ByDon

Dear Friends,

Vermont is back in the freezer as April becomes the most frustrating month for the Green Mountains. The days are longer, there is sun but it is too early to work in the garden. The roads are muddy and while the black flies haven’t awoken yet, it is hard to stay in the house but challenging to go outside.

The iPad Pro 9.7-inch model has arrived at our stores and the initial sales have been strong. While this new iPad, at first glance, looks like the old iPad, once people start using it, playing with the Apple Pencil and realizing the advancements of this latest iPad they are hooked. Size-wise, I think that it might be ideal. The iPad Pro 12-inch model is, well it is big. The iPad mini is good for reading or checking your email abut the 9.7-inch iPad Pro is just right.

I am very pleased to introduce the latest member of the Small Dog Team, Amy Farnsworth, who joins us as our Marketing and Design manager. Amy has strong marketing and graphic design background from her work in Utah and has recently relocated to Vermont with her husband. She says “I am a graphic designer, daydreamer, dog lover, wife, sister, best friend, Netflix junky & secret dad joke lover.” I think she will fit in fine! Please join me in welcoming Amy!

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the Apple Certified Refurbished MacBook Pro. This is not a stripped down MacBook Pro but a fully-configured unit ready for your toughest challenges. It features the 2.8 GHz i7 intel processor, 16GB of ram, a 1TB hard drive and the NVIDIA 750M graphics chip driving the awesome 15-inch Retina display. This Macbook Pro comes with the same 1-year warranty as new Macbook Pros but we are bundling it this week with Applecare that not only extends that 1-year warranty to 3-years but also extends your 90-days of free tech support from Apple to 3-years as well. Kibbles & Bytes readers save $100 on this bundle at only $2925.98!

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  • A Swinging Hot Spot in Paradise

    You are visiting Key West, accompanied by your trusty iPhone and MacBook Air. Suddenly there’s an emergency at work, and you need to get online with your Mac. You can pick up a cell signal with the iPhone, but there’s no Wi-Fi that isn’t locked up. Well, my first thought might be “oh well, I’m on vacation!” but you are dedicated and need to be online.

    Don’t worry! You can use your iPhone’s cellular data plan to create a personal Wi-Fi hotspot that lets your Mac access the Internet through your iPhone. Also called “tethering,” it’s fast, easy, and can be a life-saver when you just have to get online with a Mac or your Wi-Fi-only iPad. It supports up to 5 users, too, which means you can get your team online, too!

    Before we explain how to do set up a personal hotspot, note that most but not all cellular carriers allow tethering on existing plans. For some, you might have to pay more for tethering. Keep in mind that any data consumed by your Mac while tethered will count against your data allowance and may generate overage fees. Carriers with “unlimited” data, like T-Mobile and Sprint, generally throttle your bandwidth to slower speeds if you use too much data.

    Along those lines, if you use a file sharing service like Dropbox or Google Drive, or an Internet backup service like CrashPlan or Backblaze, turn them off before connecting. Particularly if they haven’t connected in a while, those services can transfer a lot of data quickly, which could result in a hefty overage charge or awkward data throttling for the rest of the month.

    With those warnings out of the way, follow these steps in iOS 9 to turn on Personal Hotspot:

    1. On your iPhone, if you’ve never enabled the feature before, go to Settings > Cellular > Personal Hotspot. Once you’ve turned Personal Hotspot on once, it moves up a level, so you can access it from Settings > Personal Hotspot.
    1. Tap on Wi-Fi Password and enter a password that’s at least 8 characters long and easy to type. It doesn’t need to be super secure because you can keep Personal Hotspot turned off unless you’re using it. But you do want a password so random people nearby can’t connect and use your data.
    1. Once you’ve entered a password, slide the Personal Hotspot switch.

    That’s it! The Personal Hotspot screen provides basic instructions for connecting to the iPhone via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB. Stick with Wi-Fi, since it’s the easiest and most reliable in most cases.

    • To connect to your new Personal Hot Spot on your Mac, click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar and choose your iPhone’s name.
    • On your iPad, go to Settings > Wi-Fi and choose your iPhone.
    • Enter your password when prompted, making sure to select Remember This Network. That way, you won’t even have to enter your password the next time.
    • The Mac or iPad then connects to your iPhone, showing a hotspot icon instead of the usual wave icon for the Wi-Fi menu.

    Could it get any simpler? When you’re done, the safest thing to do, to ensure you don’t accidentally end up using too much of your data allowance, is to turn off the Personal Hotspot switch in Settings > Personal Hotspot. Your Mac or iPad will automatically disconnect.

    Actually, it CAN be simpler! Your Mac can automatically use the personal hotspot on your iPhone to connect to the Internet when they’re within range of each other.

    Use Instant Hotspot on your iPhone (with iOS 8 or later) to provide internet access to your Mac computers and other iOS devices (with OS X Yosemite or iOS 8) that are in range and signed into iCloud using the same Apple ID. Instant Hotspot uses your iPhone — you don’t have to enter a password or even turn on Personal Hotspot.

    Make sure your iOS device and your Mac are signed into iCloud with the same Apple ID.

    On your Mac, click the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar, then choose your iPhone or iPad.

    After you connect to the iPhone or iPad Personal Hotspot, you can check the cellular signal strength and the battery status of the iPhone or iPad in the Wi-Fi status menu.

    When you’re not using using the hotspot, your devices automatically disconnect to save battery life.

    One more big advantage of Personal Hot Spots. When you are shopping for that new iPad, perhaps you don’t need the cellular model if you nearly always have your iPhone handy. That’s what I do. If I need internet access on my Wi-Fi iPad, I simply connect to my Hot Spot! Saves me the added cost of a cellular-enabled iPad and the monthly fees from the cell carrier!

  • Watch Out for PayPal Invoice Phishing Scams

    We’ve seen an uptick in fake invoices from scammers using PayPal. Because they’re being sent through PayPal itself, spam filters won’t catch them,…

  • _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**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002159 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!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002159

  • Spring Fever

    We’re all starting to chat the itch to spend some more time outside around the office. Most of us enjoy winter activities throughout the winter months, but we are coming out of one of the worst winters in a long time. There was little snow and many winter activities were cancelled over the past several months. To help get us out of the winter funk, we thought it was appropriate to celebrate “**Spring Fever**”:http://www.smalldog.com/springfever/spring-fever in our stores by putting together some great deals for accessories that you can use to enjoy the warmer weather that is upon us.

    Recently we have brought in products from several new manufacturers of speakers, headphones and iPhone accessories. One of my favorite new items that we have brought in are new “**Bluetooth speakers from Cambridge Audio**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/87874/. These portable speakers come in a variety of colors, they easily sync to both your computer and iPhone (though not at the same time) and they have an auxiliary connection if you wish to plug the speaker directly into your device. We’ve all been impressed by the ease of pairing the speakers as well as the sound quality. These speakers normally sell for $99.99 but we have the titanium colored ones on sale for **79.99**. They are an excellent quality at this price point. Last week I introduced new Bluetooth headphones from “**BlueAnt**”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/?mmfg%5B0%5D=BlueAnt and we’ve decided to bundle these headphones with a **FREE** Belkin armband for iPhone 6/6s. We are really liking these new headphones! Check out these great “**Spring Fever deals**”:http://www.smalldog.com/springfever/spring-fever and more.