Dear Friends,

My snow plow woman texted me to tell me my front door up on Prickly Mountain was wide open. Of course, she closed the door for me and I was able to lock the door remotely with my Kevo lock app. I am really having fun playing with home automation stuff and that is the next big initiative from Small Dog. We are building home automation centers in two of our stores and bringing in a bunch of new products that are HomeKit compatible. I am going to have to make the break from Alexa at some point but right now she is controlling my lights and thermostat and the ceiling fan. Oh yeah, and she also controls my outdoor irrigation system with the Rachio.

I was working in the store down here in Key West the other day and the primary objection to the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros is “port-fear”. Many customers have legacy USB equipment and are uncertain about how the move to USB-C will impact them. Personal experience sells and I tell customers how USB-C actually simplified my setup and in most cases that “port-fear” gets turned around. With my MacBook Air, I would have to plug in three cables each morning – display, power and USB for my keyboard. Now, I plug in one USB-C cable which goes to a small hub that has display, power and USB.

We planted a papaya and a mango tree down here after becoming jealous of the trees covered in fruit at our neighbor’s house. We are hoping our green thumbs work on those!

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes exclusive features the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. This unit features the 2.7 GHz i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD drive. Available in either Space Gray or Silver we are bundling it with AppleCare. In fact, if you buy this MacBook Pro this week we will give you AppleCare for only $100 which is a $150 savings! Get the MacBook Pro Touch Bar with AppleCare for only $2899.98!