Looking for Apple Manuals? Check the New Documentation Site

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 

By now you’ve probably seen one of those odd-looking white squares with a bunch of smaller square dots that make up a random pattern inside–that’s a QR code. QR stands for “Quick Response,” and a QR code is a form of barcode, just like on the packaging of nearly everything you buy.

Usually QR codes are used to store Web links–URLs–so an ad can display just the QR code instead an unwieldy and hard-to-type web address. But QR codes aren’t just for ads. They’ve appeared on business cards, in magazines and books, on coins and bills, and even on tombstones–any place it would be nice to help someone load a Web link into a smartphone but where there isn’t enough room for a URL or in situations where viewers won’t remember the URL later. And the links? They can display anything that can appear on the Web: text, photos, videos, games, and more.

Only one built-in iPhone app can scan QR codes–the Wallet app in iOS 9–but it can scan only QR codes that are associated with Wallet passes, things like airline boarding passes, concert tickets, and iTunes gift cards. For QR codes that encode any other sort of data, Wallet shows an error. It would be nice if Apple would add general QR scanning capabilities to Wallet or the Camera app, but until that happens, you’ll need another app.
There are numerous QR code scanning apps in the App Store, but if you need a recommendation, give TapMedia’s QR Reader for iPhone a try. It’s free with ads (remove them with a $1.99 in-app purchase), scans both QR codes and traditional barcodes on most commercial products, and displays the associated information within the app. It can even help you create your own QR codes.

To use a QR code scanner, launch the app, allow it to access the camera when it asks, and then point it at the QR code. Good apps will scan nearly instantly, but if not, move the camera so the QR code is centered between the guides. If even that doesn’t work, move forward or back so the camera can focus on the centered code.

Once the code has been scanned, the app will usually bring up an in-app Web browser to display whatever was encoded. For certain kinds of data, like books or grocery items, the app may go right to Amazon or a price comparison site. Good apps will also keep a record of sites you’ve scanned, so you can go back to them later, even if you can no longer scan the QR code.

So download a QR code scanning app and keep an eye out for QR codes. Once you start looking, you’ll find them everywhere–it’s a modern-day treasure hunt!