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Check out our networks in the newly updated footer below, including links to our Flickr photos and our videos on YouTube.

This week we posted a few new videos on our “YouTube Channel”:http://www.youtube.com/user/smalldogelectronics, including an “overview/review of the new 4GB iPod shuffle”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Hr3X7pwj8. One of Small Dog’s certified Apple technicians purchased the shuffle as soon as it was released. He shares his hands-on experience with the new form factor, including the controversial in-line headphone controls and tiny form factor.

We’re making these videos based on customer feedback. We have five more reviews taped (including of the new 17-inch MacBook Pro). These will be up early next week. We’re still figuring out how much time to allocate to this new project, and how much of our own personality to inject into the videos. No matter what, the videos are fun to make. We also like that we can share behind the scenes footage of Small Dog behind the scenes.

You can see our YouTube channel by “clicking here.”:http://www.youtube.com/user/smalldogelectronics

Jump right to the new iPod shuffle overview “by clicking here.”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Hr3X7pwj8

We also have the iPod shuffle review posted on “Vimeo.”:http://vimeo.com/smalldog

If you have suggestions for videos, please send an email to “Ed@smalldog.com.”:mailto:ed@smalldog.com

_Dear Friends,_

I was able to get out and ride this past weekend as the temps got into the 40s and 50s. The melting snow has revealed a bunch of work to do, but Hammerhead has found a few of his toys that were buried all winter–including his favorite soccer ball. He may be the only soccer-playing Bulldog. He loves the ball and I found a new way to distract him from his itching. I simply say “where’s your ball?” and he’ll look frantically for the ball until he finds it and dribbles it around the room, finally grabbing it in his huge mouth and jumping onto the couch.

I am asked frequently about the basis for Small Dog Electronics’ commitment to socially responsible business practices. We measure our success on the basis of our triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. When a company “incorporates” it “creates a body” (etymology courtesy of my 4 years of Latin in high school). That body has a greater footprint than any individual and with that goes a greater responsibility. We take each of these bottom lines very seriously with equal weight in judging how successful we are at doing our job as a business.

This is the new (old) way of doing business where businesses are contributing members of their communities rather than being a burden upon those communities. When profit becomes the only measure of success, when customers are just ways to generate more profit, and when greed replaces customer service and community, you end up with the mess that we have in our banking system and an out-of-control Wall Street that is costing us and our children so much money.

I have been active in the socially responsible business movement for some time and the question is frequently asked, “how will you know if you have succeeded?” The answer from a group of the original founders of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility is “when we are irrelevant and all businesses are socially responsible.”

Back to the “profit” bottom line for a minute… 😉 there has never been a better time to buy an iMac than right now. We have a great supply of the recently discontinued iMacs at prices as low as $999.99 and they’re in stock. With our bundles of AppleCare and free shipping for as low as $1149.99, the iMac is the most versatile and powerful desktop personal computer available!

iCal is the built-in calendering application included with every version of the Mac operating system since OS 10.2. I admit that until the release of the newest version of iCal (included with Mac OS 10.5 Leopard), I wasn’t a big fan of the application. However, the newest version of iCal has a much cleaner look, and iCal is easier and more efficient and use. I now depend on iCal daily–especially since it syncs beautifully with the iPhone.

One feature I’ve always enjoyed is the availability of free, easy-to-download iCal-compatible calenders. These calenders cover a wide range of topics, including astronomical events, sporting schedules, national and international holidays, school schedules, music tour dates, and many more.

You can find public, shared calendars at Apple’s website “by clicking here.”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/calendars/ You can also find over 2400 downloadable iCal ready calenders on iCalshare by “clicking here.”:http://icalshare.com However, many of the calenders on “iCalshare.com”:http://icalshare.com are out of date.

I usually just use Google to find iCal calenders. For example, I was looking for the Red Sox schedule and simply Googled “Red Sox iCal.” That brought me directly to a Red Sox page that lists three different iCal compatible calenders: the complete 2009 schedule, the home schedule, and the away schedule. “Click here to download the 2009 Red Sox schedule in iCal format.”:http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/schedule/downloadable.jsp?c_id=bos

Once I subscribe to these calenders, I can then sync and share them on all my Macs and my iPhone with MobileMe.

Apple has a comprehensive iCal page, “which you can see by clicking here.”:http://www.apple.com/support/ical/

Enjoy!

View specials while on-hand supplies last. Please note that some specials may not be available in our retail stores; check for availability.

See all specials on our “Specials Page.”:http://www.smalldog.com/specials

I was starting to rethink the keyboard character sequence for ° (Degree symbol) from last week’s Mac Treat, and a bunch of you were on top of it! Here are some of your responses clarifying the situation, and as such, an amendment to the original keyboard command for the Degree symbol:

As Michael L. notes:
__”PopChar indicates that the degree is Shift-Option-8. Option-0 is described as a ‘masculine ordinal indicator’ and Option-K as a ‘ring above.'”__

Hugh H. writes:
__”I don’t know whether or not this is ‘officially’ correct but I have always used ° (option-shift 8) for the Degree symbol. That was from Robin Williams book ‘The Mac is not a Typewriter.’__ Upon further checking, he wrote, __”I find that Option-K (˚) indicates a circle above and Option-0 (º) indicates a Masculine Ordinal Indicator, while Option-Shift-8 (°) is the degree sign. I hope this is of some help. I enjoy trying to track these obscure things down.”__

Of course! Leave it to Robin Williams… I should have recalled that, since she’s a legendary Macintosh writer and one of my favorite go-to gurus for Mac tips!

Thanks to those who wrote in!

P.S. “If you read the Mac Treat above, download this iCal instead…”:http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/schedule/downloadable.jsp?c_id=bal