ByDon

Hello Friends,

It is hard to believe that it is February already. There is almost no snow up in Vermont and Artie is reporting that farmers are already gathering sap from the maple trees to make syrup. The Iowa caucuses have come and gone and on Tuesday the first in the nation primary is next door in New Hampshire. Being a leap year my granddaughter, Gracie, will have her 4th real birthday on the 29th. She was recently chosen as guest composer on Vermont Public Radio. You can hear her interview and one of her compositions online. 

February is also Black History month and each week in Kibbles and on our blog we will be honoring Black History. It is fun researching and writing these little bios of Black American heroes and heroines.  

Florida’s governor declared a state of emergency in four counties regarding the horrible tragedy unfolding in Brazil with the Zika virus. One thing that is not being widely reported is the apparent link to genetically modified mosquitos and the microcephaly disaster. Apparently, Brazil was the site of a massive experiment with genetically modified mosquitos that were released into the wild. They were proposing a similar release for here in the Florida Keys but it has not happened. The Zika virus has been around since 1947 and this is the first big outbreak of microcephaly. You can read more about it, regardless of whether that analysis is true, I think releasing genetic mosquitos is a bad idea.

I am happy to announce that Small Dog Electronics will be offering GoPro cameras and accessories in our stores this month. We have had lots of requests for these action cameras from our customers and we finally have secured the line for our stores. We will talk more about GoPro as we get them into stock.  

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes special is a Hammerhead charging bundle As you know we manufacture rugged braided lightning cables that are certified by Apple with their MFI “Made for iPhone” designation. This means that our manufacturer has passed all the tests with Apple and use genuine Apple lightning connectors. You do not have to worry about compatibility with MFI designation. This bundle includes two of these braided cables, our Hammerhead 2-port home charger and Hammerhead 2-port car charger. Each of these chargers have the capacity to charge an iPhone and an iPad simultaneously. Sold separately, this bundle would be $72.96 but exclusively for Kibbles & Bytes readers this week you can have this handy bundle for only $49.99! 

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  • _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.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002125/special-save-50-on-apple-refurbished-macbook-air-and-free-hammerhead-case 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.**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002125/special-save-50-on-apple-refurbished-macbook-air-and-free-hammerhead-case

  • Get Organized!

    I have tried a lot of apps over the years for keeping ideas organized, assigning tasks or just keeping track of my goals. The problem I’ve found with many of the organizational applications is that I don’t find them easy to access. If you’re not on your phone or at your computer, often these applications can’t be utilized easily or have widely varied interfaces depending on which device your using.

    “**Trello**”:https://trello.com/ has become my new favorite go-to app for keeping ideas and tasks organized. Trello is a free app with the ability to also pay for upgraded features for minimal fees. Why do I love Trello so much? It’s simple, I can easily use it on my computer, my iPhone or my iPad. There is an app for all three of my devices, and each version works seamlessly with the others. Working with several staff members in different departments here at Small Dog can make keeping track of tasks and to-do lists a bit of a challenge, but this simple application has really helped to streamline things.

    I easily and quickly create what they call “boards”, each board then allows you to create individual categories to which you can then add individual tasks. Within my lists I can upload photos, files, web links, assign due dates and add notes. Once I have created a board, I can also easily share that board with co-workers or whomever I choose to share them with. Anyone I have shared a board with can also be granted access to update and add to the boards, add notes or more files.

    A feature many of us have come to really rely on are the updates that you get from Trello notifying you that someone has made a change. I have found just one complaint thus far about the application. There appears to be no feature to mark a task as completed while still leaving it on your board. You can easily archive tasks and even entire boards, but I prefer to still be able to see those tasks while clearly seeming them marked as completed. However, all in all, I find this to be an invaluable app and one that I utilize all of the time. I have tried and do use google docs and google drive, and I’ve installed those on my devices as well, but for me nothing beats the ease and convenience of Trello.