Beginning Tuesday, September 15, start looking for a special wooden apple at select Vermont pick-your-own orchards. In partnership with the VT Departments of…

We’re still prepping for our Famous Semi-Annual Garage Sale, set to happen two weeks from now, on September 18! “Click here to read more about the Garage Sale.”:http://www.smalldog.com/garagesale

*WHEN:* Tuesday, 9/18, beginning at 8AM ET.

*WHERE:* “http://www.smalldog.com/garagesale”:http://www.smalldog.com/garagesale

Next week, we’ll be posting the entire sale list, as always.

__In the meantime,__ if you’re in the market for a 17″ (or larger, if you have a PC) notebook sleeve, *we’re offering our neoprene Hammerhead sleeves for FREE* (you only pay shipping). The fit is a tad large for the 17″ MacBook Pro, so they’re ideal if you also want to protect it with a fitted case (“such as a Speck case”:http://www.smalldog.com/search/?find=17in+speck), or if you have a bulkier laptop.

Stay tuned!

After Snow Leopard was released last week, several people have written in to learn how to figure out if their Mac was ready for the upgrade. That’s because Snow Leopard will only run on Intel Macs with at least 1GB of RAM (though 2GB or higher is recommended) and a DVD drive.

It’s very easy to determine your Mac’s specs. Once you determine these specs, I recommend writing them down for future reference. First, click on the Apple in the upper left corner of your Mac’s screen. Then click “About This Mac.” You will now have a screen that shows your Mac’s software version, processor speed, and (at least in Leopard), your Mac’s memory. If you click the text that shows your software Version (for example, version 10.4.5 or version 10.5.6), the text will transform to reveal your Mac’s serial number.

If you click “more info,” you will get a more comprehensive overview of system specs. The important information here includes your Mac’s serial number, processor type and speed, amount of installed memory, hard drive size and type (ATA or Serial-ATA), optical drive type (which is under ATA), and type of graphics card. Write these down and save for future reference. It can make upgrading to new software or hardware a little easier, and you’ll thank yourself in the morning.

If you’ve upgraded to Snow Leopard, please note this important message from Adobe:

bq. The initial release of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) includes an earlier version of Adobe Flash Player than what is available from Adobe.com. We recommend all users update to the latest, most secure version of Flash Player (10.0.32.18) — which supports Snow Leopard and is available for download from “http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer”:http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer.

The earlier version of Flash Player included with Snow Leopard contains several security vulnerabilities. These are patched in the more “recent version of Flash Player”:http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer, released by Adobe on July 30th.

Macworld Magazine notes that Flash Player is an attractive target for hackers, since millions upon millions of computers worldwide have it installed.

All Mac users should make sure their version of Flash is current. This is most important for Snow Leopard users, since their version is almost certainly out of date and thus vulnerable. “Click here to download the latest Flash player.”:http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

_Dear Friends,_

It is hard to believe that it is September already. There are already a few maple trees changing color as we head into the last couple official weeks of summer. This coming Labor Day weekend is truly a weekend of change. The students are all back at school, school buses are present in the morning as I make my way on the back roads to work.

I have one of the most pleasurable commutes; many times I do not see any cars until I get to Route 100. This time of year, I take the Waitsfield Common road through the covered bridge and past the neighboring Neil farm, which is now sporting a homemade sweet corn sign.

We will be closed on September 7th so our employees can enjoy Labor Day. The website will be up and operating and orders taken over the long weekend will ship out on Tuesday.

The first Labor Day in the US was born out of the violent Pullman strikes in 1882. President Grover Cleveland made reconciliation with labor his top legislative priority and rushed through the national holiday. Maybe we’ll have a Health Day soon if our current President is able to get true health care reform passed.

Many of the drive-ins close on Labor Day for the season including my favorite over in Bristol–Onion Flats. They have the best fried whole belly clams in the state and it is a perfect short motorcycle ride over the mountain. Labor Day does celebrate the productivity of our workers that have made our country strong.

Honest Abe said it best:
__”If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.”__
-Abraham Lincoln

Do you back up your work? There are so many times that customers come in for repairs where their hard drives have had a catastrophic failure and weeks and/or years of irreplaceable data has been lost. Sometimes our friends over at DriveSavers can retrieve the data, but it comes at a very high price.

You can avoid this easily if you have a Mac running Snow Leopard. Time Machine is one of the most innovative and important pieces of Apple’s operating system. With an external hard drive or a Time Capsule, you can rest assured that your data is safe and being constantly being updated. We have some great bargains right now on external LaCie hard drives and have Time Capsules from 500GB to the new 2TB units in stock for immediate delivery!

With the rapid conversion of photos and music and video to digital format, it is more important than ever to make sure you have a reliable and automatic backup system in place.