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_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

The Holidays are here and I am sure many of your are busy making memories, thinking about others and capturing as many picture-perfect moments that you can. While you’re busy bustling around, are you taking the time to think about these memories? What would happen if you couldn’t go back and look up those moments? Perhaps now is the time to think about a gift for yourself and taking the time to ensure that all of the perfect moments you are capturing on video and in pictures are being safely stored on your computer.

I know we talk about this all the time, but it’s surprising how many of us out there keep putting this important step of backing up to the side! The Holidays are the time with some of the best memories, and so many of us are capturing once in a lifetime moments. The last thing anyone wants is to have something happen to those photos. There are so many options for backing up your computer and your important files it can be a little overwhelming. There is iCloud, cloud-based storage solutions from countless companies, traditional external hard drives for back up and more! My preferred backup solutions are a combination of cloud backup and physical hard drives. It might seem a little redundant, but better to be safe than sorry when it comes to important documents and memories.

For me, iCloud and an external hard drive are my preferred options for backing up. I use my iCloud account to keep my daily life in order, contacts and calendars most importantly. I also use iCloud for storing some of my most important memories and files, select baby photos of my kids and some important documents. The kind of things that should the worst case happen and I lost my computer or drives due to theft or fire I still have copies in the cloud. My preference for my backups is using Time Machine and my “**Seagate**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/85305/seagate-backup-plus-slim-portable-drive-usb-3-0-2tb-blue hard drives. I keep a different drive for each of my computers and perform fairly regular backups, I am not perfect, so sometimes they are not as regular as I would like. But utilizing these drives allows me to ensure that I have entire backups of my files and data readily available. Before I started to use iCloud I would also have back ups drives of my Time Machine back up, yes, I was and am that paranoid about loosing photos of my kids. I still have a small 20gb drive that contains my oldest daughter’s first year of photos, even though I know all the photos are on my computer and backed up I still won’t delete that drive.

In the last year we have seen a rise in alternative cloud storage and mobile storage solutions. Many companies like “*Seagate*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/?mmfg%5B0%5D=Seagate and “*LaCie*”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/?mmfg%5B0%5D=LaCie have portable drives that allow users to access information wirelessly while on the go. This is a great solution for families with large media libraries for movies. The “**Lacie Fuel**”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/85520/lacie-fuel-wireless-battery-powered-mobile-hd-wifi-usb-3-0-1tb is great for just this. Have a long road trip? Load up the drive and the family can access the files from their iPhones or iPads quickly and easily without taking up storage on their devices. Another and perhaps more practical solution is the “**Seagate Personal Cloud**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002041/mac-the-halls-save-20-on-seagate-personal-cloud-home-media-storage-3tb. This drive allows you to back up everything on your computer and access it from anywhere! No need to carry that back up drive along with you, and with tons of storage options little worry about not having enough space. So this holiday season remember, backing up is just as important as capturing those memories.

_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**”:http://digital.vpr.net/post/student-composer-showcase-gracie-bangoura#stream/0 online. 

February is also Black History month and each week in Kibbles and on our “**blog**”:http://blog.smalldog.com 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,**”:http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2987024/pandoras_box_how_gm_mosquitos_could_have_caused_brazils_microcephaly_diasaster.html 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**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002149/special-save-20-on-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!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002149/special-save-20-on-hammerhead-charging-bundle