The biggest exchange is “*Stack Overflow*”:http://stackoverflow.com/, where you can ask any and all questions related to computer programming. This is also the main exchange that spawned the rest of StackExchange. Other large popular exchanges include “*Server Fault*”:http://serverfault.com/ (for server admins), “*Super User*”:http://superuser.com/ (for computer power users), “*Ask Ubuntu*”:http://askubuntu.com/ (for Ubuntu users), “*Ask Different*”:http://apple.stackexchange.com/ (for Mac users) and many more.

The cool thing is that although it started off as a primarily technical Q&A site, various exchanges have popped up over the years for other things as well like, “*English Language and Usage*”:http://english.stackexchange.com/, “*Mathematics*”:http://math.stackexchange.com/, “*Travel*”:http://travel.stackexchange.com/, “*Parenting*”:http://parenting.stackexchange.com/, “*Chemistry*”:http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/, “*Pets*”:http://pets.stackexchange.com/ and more. I can’t tell you how often I google search some question I have and end up finding the answer on StackExchange.

New exchanges can be created as well. If you visit “*Area 51*”:http://area51.stackexchange.com/ their new site staging zone, you can see all the proposals for new exchanges. Some up and coming exchanges include Latin Language, 3D Printing, and Arts and Crafts.

So if you’re an expert on something and want to lend a hand to others, or if you are looking for expert answers to very specific questions, give StackExchange a try!