ByDon

Dear Friends,

Definitely some weird weather in Vermont. One day it is below 0 F and the next day it is in the 40’s and raining. It makes for some tricky driving as wet pavement can hide some black ice. Hopefully as we enter March there will be some snow because the ski areas and local merchants are suffering from the weird weather. We can take a lot of snow and freezing temperatures but this freeze/thaw cycle is just annoying.

Apple has very strong hardware sales but their hidden gem may be the recurring revenue streams that they develop. Of course, we know about the 11 million+ subscribers to Apple Music that pay a monthly fee and the iCloud storage fees but there are other much larger streams that provide Apple with consistent revenue. The iPhone is a big one that has two parts to it – on the one hand, people want to upgrade to the latest iPhone and that upgrade business is huge. There is also Apple’s new financing of iPhones that spreads the cost of the iPhone over several months and allows much easier iPhone upgrades. The carriers are also offering these easy upgrade programs which enhances the recurring revenue stream. It is sort of like printing money.

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Factory Reconditioned 21.5-inch iMac with 2.7GHz i5 processor, 8GB of ram and a big 1TB drive. We are bundling this with the AppleCare Protection Plan which extends Apple’s 1-year warranty to 3-years and extends your 90-days of free technical support from Apple from 90-days to 3-years. To complete this bundle because we always want you to have a backup of your personal data, we are including the Apple Factory Reconditioned 2TB Time Capsule. The Time Capsule is the combination of an Airport Extreme base station and 2TB hard drive. Because you are buying it at the same time as the iMac it is also covered for 3-years by AppleCare! Normally, if you bought this bundle new it would cost $1769, bought normally as Apple Refurbished it would be $1399 but this week for Kibbles & Bytes readers you can get this great deal on an iMac with Time Capsule and AppleCare for only $1299.99!

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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.

  • Keyboard Shortcuts

    I got my start in using computers with CPM operating system and keyboard shortcuts were present there. I used them all the time so they come as second nature to me. But as I go out and talk with customers and help them with their Macs, I am surprised by the number of people that do not know that most of the things you can do with your mouse by clicking on a menu item can be done faster with keyboard shortcuts.

    The first thing to learn about shortcuts are the symbols that are used to show these keys.

    Command ⌘
    Shift ⇧
    Option ⌥
    Control ⌃
    Caps Lock ⇪
    Fn

    These work for your Mac Keyboard but if you are using a keyboard made for a Windows machine you need to substitute the Windows logo for the Command key and the Alt key for the option key. When you look at a menu in almost any application you will find the common commands for all these symbols next to them to indicate the keyboard shortcut. Here are some common ones:

    Command-X **Cut** Remove the selected item
    Command-C **Copy** the selected item
    Command-V **Paste** the contents
    Command-Z **Undo** the previous command
    Command-A **Select all** items
    Command-F **Find** open a Find window
    Command-G **Find Again** Find the next occurrence of the item previously found
    Command-H **Hide** the windows of the front app.
    Command-M **Minimize** the front window to the dock
    Command-M **New** Open a new document or window
    Command-P **Print** the current document

    Command-Space bar **Spotlight** show or hide the spotlight search field
    Command-Tab **Switch apps** switch to the next most recently used app
    Command-shift-3 **Screenshot** take a screenshot of the entire screen

    As you can see, there are endless keyboard shortcuts to use, and these are only a small fraction of what you can do with “**keyboard shortcuts.**”:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 So the next time you find yourself wondering what you can do if your mouse suddenly stops working or if your just looking for a more efficient way to do something, keyboard shortcuts might just be what your looking for!

  • My visiting family went out dolphin watching today taking advantage of the sunny day. The dogs and I are hanging out at my home office and I am listening to some Eagles music as I work.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    _Don, Dean, Emily & Scott_

  • Motorcycling down here is sort of boring. I have my bike all tuned up but there is literally only one road and the fastest speed limit in Key West is 30mph. I think we may have to trade in Grace’s Vespa to get a real motorcycle for her so we can take some longer trips down here.

    Pitchers and catchers reported for spring training and the Cubs Kyle Schwarber is already breaking windshields in Arizona at the Cubs park. Maybe this year?

    Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily, & Hadley_