ByDon

Dear Friends,

Well I didn’t win the Powerball so I guess I have to stick with my day job a bit longer. Vermont finally got some winter weather and more snow is in the forecast. It has even gotten a bit cooler down here in the Keys where when it dips below 70° F the down coats and shoes come out.

I am still struggling a bit with tropical gardening. A large caterpillar ate the leaves off one of my tomato plants overnight and for some reason I cannot get my citrus trees to blossom. I keep feeding and watering them in the hopes that my Key Limes, Myers lemon and Naval oranges will blossom but they seem to just make greenery. We did discover that bananas love coffee grounds and since Grace and I produce a lot of coffee grounds those plants are doing well.

I upgraded myself from the original iPad mini to the iPad mini 4 before I went to Las Vegas and the differences are remarkable. Not only is it thinner and lighter but the screen is much better, the speed is a lot faster and I simply love the Touch ID. I had been trying to activate my old iPad mini with my finger after being used to that with my iPhone so it is a welcome addition for my primary reading device. I prefer the iPad mini to the full-size iPad or the iPad Pro because of the size. It feels like a paperback book in my hand and even on a crowded airplane it is comfortable to use.

Do you know about tethering? I don’t know how many people I have talked out of buying a cellular iPad by explaining tethering. I guess that is a bit against my interests as you pay an extra $130 for cellular versions of the iPad. If you buy that cellular version you also need a cell contract which might be another $30 a month. Tethering is a much better idea. Tethering is where you share the cellular connection from your iPhone with your iPad. You activate Personal Hot Spot and boom you have your own private wireless network over cellular. The other day Comcast had an outage here in the Keys and I used tethering with my Mac to work all day. Most carriers will charge you a little more for tethering but it is less than the $30. With my iPad, I simply choose “donphone” from the wireless setup and I am connected with the same speed as if I had the cellular version of the iPad.

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is a fully configured 13-inch MacBook Air. This Apple factory reconditioned MacBook Air carries the same 1-year Apple warranty as new Macs and we are bundling it with AppleCare so you actually get 3-years of warranty protection and 3-years of free Apple technical support instead of the normal 90-days. This MacBook Air is the same as the one I use and love. It features a 1.7GHz i7 processor, 8GB of ram and a big 512GB SSD drive. I am going to take $50 off and include a free Hammerhead neoprene case for this MacBook Air. Regular price is $1639.97 but for Kibbles & Bytes readers this week only (while supplies last) the price for this bundle is $1559.98.

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  • _Dear Friends,_

    Don’s making the voyage home this week from Key West back to the Green Mountains. He’s in for a bit of a shock when he gets back. Mother Nature seems to have gotten a bit confused this week. I mentioned in the fall that I was taking a new stance on winter and was going to embrace it this year and I truly did my best though we didn’t see much snow. But when we get a snow in late April, I choose to just ignore it. I didn’t bother to shovel off my deck and I left the hose to water my horses just thrown on the ground. In the end both these decisions only made my life harder. I had to lug water buckets for my horses as my hose was not only frozen to the ground, but frozen itself because I didn’t take the time to drain the water out of it. All the slush and snow I ignored on my deck was a sprained ankle waiting to happen and my screen door only opened halfway once everything froze back up. Well, let’s just hope this was finally the last of it and spring will finally show up for real. It always looks a little funny when the trees are starting to bud and there is still snow on the ground.

    The snow this week was a bit of a shock to many of us, and so was the latest financial report from Apple. For the first time in 13 years, Apple’s financial report showed lower than expected sales figures. iPhone sales showed their first decline since their release and iPad sales have been sluggish for several quarters now, but we’ll have more on this later in Kibbles.

    This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive is perfect for the on-the-run Mom on your list or anyone who is on the go and trying to fit time in for themselves between home and the office. This week only, save $40 on this perfect on-the-run bundle. Get the OutDoor Tech Kodiak mini, the BlueAnt Pump Mini headphones and the Belkin Slim-Fit Plus armband for “**$99.97**.”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002212 This bundle is perfect for ensuring the mom who does it all can keep can keep her phone going to capture those special moments or squeeze in an important call during her workout.

  • Droids, Drones, Scooters, Cars and USB C

    I remember only a couple years ago when drones were new and cutting edge technology. Now, there are huge sections of the show devoted to drones of all sorts: fighting drones, mini drones, paper airplane drones and dancing drones. I don’t know if it is the Star Wars influence but droids were everywhere, including “laundroids” for folding your laundry, grill cleaning droids, window washing droids and all kinds of robots.

    3D printers were new and unique and again whole sections of the show were devoted to “replicators” making everything from iPhone cases to clothing to spare body parts. Several companies were there just to show their filaments for these 3D printers.

    Scooters were everywhere. You know, the ones in the news that have the batteries that blow up. Well, literally dozens of companies were showing their versions and the original Segway had a booth, too. Some one-wheel scooters were there as well as shoes with wheels that zipped you around.

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    Self-driving cars and technology for self driving cars dominated the North Hall and some concept cars were shown, too. My favorite was the Faraday electric car that looked like a single seat batmobile.

    USB-C made its debut at the show with hubs, cables and some USB display port displays, too. I think we will see a lot of USB-C stuff coming up!

    Less prevalent this year was the huge variety of iPhone and iPad cases. There were huge sections last time but while there were several companies showing cases it was toned way down. In their place, power banks of all sorts were being shown in every imaginable shape and size. The Apple battery case, aka the hump, was universally panned but several companies had slim battery cases for the iPhone.

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    I did walk through the TV section but it was not as notable as in past years. The 3D fad has sort of expired and 4K displays are common. I still love the OLED displays, though.

    Other areas that were huge were health care and fitness with a lot of wearable fitness devices and health monitors or all sorts from implantable blood glucose devices to blood pressure cuffs, thermometers and scales. The home automation section was larger than previous years and there were some new HomeKit compatible devices. I liked the NoLok offering of bluetooth compatible padlocks and bike locks that work similar to the Kevo system.

    It was a quick trip out to Vegas but it was certainly worthwhile. I will follow up next week with a bit more.

  • 20 Years of Service.

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    Small Dog Electronics has been your local Apple Specialist for 20 years! Not only do we sell the latest Apple products and have some of the most knowledgeable staff around, we offer some of the best *one on one training* and *consulting* services around. Should Santa put something under the tree this year that your just not sure about how you can use it, do not worry, we have got your back and it doesn’t matter where the product came from. Stop into any of our retail stores or give us a call and we will get you getting the most out of your Apple products.

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    Not only do we have great services to help you get the most out of your Apple product, but we have some great deals going on in all of our retail stores *December 9th through the 15th*! Visit any of our retail stores in Rutland, Waitsfield or South Burlington or visit “www.smalldog.com/macthehalls”:http://www.smalldog.com/macthehalls for these deals or more information about what Small Dog services might benefit you.